Wavetable Synth Poll 2020

[liv]

Absynth.

[teilo]

vast dynamics vaporizer 2, is wavetable synth that develops into a real, fully capable wavetable synth, and when i bought it, it was already a great synth. but now.. and there will be updates. special mention, because, one developer (as serum), that listens to his user base, and lifetime updates.. and the latest one is a big one...

Another synth that I really want to like, but his envelopes and modulation system is completely wacked. It does not behave like any other synth on the planet.

Try to do a full range filter sweep with an envelope. The obvious (Cutoff set to 0, Env Mod set to 100) doesn't work at all. Only after a whole bunch of messing around did I discover that the modulation system is, essentially, backwards. The Cutoff sets the maximum value of the sweep, and the Env Mod sets the minimum value, only in reverse, so that if ENV MOD is at 100, then it will sweep all the way to 0. That's nuts. Now bring your envelope values into the mix and try to make sense of it. I mean, there's a way to do everything, but it's so ass backwards that it just gets in the way of working.

To make matters worse, if you try to use the mod matrix to modulate the cutoff with an MSEG, that does something completely different. LFOs sort of work like you would expect, but only sort of. Put an LFO on the filter cutoff, change the cutoff knob, and look what happens to the yellow range indicator. Say what? Crazy.

It's sad, because he developed himself into a corner, and there's no way to fix it without breaking every preset.

[BONES]

Honestly I never pick Dune 3 for wavetable duties.

What on Earth are "wavetable duties"? It seems like a very narrow way to look at any instrument or musical part.

[Robmobius]

Xfer Serum... No surprise there. Great synth!

[Distorted Horizon]

Would really like to participate here, but someone made it impossible to sell my serum license so I can't switch it to either Icarus or Pigments..

[EnGee]

The sound that I like most is from two wavetable synths (Massive X and Dune 3), but I don't have MX installed, so the wavetable synths I use mostly are Dune 3, Largo, Factory and Synthmaster One. Factory can easily produce on your face sounds while Dune 3 can easily make lush sounds.
Largo is still a great synth and I still love it in spite of the pathetic presets browser. Synthmaster one is the last one I added to my synths and it has the best workflow and interface. It still a more capable Sylenth1 for me

If I want to add another wavetable synth, it would be Icarus 2. I really like the round clean sounds it makes

All that said, but wavetable synths are not the first I insert in the first new tracks in a song

[WasteLand]

vast dynamics vaporizer 2, is wavetable synth that develops into a real, fully capable wavetable synth, and when i bought it, it was already a great synth. but now.. and there will be updates. special mention, because, one developer (as serum), that listens to his user base, and lifetime updates.. and the latest one is a big one...

Another synth that I really want to like, but his envelopes and modulation system is completely wacked. It does not behave like any other synth on the planet.

Try to do a full range filter sweep with an envelope. The obvious (Cutoff set to 0, Env Mod set to 100) doesn't work at all. Only after a whole bunch of messing around did I discover that the modulation system is, essentially, backwards. The Cutoff sets the maximum value of the sweep, and the Env Mod sets the minimum value, only in reverse, so that if ENV MOD is at 100, then it will sweep all the way to 0. That's nuts. Now bring your envelope values into the mix and try to make sense of it. I mean, there's a way to do everything, but it's so ass backwards that it just gets in the way of working.

To make matters worse, if you try to use the mod matrix to modulate the cutoff with an MSEG, that does something completely different. LFOs sort of work like you would expect, but only sort of. Put an LFO on the filter cutoff, change the cutoff knob, and look what happens to the yellow range indicator. Say what? Crazy.

