Palm Products GmbH (PPG) Wave 2.0 User's Manual

RETRO FAMIL Y TREE

Retro Family Tree

CD TRACKS 6-11

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A selection of copyright­free samples from PPG
and Waldorf Wave synths
past and present.

> Wavetable synthesis is inextricably linked to PPG and Waldorf’s lengthy lineage of Wave
synths. Jonathan Miller says hello, waves goodbye and says hello again.…

FAMOUS USERS

Tangerine Dream founder
Edgar Froese put the PPG
Wave Computer 360
through its musical paces
on his 1979 solo album

Stuntman

while the PPG
Wave 340/380’s most
famous advocate was
Thomas Dolby.

Here’s a brief rundown
of those who rode the
Waves:Art Of Noise,
Depeche Mode, Trevor
Horn, Jean-Michel Jarre,
Gary Numan, Propaganda,
Rush, Stock Aitken &
Waterman,Tangerine
Dream and Ultravox.

Waldorf’s upmarket
Wave has found favour
with the likes of Tori
Amos, Eat Static, The Orb,
Underworld and Hans
Zimmer while Nine Inch
Nails’ Trent Reznor has
used all the Microwaves
at one time or another.
And Depeche Mode are
also using the PPG Wave

2.V soft synth.

>

Tangerine Dream

IS IT REALLY 19 years since Depeche

Mode stormed the charts with their lat­est slice of bubblegum synth pop

You

? This song’s catchy bell-like motif
and unusual middle-eight tones repre­sented my initiation into the world of
wavetable synthesis, courtesy of a PPG
Wave 2. But what’s the Wave’s history?

The PPG (Palm Productions GmbH)
name dates back to 1975 when German
electronics wizard Wolfgang Palm began
manufacturing little-known analogue
synths. For Palm, the future was digital
and it wasn’t long before legendary
German electronic trailblazers Tangerine
Dream came knocking on his door
looking for new sounds.With the Tangs
financial assistance, Palm began experi­menting with all-digital synthesizer
designs, culminating in late1978 with the
PPG Wave Computer 360.

See

Think different

The 360 certainly sounded different.
Instead of relying on VCOs (Voltage Con­trolled Oscillators) with a few static
waveforms, Palm created digital ‘oscilla­tors’ using 64 short, eight-bit sampled
waveforms, groups of which could be
swept from one to the next (a wavetable
in PPG-speak). And 32 such wavetables
on the 360 equalled 2,048 waveforms so
a filter was deemed unnecessary.

The 360 Wave Computer soon
mutated into the eight-voice 340/380
System, comprising three weighty 4U
rackmountable units (the 340 Wave
Computer’s processor and generator, and
380 Event Generator) plus a computer
terminal and five-octave keyboard for
sequencing. But something was amiss.

The technical limitations of the time
prohibited incorporating a digital filter
into the Wave Computers so they
sounded somewhat brittle and harsh, not
a popular trait in an age of analogue
warmth.What to do? Quite simply, Palm
backtracked a little, feeding his beloved
digital wavetables into a VCF (voltage­controlled filter) and VCA (voltage­controlled amplifier) and thus, in 1981,
the PPG Wave 2 was born.

Rhapsody in blue

This time the music industry sat up and
took note, for the eight-voice, single­oscillator PPG Wave 2 sounded and

Unable to compete against an influx
of cheaper, mass-produced Japanese
and American instruments, the com-

pany finally bit the dust in 1987, but

not before selling around 700 Wave

2.3s, 300 2.2s and 300 Waveterms and
coming up with some quite remarkable
innovations like 1986’s unreleased
Realizer (quite possibly the world’s first
virtual instrument). However, the Wave

>

The Wave 2.3 and Waveterm B, the heart

and brain of PPG’s Music Computer System

looked the business. The five-octave key­board is housed in a large black metal
case with a blue sloping control panel
split into self-explanatory halves: the
17-knob ‘multiple-function analogue
control panel’ and ‘multiple-function
digital control panel’ with its LCD screen.

With two oscillators per voice, the

Wave 2.2 could simultaneously play two

story doesn’t stop there.

Palm’s next development was a cus­tom wavetable chip, first utilised on the
Waldorf Microwave spectral wavetable
synthesizer in 1988, a cost-effective, 2U
rackmount with real-time parameter
access via MIDI. The Microwave was a
resounding success and its offspring still
forms the cornerstone of Waldorf’s prod­uct line today. 1997’s 10-voice (expand­able to 30) all-digital Microwave II has
only recently been discontinued.

< “The Microwave was a resounding success; its offspring

still forms the cornerstone of Waldorf’s product line today”>

different sounds.When combined with
the newly launched Waveterm A it
became the heart of PPG’s Music Com­puter System (with the 8U rackmount­able Waveterm offering eight-bit user
sampling, DIY wavetable creation and
more extensive sequencing capabilities).

MIDI’s arrival, later in 1982, revolu­tionised the electronic musical instru­ment world; gear from rival companies
could now be connected.Yet PPG’s
proprietary eight-bit parallel communica­tion buss connecting its Music Computer
System was already much faster than
MIDI! In 1983 PPG beefed up this system
to include the EVU (Expansion Voice
Unit), a new 12-bit, eight-part multitim­bral Wave squeezed into a 4U rack­mountable casing.

