Best wavetable synth

[egbert101]

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[Ingonator]

In Spectral you could morph between two waeforms which is not really similar to wavetables with up to 256 waveforms like in e.g. Icarus or Serum.
A big advantage of Icarus compared to Serum is that it has an adjustable interplation amount in the 3 Oscs so even with just 2 or 3 waveforms in the wavetable you could get a smooth transition. Serum could only do this with adding additional interpolated waveforms to the wavetable.

Yeah but my point is, for subtle transitions, only a few waveforms are needed anyway. If you are looking for long evolving drones, then fair enough, but I think you could use other types of modulation to pull it off with minimal waveforms. Or if you want a load of waveforms, then simply use resynthesis like Harmor or Iris 2.

Take for example Zebra 2 that only has 16 waveforms, or Predator 2 that only has 8.

I don't see a few waveforms as a limitation, if you are using morphing or want to use sampling for more complex stuff.

The amount of necessary waveform in the wavetable does not only depend on how many different waveforms define the timbres in the table but also how good the innterpolation of the synth engine is.
As alraedy mentioned Icarus has a nice adjustable interpolation/crossfade parameter in the 3 Oscs called "Fade" which at minimum amount uses hard transitions while at maximum amount uses smooth interpolation even with a minimum amount of waveforms.
As already mentioned e.g. Serum does not offer this kind of interpolation but needs to use additional waveforms in the wavetable. For that it has an interpolation feature in the wavetable editor.


Anyway even with smooth interpolation like in Icarus sometimes you want a bigger amount of different timbes in a table or want to do resynthesis of a sample and for both you need a wavetable with a bigger amount of waveforms.
For example i had sampled real crystal glass being struck with a spoon and imported this as a wavetable to Icarus by using the esynthesis feature. As te original sample had a descending volume in the resulting sound in the wavetable editor i normalized the volume to have the same volume for all waveforms and then i did cut out the waveforms i did not need.
I also created wavetables taht only included a small amount of waveforms from teh original imported sample.
I had also sample PWM in my real analog Novation Bass Station 2 and imported this with resynthesis in Icarus.
The resulting WAV wavetables then could be also imoported to other synths like e.g. Serum, Avenger or Synthmaster One.

I did also use resynthesis to import wavetables of other synths. For that i sampled a wavetable sweep in the original synth, imported this by resynthesis and edited the reulting wavetable where necessary. This is much more simnpe and fast than sampling each waveform of the original wavetable independently.



I could give more examples but the point is that the fact that you only need few waveforms in a wavertable must not apply to everyone else.
Beside that doing really good wavetables that sound good whe scanning trough the whole table and not just a few inckluded waveforms is a difficult task and when done wrong scanning through the table will only sound like "digital noise".

On the othe rhand i sometimes like to include multiple quite different waveforms in a wavetable to use this as a "collection" of single wavforms while i would not use this to scan through the whole table.


Zebra does not seem to offer a waveform editor that uses additive partials to create a waveform but just free drawing them. For importing WAV files AFAIK you need an external tool like "WavToZebra" and the resolution of the resulting waveforms seems to be quite low compared to the size of 2048 samples in Icarus or Serum.
If you want to have multiple different waveforms that do a smooth transition when scanning through a table it is important having access to the partials, not to teh waveshape. Serum in the editor offers sorting waveforms in a table by their harmonic content which could be quite useful.

In the wavetable editor of PPG Wavegenerator you could draw the partials in teh additive style waveform editor and during that having multiple waveforms recorded that represent the partials that were currently used while being at the point while drawing.

In the 3D editor of Waldorf Nave you could edit the partials of all waveforms of a wavetable at the same time which offers doing editing of a wavetable not possible with any other wavetable synth where you only edit one waveform at the same time.
Besidse thst Nave has the "text to speech" feature where you type in text and it creates a wavetable with human speech from that.
With synths that offer resynthesi you could get a comparable result when importing sampled speech.

[egbert101]

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[Ingonator]

I could give more examples but the point is that the fact that you only need few waveforms in a wavertable must not apply to everyone else.

Of course, but that doesn't invalidate my point at all. Basically, I have no need for large wavetable synthesizers, but if that is your prefered way of working on sound design, then having them is of course a bonus.

I think perhaps the masses are sold the idea that the larger the wavetables, the better the instrument, and that's part of the point I'm trying to make. What is perhaps more important is the various morphing algorithms between waves. Otherwise, resynthesis or sampled sounds are the natural progression from a wavetable.

