In a moment of inspiration, I added a dedicated PhaseModulation osc to my synth this week. When testing it, I noticed it sounded very close to the (linear)FM osc and I was able to tweak the PM range such that the two oscs were basically identical.
After revisiting the math, I found that this is indeed no surprise. One derives the oscillators “argument” (meaning sin(f(x)) and the other one integrates it. Hence, the sound should be similar for sinewaves at least. My hope was, that in adding other waves I could get them to be more distict, yet when tested they still sounded more or less the same.
Is there any further magic setting thos two apart? Right now I have a carrier and modulator pair, you can change the ratio of freqs between those oscs as well as each waveform.
It shall be noted that I’m not the best at distinguishing subtle differences in timbre.