Turning tides

PPG finally joined the MIDI masses in
1984 with the Wave 2.3, effectively a
repackaged EVU in the now familiar key­board casing. 1985’s updated Waveterm
B boasted 16-bit sampling and 24-track,
multitimbral sequencing (by connecting
a 2.3 and a couple of EVUs). Yet the tech­nological tide was turning on PPG.

New waves

In 1998 Waldorf transplanted the
Microwave II’s guts into the Microwave

FM

77, 78%), a bright orange desk-

XT (
top/5U rackmountable unit sporting 44
knobs. And the Microwave XTk, released
last year, brought a four-octave, velocity­sensitive keyboard into the equation;
proof that longevity does indeed exist in
the cut-throat synth world.

And if proof were needed of the big­ger is better maxim then look no further
than Waldorf’s mighty Wave, the
‘advanced modular wavetable synth’. It
had more voices (16, expandable to 32 or

48), more patches (512) and a mon­strous front panel (and asking price).

If finances are tight, anyone craving a
taste of the infamous PPG sound at
roughly a 50th of the cost of the original
Wave 2.3 could always grab a copy of
Steinberg/Waldorf’s
ware. Unlike its hardware forefather, this
VST Instrument plug-in’s polyphony
depends solely on the host computer’s
CPU power (up to eight 64-voice instru­ments, each with eight-part multitim­brality, can be simultaneously opened).
And so, the Wave lives on… FM

PPG Wave 2.V

soft-

88

FutureMusic

No. 3: PPG and Waldorf Wave series

GEAR

PPGWAVECOMPUTER 360

A rare 1978-vintage all-digital synth, available as
either four-voice (360A) or eight-voice (360B),
with one oscillator per voice, 32 wavetables and
70 patch memories.

>

PPGWAVE 2

1981’s first incarnation
of the classic Wave, an
eight-voice, 32­wavetable hybrid synth
with 24dB/octave low-

pass filter and onboard real-time digital sequencer.

>> >> >>

PPGWAVE 2.2

An updated Wave 2 with two oscillators per voice. Its
original 1982 list price was $8,800.Today you could
be looking at between £200 and £1,000 second-hand.

PPGEVU

>>

1983’s 12-bit, eight­voice, eight-part multi­timbral ‘Wave-in-a-box’
(MIDI was added later).

>

PPG340/380 SYSTEM

Hot the heels of the Wave Computer 360 (and look­ing more like an industrial computer than a musical
instrument), this multi-component, eight-voice digital
wavetable synth featured a bewildering array of con­nections and didn’t sell well.

>>

PPGWAVETERMA

A dedicated (Motorola 6809
microprocessor-based) music
computer offering Wave 2.2
users eight-bit user sampling,
wavetable creation and fancy

(by 1982 standards) sequencing
options, all for $10,650 (approximately £7,500). Just look
at those eight-inch floppy disk drives!

PPGWAVETERM B

The last PPG product to be
commercially released (in

1985) at a cost of $11,995
(approximately £8,000).

5.25-inch disk drives, 16-

bit sampling courtesy of an
improved Motorola 68000 microprocessor (transfer­able to the Wave 2.3 in compressed 12-bit) and even
fancier 24-track sequencing was the order of the day.

>

PPG WAVE 2.3

While physically identical to the Wave 2.2, under the
bonnet is essentially a MIDI keyboard version of the
EVU.At $10,000 on its 1984 release, it was later dis­counted to around £4,500 as PPG struggled against
the mass-produced competition. Current second­hand asking prices could be anywhere up to £1,300.

STEINBERG PPG WAVE 2.V

This soft synth
is essentially a
PPG Wave 2.3
recreated in
software form

as a VST Instrument plug-in for a mere £149!

WALDORF MICROWAVE

The first Wave for the
masses, this neat 2U,
eight-voice, eight­part multitimbral, 32­wavetable rackmount

respectable retail price of £999.An £80-odd upgrade
in 1995 doubled that onboard wavetable count to 64.

arrived in 1988 at a

>

WALDORF MICROWAVEII

Wavetables and a

digital

In 1997 the long run­ning Microwave was
finally redesigned and
reborn with 10­voices, 64 ROM
Wavetables, 32 RAM

filter. Its price? Still £999.

>

>

WALDORFMICRO WAV EXT

The bright
orange
Microwave II
rack was
released in
1998 and
costs £1,099.

WALDORF WAVE

Launched for £4,995
back in 1992, the Wave
includes a 76-note key­board and ‘pick-your­own’ colour schemes.

plaything for the rich and famous, if you have to

wave

ask the price then you probably can’t afford one.

Quite literally an

>

WALDORFMICRO WAV EXTk

The keyboard
version of the
XT, came out
last year and
costs £1,449.

über-

With thanks to Paul Maddox (

wwwwww..wwaavveessyynntthh..ccoomm

), who helped us source the PPG Wave 2.2 samples on the cover CD (track 7)

FutureMusic

89