 |
The PPG Wave synthesizer was the heart of the PPG system. It was probably the most popular and recognizable product in the PPG line. The Wave family tree began around 1981 with the Wave 2 and progressed with the Wave 2.2 in 1982 and 2.3 in 1984. Approximately three-hundred of the 2.2 and seven-hundred of the 2.3 keyboards were manufactured.
One of the Wave's most interesting features was it's ability to sweep through 64 waveforms in what PPG called a wavetable. Almost 2000 waveforms were available within the Wave's 32 internal wavetables. The result of this wavetable technology was that PPG instruments had a much broader pallete, and more animated sound than typical analog synths of the early 80's. The PPG sound was very unique and identifiable in constrast to a standard analog synth having only a few static waveforms such as sawtooth, pulse, or triangle. See our Wavetable Description page for a breakdown of each wavetable.
The complex digital oscillators of the Wave were processed through analog filtering. This hybrid combination was able to produce pure digital sounds as well as familier analog patches and everything in between. The Wave's front panel featured a standard complement of analog control knobs for tweakabilitiy. This section of the Wave was known as the "Analog Control Panel". If you would like to see all of the knobs in more detail have a look at the Editor page. Most of the deeper functions were controlled through the "Digital Control Panel" which was the right side of the machine with the keypads and LCD display.
The Wave also incorporated an onboard 8-track sequencer accessable through one of the LCD pages. This sequencer was fairly advanced for the period, and featured automation of several functions including pitch, loudness, filter cutoff, waveform, and filter envelope attenuation.
As part of the PPG system the Wave could be controlled by other components, or could in turn control components such as the EVU. Both the Waveterm and the PRK could download new wavetables into a Wave keyboard. In addition to sweepable synth waveforms sampled sounds could also be downloaded.
According to Mark Vail's Vintage Synth column in Keyboard Magazine,
January 1992 the Wave's original list prices were as follows:
Wave 2.2 - $8,800.00
Wave 2.3 - $9,000.00 - $10,000 (Later discounted to about $6,500.)
 HOME |
PRODUCTS |
EDITOR |
TECH |
MIDI |
CONTACTS |
SUBMIT |
©1996-2001 by Antarctica Media