Yeah, modulating the wavetable index position is where wavetable synthesis does its magic. It's completely different from anything else out there.

I agree with that sentiment, himalaya.

Thanks, friends, I was expecting to get shot down for that, as happened the last time this wavetable topic was discussed.

...
here is a wave-table:

wave[2] =
{
0,
1,
};

i typed it in my "notepad" and got this: http://soundcloud.com/aciddose/palynological-mutants

I am trying out rapture synth. I read that it was a wavetable synth, and this is why I want to try it out.

But it seems to me like it is nothing more than a bunch of separate waves that are layered together with no relation or interaction with one another.

I was under the impression that wavetable synth had progressively different waveforms that you cycled though to get a changing unique sound. Am I missing something here?

WOW U ROCK!!!

Evolution of terminology is always interesting. I suspect that historically the term "wavetable synthesis" has meant different things in the lexecon of computer sound versus the lexecon of hardware synths, which of course now have merged with sometimes confusing results. As one who came to the world of electronic music via computers rather than hardware synths, what

comes to my mind hearing the term "wavetable synthesis" is the transition from computer sound cards with poor-sounding imitation instruments derived from FM sound chips to sound cards with more realistic-sounding instruments derived from ROM-stored samples. The "wavetable" in these improved sound cards was the collection of ROM-based samples representing the library of playable intruments (eventually standardized as GM in Windows soundcards and outboard units like the Roland SoundCanvas). This is of course different from the usage of the term "wavetable synthesis" in hardware synths

like the PPG Wave, where the "wavetable" was a collection of waveforms that the synth could dynamically scan in creating a single sound. As I recall, Korg's early sample-based hardware synths (my first synth was an M3R) used sampled waveforms in both senses, though without using the term "wavetable." The M1 and the M3R had static ROM-based samples that Korg called "multisounds" to signify that some of them included samples across an instrumnt's range. The Wavestation allowed dynamic sequencing of samples that Korg called "wave sequences" (another term that might mean different things to

different people in other contexts), and as I recall it also allowed cross-fading between multiple wave sequences, which Korg called "vector synthesis" (yet another marketing buzzword). In the world of software synthesizers, Rapture is a "wavetable" synthesizer only in the sample-based sound card sense. It uses sampled single-cycle waveforms as the basis for sound creation, though it sounds infinitely better than sample-based sound cards due to an exceptionally good software sound engine, and it obviously has much more flexibility in terms of filtering, modulation, effects, layering

of multiple processed waveforms, etc. IMO with good programming it is easily one of the best sounding software synths out there. But it does not do wavetable synthesis in the PPG sense (except maybe as another poster mentioned by the brute force technique of step sequencing the six available waveform layers). If you want wavetable synthesis in the PPG Wave sense, you will want to look elsewhere. Fortunately there are many excellent choices. For classic PPG-style wave scanning I like both the PPG Wave 3V emulation and the cheaper ConcreteFX Kubik. I'm sure there are other equally good

alternatives (someone mentioned Largo) that I haven't tried. And of course there are also superb sounding powerhouse software synths like Massive and Zebra that enable waveform morphing, to varying degrees, among their many other programming options.