It's sad, because he developed himself into a corner, and there's no way to fix it without breaking every preset.

he has improved the MSEG big time. there where indeed problems. not everything is working fine, yet, but the developer responses to the problems quite quickly.

don't know if you own it or demoed it.

there is vast dynamics vaporizer 2 thread here, where the developer responds to problems. and he fixes it. he has also changed how the wavetables are "made", they are now real-time, instead of "cached", pre-calculated. so 30 real-time effects are added, and a granular sample option.


i agree it is a project. but i still like the thing. and with every update, you see that the MSEG section is more developed.

so he hasn't developed itself in a corner me thinks.

i like those "small" projects. and yes, the behavior is sometimes strange, but it has improved now, still great presets, i can make. from own wavetables, made in vaporizer. nice.

but this is personal. your experience with vaporizer 2 is troublesome, and yes it is the synth itself. if you like it, post a message in the thread. because i also benefit from it...

[Tj Shredder]

A poll of this kind reflects more the distribution of sold instruments than the quality of those. Even if I download a demo, I can‘t get deep enough into it in a short time, that would make me simply judge the presets, which doesn‘t tell too much about the quality either...
Some are worthwhile for some just for the presets. Now if you started a poll about wavetable sound sets...

Anyway wavetable synthesis is the limited cousin of granular synthesis, it made a lot of sense when the PPG was invented. What bothers me most, is that you wade through wave tables like wading through presets... Unless you create your own wave tables, but then granular beats it easily...

[WasteLand]

A poll of this kind reflects more the distribution of sold instruments than the quality of those. Even if I download a demo, I can‘t get deep enough into it in a short time, that would make me simply judge the presets, which doesn‘t tell too much about the quality either...
Some are worthwhile for some just for the presets. Now if you started a poll about wavetable sound sets...

Anyway wavetable synthesis is the limited cousin of granular synthesis, it made a lot of sense when the PPG was invented. What bothers me most, is that you wade through wave tables like wading through presets... Unless you create your own wave tables, but then granular beats it easily...

all those polls reflect the distribution.
i demoed not all of them. i demoed serum, after years of hype here... didn't buy it. personal taste.
granular synthesis is something else then wavetable synthesis.

granular "chops" a waveform. a wavetable, as in the name, are 1-256 slots of single cycle waveforms, the standard is 2048 samples per slot (2048 reflects the number of samples, like 44.100khz/sec). a single cycle waveform, perhaps you can compare it with a granular, what is the term, "part".
it could be higher or lower, but 2048 is nice, because enough harmonics.
2 slots of waveforms, can already be interpolated, as it if were 256 slots...

i use wavetables, from the developers, but more and more i make them myself now.

me thinks additive lies closer to wavetables. escpecially when you can change them over time, like in synclavier v.

i am in doubt if i am right now. sometimes i mess things up in my mind, and while i am working, i know what i am doing. writing and doing...

perhaps i don't understand your post. correct me if i am wrong.

EDIT: you wrote PPG, and yes somewhere there was a light in my brain, yes, a great way of synthesis.

[Tj Shredder]

The Bitwig sampler has a granular engine which can mimik a wavetable. Wavetables are often made out of samples, and often reside within a single wave file. The grains would be always a single waveform, if you jump through your wave at their zero crossings and have no envelope you got what a wavetable synth does. More or less - of course if incorporate interpolated waveforms its more than that. If you want that interpolated effects, then you are correct, you‘d rather do that with additive synthesis...

[Ingonator]

Wavetable synths like DUNE 3, Icarus and Serum stand out for me due to their built-in powerful wavetable and waveform editors where both Serum and DUNE 3 offer doing both single waveforms and full wavetables from a mathematical formula whch could lead to very interesting results. The picture resynthesis in Serum is quite unique while it is difficult but not impossible to get really useful result from that. For sample resynthesis the corresponing feature in Icarus is working quite nicely.

Each of those 3 could also export wavetables in a format that is compatible with the others and also being compatible with some other synths like e.g. Falcon and Avenger where those can be imported.
Currently I only got the demo version of Arturia Pigmments 2 but this also seems to be able to properly import wavetables that were saved in the Serum format (like the other 5 synths).

Being able to use the same wavetables in all those 6 synths just mentioned is really awesome and offers lots of options for sound design.

