New (or rather, very old :-) Synth in town

[arakula]

..now that it can be easily read..
does it really say "velosity sensor" under the display on the original?

Yes. Please keep in mind that PPG was a German company - their English was not always perfect, and this is not the same functionality as the "velocity" you'd expect from a velocity-sensitive keyboard. The PPG Wave doesn't have a velocity-sensitive keyboard, so they used a trick to simulate this - you have to press a key and keep it pressed. The keyboard does have a sensor to detect the pressure (that's the "TOUCH-SENSOR" usable as a modulation source), so you can modify the key pressure now. If the "Velosity" effect is active for this program, the pressure determines the initial filter cutoff and/or volume of the next pressed key.

And, BTW, I corrected the "ENVFLOPE 1 > WAVES", which was the real spelling error on the PPG Wave (see original panel, 4 photos stitched together, here).

[audiojunkie]

So, would it be best to save patches (fxp's) rather than banks (fxb's), so that we can specifically use the patch we want in our host? (since it only auto loads to the first patch on default.)

Doesn't make any difference, since WaveSim exposes exactly one program, and that program contains a complete emulated machine. This emulated machine contains 100 internal programs, which are not directly accessible from the outside (i.e., selectable from the host); they can only be reached through MIDI messages (or by simulating the appropriate key presses through parameter automation, hee hee...).

So, just curious, is there a way to set this VSTi up so that it will automatically start with a particular patch from with in a host such as FLStudio? (I understand that you may not know this host, but I am hoping there is a generalized way to do it that may work with this host.)

Thanks again,

--Sean

[arakula]

So, just curious, is there a way to set this VSTi up so that it will automatically start with a particular patch from with in a host [...]

Not yet. I'm thinking about either storing the current program number inside the emulated synth so that it survives a boot (something like adding 8-10 6809 instructions to the boot process), or storing the complete machine state, which is quite heavy (it would require, amongst a lot of other data, storing the complete sample RAM, which, IIRC, is 8x16384 samples wide on a Wave 2.3).

The first method, although simpler, won't make it into the Wave 2.2V6 version anyway, since that's running an unmodified version of the original PPG operating system, and I have no intention to change that.

[Dayl]

Hi
Thanks for the use of the synth. I DL'd the 2.2 version.
it kind of felt like it was from the 80's in the sense that the knobs sounded like they had gotten dusty and the adjustments were not smooth. I, however,know nothing about the PPG wave so that may be part of it.

time for some more useful feedback though.

Some of the sounds I got from this synth (Wave 2.2V6) were the sweet goodness. There seems to be an added level of grit to this synth on top of warm tones.

I had a hard time using it though and it didnt seem too user friendly in comparison to many synths and that accesability may cost you when it comes to the mass market (i understand you want to go commercial?)as far
as obsessive goes, you must have been, I loved the added lighten/darken Lcd feature, nice touch, but maybe you could sacrafice a little detail for user ease.

For example:
DX7 vs FM7

If NI had have been faithfull in releasing an exact emulation of the DX7
(and so on) the FM7 that many of us know today wouldn't be half the fun.

I hope you know what I am trying to get at there.

Bottom line is sound, I managed to get some goodies.
I would be keen to use this synth a lot more if I could get to new ones quicker as I prefer crank out a patch ASAP then get down to the good stuff, which for me is the music making.

Thanks again.

[arakula]

it kind of felt like it was from the 80's in the sense that the knobs sounded like they had gotten dusty and the adjustments were not smooth. I, however,know nothing about the PPG wave so that may be part of it.

If you fiddle with the knobs, there may be quite audible jumps, yes... that's exactly like the original.

but maybe you could sacrafice a little detail for user ease

Maybe I could, but that wouldn't be the same thing.
I could easily rewrite the whole thing and crank out something that would be a slightly different version of the Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V... but
(a) I don't want to compete with that. It's a great piece of software, and surpassing it on its own ground would be rather difficult (and presumably ruin my connections to Waldorf).
(b) the thing is simply intended to be as close to the original as possible. I am aware of the fact that this will probably reduce the group of interested persons to people close to my age, who loved the original when it came out, but couldn't afford it, or had it and sold it... so be it. I do not plan to make a living from it.

