KVR Audio

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:12 pm

As many of you know, one of my long held dreams came true when I recently bought a vintage PPG Wave 2.2. This seminal digital/analogue hybrid sounds fantastic, full of grit and bite thanks to it's 8-bit resolution and analogue VCF and VCAs. After a few hours with the real thing, it's easy to see why folks like Tangerine Dream, Gary Numan, Rush and Propaganda were so enamoured of the blue beastie.

To celebrate my new find, I made a trio of patches to share with you all. These patches are my own designs, sampled across the keyboard and then mapped into NN-XT, HALion, SFZ, Kontakt and DS-404 formats:

www.olscratchrecordings.com/Sounds/TEGPPG.zip

And here are the DS-404 versions:

www.olscratchrecordings.com/Sounds/TEGPPGDS.zip

If you use the NN-XT, HALion or Kontakt versions, you'll need to copy the entire "TEGPPG" folder onto your C drive, otherwise, you may have to tell your sampler where to find the samples.

If you use SFZ format, then you'll need to copy the individual SFZ patches from the SFZ folder into the matching sample folders (in other words, "TEGPPGBass.sfz" goes into the "TEGPPGBass" folder.)

These three patches are representative of what the PPG does best. There is a metallic bass sound of the sort that made the instrument famous, along with a gargling wavetable sweep and a plaintif kind of patch that would have been right at home on Tangerine Dream's "Logos" album.

These sounds contain all the grime and aliasing noise inherent in the PPG Wave 2.2 sound. What can I say? I like imperfections!

The downloads are over thirty megs, so all but the most intrepid dialup users might be out of luck...

maximilians1 · Post by **maximilians1** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:20 pm

thankyou

Klemperer · Post by **Klemperer** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:25 pm

aaah, I can't tell you how much I learnt from all of your samples (and tuts in CM too!), thank you Scot.

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:29 pm

Cool. Thanks dude.

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:44 pm

http://cgi.ebay.de/PPG-WAVE-2-3-plus-WA ... dZViewItem

Maybe i should join the club.
Mmmmmmmmmmm......blue.

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:58 pm

BTW IIRC you had some keyboard problems with it.
Found this
http://members.aon.at/virtual-music/zon ... ts_ppg.htm

It is a keyboard upgrade.Not sure if that was the problem.

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:07 pm

jupiter8 wrote:BTW IIRC you had some keyboard problems with it.
Found this
http://members.aon.at/virtual-music/zon ... ts_ppg.htm

It is a keyboard upgrade.Not sure if that was the problem.

Yep...I have seen that....they have some nice stuff there!

Fortunately, the fellow who sold me my Wave 2.2 had already ordered the new OS and the keyboard stuff from them. I'll be installing them on my next day off...

crimsonwarlock · Post by **crimsonwarlock** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:25 pm

Just grabbed the sample set for the DS404 (that I still have to re-install). Although I have the PPG VSTi I'm sure you delivered some beauties again.

Btw Scot, did you receive my email ?

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 9:52 pm

crimsonwarlock wrote:Just grabbed the sample set for the DS404 (that I still have to re-install). Although I have the PPG VSTi I'm sure you delivered some beauties again.

Btw Scot, did you receive my email ?

Indeed I did, though I was too ill all week to reply just yet...

crimsonwarlock · Post by **crimsonwarlock** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:14 pm

No problem Scot, just wanted to know if you got it as there where some things in there I really wanted you to know

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:20 pm

Thank you very much! Especially for the DS-404 patches.

rsmus7 · Post by **rsmus7** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:23 pm

nice scott

so what do you say when you compare the real PPG to the vsti ?

what is the difference?
only the imperfection, the feeling, the knobs, the look, the...

what would you say?

I have the vsti,
and I think I might never have the money to buy a real one, but
I´d really like to know

and maybe some day .... who knows ....

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:41 pm

rsmus7 wrote:nice scott

so what do you say when you compare the real PPG to the vsti ?

what is the difference?
only the imperfection, the feeling, the knobs, the look, the...

what would you say?

I have the vsti,
and I think I might never have the money to buy a real one, but
I´d really like to know

and maybe some day .... who knows ....

Tonight I will dig the VST version out of the closet and reinstall it in my Windows box and compare the two. More recent in my mind is the Microwave XTk that I had (DevonB has it now). That one had a lot more wavetables, so I could get a wider variety of sound from it. It seemed to be "hazier" overall than the PPG Wave 2.2. The 2.2 is very aggressive and harsh. Harder to tame than the Microwave. There is an obvious difference in the sound...but probably due to the imperfections of the VCAs and VCF on the vintage model.

As for the plug-in...well, it always sounded danged good to me! Of course, it was an emulation of the later (and less rare, at 700 units) Wave 2.3, so there is a difference in bit rate of the wavetables.

I wouldn't say either was "better"...just slightly different, in the same way that an oil painting is different from an acrylic. Both may be used to create works of great beauty, but one isn't a perfect substitute for the other.

I quite liked the plug-in version of the PPG...it simply hasn't been kept up to date for OSX applications, and my main DAW is a G5.

ouroboros · Post by **ouroboros** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:48 pm

thank you very much, this is awfully generous!

Scot Solida · Post by **Scot Solida** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:35 am

jupiter8 wrote:http://cgi.ebay.de/PPG-WAVE-2-3-plus-WA ... dZViewItem

Maybe i should join the club.
Mmmmmmmmmmm......blue.

I would love to find a Wavetarm A...but for now, I will make do with the software Waveterm C. It has most of the Waveterm functions and you can make your own waves and such to export into the Wave 2.2.

I also found an app that allows one to exchange patches between the software and hardware versions of the PPGs....cooooool.

Freebie samples from my new PPG Wave 2.2!