Several other synths might be able to import WAV wavetable files by resynthesis (e.g. Waldorf Nave, Waves Codex and Ableton Wavetable) but often those are not imported correctly and/or sound differently there.

[DJ Warmonger]

Honestly I never pick Dune 3 for wavetable duties.

What on Earth are "wavetable duties"? It seems like a very narrow way to look at any instrument or musical part.

Sometimes I want to go crazy with wavetables and create wildest screaming sounds, but sometimes all I need is saw, square and sine oscillator. Sometimes I want to do FM or hard sync kind of sounds, or something entirely different. I enjoy synths and I pick them with some initial idea in mind.

More often than not I just use Dune for presets and not for ground-up sound design. So it doesn't matter at all if any wavetables are there.

[deastman]

Waldorf Quantum.

[teilo]

he has improved the MSEG big time. there where indeed problems. not everything is working fine, yet, but the developer responses to the problems quite quickly.

don't know if you own it or demoed it.

Yes, I do own it, and my comments are still true as of version 3.0.x.

Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous respect for the developer. In fact, it was due to my feedback that he fixed the labeling on his envelopes (originally, the ADSR was not an ADSR at all).

But when I say "developed into a corner" I mean that it's not really possible to fix the counterintuitive modulation system without, somehow, "translating" all the existing presets so that they still sound the same. Frankly, due to the non-linearities he introduced (which, I think, is why changing the cutoff also, counterintuitively, changes the range of modulation), I'm not sure it would even be possible.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how good a synth sounds, I don't want to fight with it to get things done. Same reason I can't use Spire (which is even worse due to it's thoroughly broken preset management).

[WasteLand]

he has improved the MSEG big time. there where indeed problems. not everything is working fine, yet, but the developer responses to the problems quite quickly.

don't know if you own it or demoed it.

Yes, I do own it, and my comments are still true as of version 3.0.x.

Don't get me wrong. I have tremendous respect for the developer. In fact, it was due to my feedback that he fixed the labeling on his envelopes (originally, the ADSR was not an ADSR at all).

But when I say "developed into a corner" I mean that it's not really possible to fix the counterintuitive modulation system without, somehow, "translating" all the existing presets so that they still sound the same. Frankly, due to the non-linearities he introduced (which, I think, is why changing the cutoff also, counterintuitively, changes the range of modulation), I'm not sure it would even be possible.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how good a synth sounds, I don't want to fight with it to get things done. Same reason I can't use Spire (which is even worse due to it's thoroughly broken preset management).

ow now i understand it better. it doesn't affect me that much, strangely, and of course (of course?) i know the importance of an envelope.
but i understand how a synth, how tempting the sound, etc. etc. can be, if the workflow doesn't suit you, i know is sometimes must do things in the MSEG section, that seems strange, that i must trust my ears. perhaps my style, i like strange sounds, it doesn't bother me that much.
in earlier versions it was a mess. i recall now. but still, my ears... and sometimes a happy accident.

i demoed once avenger (demoed serum only to see what the fuzz was about, great synth, but not for me), but the GUI, the workflow. it is not buggy, or strange... for me it was a mess. and i like MSoundFactory (which means, you don't need avenger, ahum...). i don't know synths that have strange behavior (yes LION had). i am trying to say: some synths are great, but working with them, is PITA. fighting is not an option. i understand.

and me thinks you own vaporizer 2, before i bought it.. still like the damn thing, give me crazy stuff! but i like to get also crazy stuff out simple synths.

but this is the wavetable thread. for years i wasn't interested in wavetable synths, they didn't do it for me. now i own 9 or so... (not all are wavetable specific, like pigments 2, or MSoundFactory).

but making your own wavetables, that pulled me really in. although i used pigments "1", with the standard wavetables. but how pigments works, i could do things, almost modular sounding sounds.

thanks for your response! happy tabling! (o i now see what it means in english...)