[Dayl]

All Good,

Awesome so the jumps are just like the orig? I didn't hate them by any means.

I wasn't implying that you were aiming to make a living from it. Just dropping some honest feedback through my eyes.

Well the synth sounds great anyway, I'll continue to use it for some of the great sounds it produces. Ease of use or not, thats my learning curve.

Good work

[arakula]

Awesome so the jumps are just like the orig?

Well... unless you found a defect that I don't know, yes. That's a problem of the underlying technology. Back in 1982, when the Wave 2.2 was created, there were no encoders on the market, so the Wave 2.x used potentiometers for the Analog Panel. These, of course, do not follow changes if a program is loaded. Internally, the Wave checks the potentiometer positions every 1-2ms. If a position changes, the corresponding program value is recalculated immediately from the new position. There's no lag processor, the value simply jumps (actually, there IS a set of 4 simple RC filters for the filter cutoff frequency, but their effect is very limited in case of BIG jumps). The position is quantized to 64 steps, so moving the potentiometer a bit can lead to quite audible changes, especially if you have a use a high filter resonance value and play with the cutoff frequency.

When Waldorf did the Wave (the real, big thing, not the plugin), they used potentiometers, too, but added various knob modes that made it easier for the user, who could decide whether the value should jump immediately, the knob position should be used in a relative way, or the knob position would have to match the current program position before the changes start to have an effect. Great stuff. But then, the Waldorf Wave used a 68000 processor with (comparatively) lots of memory. It was much easier for them. The PPG Wave uses a 6809 processor and has a grand total of 24K for the complete program code; it's amazing how much they put into this space, but they couldn't implement everything.

But if you noticed crackles / pops, I'd be interested in how you did this, because it shouldn't happen.

I wasn't implying that you were aiming to make a living from it. Just dropping some honest feedback through my eyes.

Hey, no offense taken...

[arakula]

It's time to revive this old thread, it seems...

I've just uploaded a new version.
This one is a bit closer to the original, has a tighter timing...

... and you can store the complete current machine state in a bank file. This means that it's now possible to reload it exactly as you left it. When the state is reloaded from file, the simulation doesn't reboot any more, but instead continues at the saved position, with the same program and wavetable loaded as before.

Also, if anybody's interested in the full-blown version which can act as a Wave 2.3 and EVU as well, please contact me for details.

Have fun!

[ChamomileShark]

hey..this is good to hear..I'll download and probably be in contact

[wikter]

Great!

[arakula]

Some news... Wolfgang Palm has created some new wavetables which can be used with WaveSim. For details, look here (Wolfgang's MySpace blog) or here (my web site).

Enjoy!

[arakula]

A year has passed without much activity, but I've just uploaded a little update.

WaveSim did not work correctly in some hosts (Orion, Tracktion), and this little fix cures the bug.

Plus, stored banks are roughly 50% smaller. This may not mean much on today's terabyte hard disks, but it does make a difference... unfortunately, this change also means that I had to sacrifice downward compatibility. The new version, of course, can load old banks, but not the other way round. Just keep this in mind if you swap .fxb files with others - the new banks can only be loaded in the new version.

Enjoy!

[trimph1]

Checking it out...nice sounding!!

[aMUSEd]

How does this compare to the PPG 3?

[arakula]

How does this compare to the PPG 3?

Let's say that the 3.v is more powerful in nearly every detail, and incredibly more polished, except for one thing... the full version of my PlugIn, together with my Waveterm C software (even in its unfinished state), can be used to create and use your own wavetables. That's something that the 2.v and 3.v simply can't do yet. This doesn't apply to the demo version, however.