No bigger wavetables with lots of waveforms are NOT always the best but it is good to have the option to use a bigger amount of waveforms if needed for certain purposes.

As i tried to mention several times the amount necessary to do a smooth transition/morphing between waveforms also depends on how good the synth engine of a specfic wavetable synth could interpolate/crossfade between waveforms where like also mentioned Icarus with the "Fade" parameter has an option to adjust this interpolation/crossfade quality beween hard waveform transition and smooth morphing.

If the synth engine does not offer smooth morphing between two waveform in a wavetable then you have to add more interpolated/crossfaded waveforms to the table. Both Icarus and Serum offer such a fearture in the wavetable editor. Besides that they offer a bunch of additional editing features for both the wavetable and single waveforms.

[egbert101]

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[Ingonator]

Recently i explored the image resynthesis in Serum where you could load a picture that then creates a wavetable. You could see the picture in the 3D display of the wavetable.
While many pictures doresult in wavetables that are not really usable others result in really interesting and useful ones. If you used this for a while you might get an idea which picture could lead to useful results and which not.
You could also cut out waveforms at the beginning and end that do not seem to fit with the rest of the table or that are just "noise" or do not produce sound. Of course you could also cut out an interesting part of the imported picture that maybe just includes a few waveforms and re-save as a new wavetable. You could also save single waveforms and either use only a single waveform (which often makes sense too depending on the patch you want to create...) or create a new wavetable from those with added interpolated/crossfaded waveforms. You also have the option to further edit a waveform with the additive like waveform editor.


Another advanced feature in Serum is the mathematical formula editor where you could generate either single waveforms or even a full wavetable from a mathematical formula/equation.
If you use a single variable x you get a single waveform and if you add a second variable z this will correspond to the wavetable index so this creates a full wavetable with 256 waveforms.


As the WAV wavetables that you could save with Serum are compatible with several other wavetable synths you could also use the wavetables in those other synths.

[egbert101]

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[Ingonator]

Recently i explored the image resynthesis in Serum where you could load a picture that then creates a wavetable. You could seethe picture in the 3D dispalay of the wavetable.

I heard that Serum was inspired by Harmor. Serum does it all in a practical and ordered way, while Harmor is just madness. I think I prefer the madness approach at the moment.

Well if you do see Harmor as a proper replacement for Serum, Iacrus or other dedicated wavetable synth i could not really help you...

FWIW the fact that Harmor could do image resynthesis does not mean that the result of the import and the option to further edit this are the same in Harmor and Serum.

I also do not see why i need Predator 2 due to the bunch of great wavetavble synths i alraedy own.

[egbert101]

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[akeia]

Serum does it all in a practical and ordered way, while Harmor is just madness.

Harmor layout is like the toolbox of an experienced craftsman. Everything in reach. Because time is money. Ugly but useful. I do not defend it aesthetically

Regarding the need for more or less wavetables I think Icarus, Falcon and probably others have the ideal solution. One can use different amounts of waves in tables (between 2 and a few hundred) and scan them without smoothing giving digital hardness. And on the fly you can change the smoothness of the blend between the waves using a parameter. Even modulate this blend parameter. Resulting in more sonic possibilities. And more is always better ... right?

[egbert101]

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[akeia]

Well if you do see Harmor as a proper replacement for Serum, Iacrus or other dedicated wavetable synth i could not really help you...

Harmor is additive with some subtractive candy on top but in no way a wavetable synth. But as you do sweep through harmonic content over time with both technologies the end results can sound very similar. But the technological and user interface approaches are different.

[akeia]

Ahh, but what purpose does larger wavetables serve? I saw a practical one in giving choices of transitioning between different analog waves, much like the selection in Diva's Minimoog oscillators.

You are a follower of the "Church of Subtractive" Without Wolfgang Palm/PPG inventing wavetable synths we would have had only a handful of oscillator waves and Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Tangerine Dream, Talk Talk, Thomas Dolby, Ultravox ... would had to use a Moog and do hours and hours of cocky rock improvisations. What I am trying to say is that technological progress is pointless unless an artist uses it for something new. I can not proof it but I have the suspicion that every single new musical genre of the last 60 years has been triggered by some technological gadget where someone said "oh that is useless"

[egbert101]

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[kokotte]

harsh dubstep type basses come from fm and filter modulation , not really from wt.-or wt base on fm-
for me, wt shine with pads and atmosphere, long evolving sound....