Phase Distortion and Wavefolding

Originally implemented in the Casio CZ series back in the ’80s, Phase Distortion was a competitor to the DX sound, favoured for its more ‘analogue’ texture. While it imparts a filter-like ‘wow’ on harmonically-complicated waveforms, you can recreate the behaviour of the original Casio CZ-101 by again starting with a sine wave, leaving the modulator amount at 0, then selecting from one of the six “Phase Disto” waveform targets from the PD menu. As with the original Casio, this smoothly morphs your timbre from the pure tone of a sine to the brighter texture of the target wave, which was how the CZ achieved its pseudoanalogue flavour. While the above technique may deliver ‘thin’ results used the traditional way, it sounds quite modern paired with Unison settings higher than four voices. Wavefolding, meanwhile, functions like a distortion or saturator that specifically folds the top of the waveform back down on itself using one of three shapes: Sine, triangle, and an undocumented ‘squiggle’, each brighter and grittier than the last.