Waldorf Edition: PPG Wave 2.V

Wow! A PPG Wave for under two-hundred smackers! The original PPG Wave was a unique machine, and certainly an aqquired taste (largely aqquired by those with bulging wallets). I first heard the convoluted, sometimes harsh sound of PPG's brand of digital wavetable synthesis on "Stuntman" by Tangerine Dream frontman Edgar Froese. Quite refreshing after a decade of nothin' but analog! Well, here we go again! After a seeming endless stream of analog rehashes, Waldorf bucks the trend with a PPG plug-in. If you like the sound of the original, you're gonna love this software version. It's dead-on in it's recreation, down to the aliasing noise and the wonky LFO (you can switch these imperfections off if you like). Just like the Old Boy himself, the PPG 2.V comes with thirty-two wavetables that provide an immense resource for sound-creation. You can play any given section of a wavetable, or you can use aftertouch, the LFO, or an envelope to rip through a wavetable in real-rime for that classic PPG sound. The recreation of the analog filter from the original is flawlessly flawed, and this synth is no slouch in the bass department. You can get those gritty, punchy bass sounds heard on Gary Numan's "The Fury" or Frankie's "Relax" with little effort. It's got a nifty arpeggiator that syncs to your song's tempo (as can the LFO), and the graphic envelope display is a breeze to use. The manual is a bit thin, but you only get to the guts of this thing through experimentation, anyhow. It's never hiccupped or crashed during use, which is a fair miracle, as I use it in SONAR as a DXi (with the aid of FXPansion's VST Adapter). Guess it thrives in alien territory! The presets include most, if not all, of the original factory sounds, which means they either sound dated or timeless, depending on your take of that era. Is it worth $149? Heck, it was worth $8000 to a lot of people smarter than you and I twenty years ago.
Read Review