Would love opinions on Live's Wavetable synth

[v1o]

This could take over from Massive and Serum as the synth of choice for electronic music.

[generaldiomedes]

I would say no simply because of the user interface. Big reason why Serum is #1.

I think ableton should reconsider their decision to stick with tiny UIs for all the devices. The pop out interface isn’t that much better - should be a properly designed windowed UI for something as complex as operator analog or wavetable

[rod_zero]

That will never happen, "no floating windows" is one of Live main paradigms.

[cron]

It's not as flexible as Serum and the engine is not as clean as Serum but it's not an issue at all

Really? Serum sets a pretty low bar for sound quality IMO. I mean it's one of my favourite synths of all time because the workflow is just fantastic, but it's certainly not for its raw sound quality.

[Kinh]

This must have been in the pipeline for a few years and I guess they reach the no turn back phase and said f#ck it! Cause quite frankly, I dont hear any wavetables being used anymore in music now with the exception of an occasional pop track with a distorted bass drone or some future bass stuff. Now music is much cleaner and dubstep is dead

[toonertik]

Serum is the king of wavetables, period.

Not in my World!... I find Icarus more powerful but prefer the sound of Dune2 to both Icarus and Serum!

[toonertik]

It's not as flexible as Serum and the engine is not as clean as Serum but it's not an issue at all

Really? Serum sets a pretty low bar for sound quality IMO. I mean it's one of my favourite synths of all time because the workflow is just fantastic, but it's certainly not for its raw sound quality.

+1

[recursive one]

It's not as flexible as Serum and the engine is not as clean as Serum but it's not an issue at all

Really? Serum sets a pretty low bar for sound quality IMO. I mean it's one of my favourite synths of all time because the workflow is just fantastic, but it's certainly not for its raw sound quality.

+1

I think Serum it technically very high quality (low aliasing, no artifacts at fast modulations etc), it just lacks character, generally its sound depends on what you put into it.

[legendCNCD]

Now music is much cleaner and dubstep is dead

f**k yeah!

[dubguy99]

This must have been in the pipeline for a few years and I guess they reach the no turn back phase and said f#ck it! Cause quite frankly, I dont hear any wavetables being used anymore in music now with the exception of an occasional pop track with a distorted bass drone or some future bass stuff. Now music is much cleaner and dubstep is dead

What the hell? Wavetable synthesis was around 25 years before Dubstep even became a thing. The fact that a lot of garbage bandwagon producers used Serum to make the exact same kind of fart noises doesn't say anything about the merits of Wavetable synthesis.

[Igro]

It's not as flexible as Serum and the engine is not as clean as Serum but it's not an issue at all

Really? Serum sets a pretty low bar for sound quality IMO. I mean it's one of my favourite synths of all time because the workflow is just fantastic, but it's certainly not for its raw sound quality.

+1

I think Serum it technically very high quality (low aliasing, no artifacts at fast modulations etc), it just lacks character, generally its sound depends on what you put into it.

It is because of its lifeless and flat filters.

[sinemotor]

I dont hear any wavetables being used anymore in music now with the exception of an occasional pop track with a distorted bass drone or some future bass stuff. Now music is much cleaner and dubstep is dead

It's not true. Serum is all over Electronic Dance Music. It has been the most popular synth for the last 3 years. Producers just don't use wavetables the typical way anymore (not just for growl basses but any type of sound). But it's all over the place in Future Bass, Trap, Bass House, Trance, DnB, Progressive House, well any sub genre really... That synth is shaping EDM of the last couple of years, just like Massive did before, and the Virus/JP8000 before, and the Korg M1 before etc...

And yes Serum has high quality oscillators, it's one of its main selling point. It also has the best Unison mode on the market imo. Filters are good and versatile. Warp is an awesome feature to shape the waveform. Modulation is insane. You can create/import wavetables... It's a sound designer dream synth and I don't know one producer who would contest its power, flexibility and obviously its high quality sound.

[quincy]

This must have been in the pipeline for a few years and I guess they reach the no turn back phase and said f#ck it! Cause quite frankly, I dont hear any wavetables being used anymore in music now with the exception of an occasional pop track with a distorted bass drone or some future bass stuff. Now music is much cleaner and dubstep is dead

What the hell? Wavetable synthesis was around 25 years before Dubstep even became a thing. The fact that a lot of garbage bandwagon producers used Serum to make the exact same kind of fart noises doesn't say anything about the merits of Wavetable synthesis.

Indeed. It's an unfortunate association in a way. It's no more logical than associating subtractive synthesis with some specific genre. It's just a tool and people use every kind of synthesis for every kind of music. Still, people will always jump on bandwagons and make lazy associations with every kind of art. It's not malicious, people just like things to be simple.

Also, dubstep isn't dead. Dubstep isn't only the aggressive bass sound that people associate with Skrillex etc. There was actual dub-related dubstep around before that, much of which originated in the UK. We also had what we called "dance music" in the UK from the late 1980s. but then some American coined the term EDM about 20 years later and it was the emperor's new clothes.

Anyway, I digress...

[cron]

It's not as flexible as Serum and the engine is not as clean as Serum but it's not an issue at all

Really? Serum sets a pretty low bar for sound quality IMO. I mean it's one of my favourite synths of all time because the workflow is just fantastic, but it's certainly not for its raw sound quality.

+1

I think Serum it technically very high quality (low aliasing, no artifacts at fast modulations etc), it just lacks character, generally its sound depends on what you put into it.

Funnily enough, it's the modulating the wavetable position where it falls short for me. It's generally fine if your wavetable is fairly simple (i.e. morphing back and forth between two or three timbres at reasonably high speed), but zippering/stepping becomes an issue if your wavetable is too complex or your modulation too slow. Even Massive could interpolate between wavetable frames really nicely at the oscillator level, whereas Serum expects you to build the interpolation 'into' the wavetable using the morph function because your table consists of 256 'hard jumps' with no 'inbetween' positions. It rather limits the complexity of your tables as you need enough 'free space' in the wavetable to do sufficient interpolation depending on the task at hand.

[mutantdog]

Also, dubstep isn't dead. Dubstep isn't only the aggressive bass sound that people associate with Skrillex etc. There was actual dub-related dubstep around before that, much of which originated in the UK. We also had what we called "dance music" in the UK from the late 1980s. but then some American coined the term EDM about 20 years later and it was the emperor's new clothes.

+1