Wavetable Synth Poll 2020

[Echoes in the Attic]

Tough choice between Icarus and ANA2 for me because they sound so different. Icarus has a very clean digital sound, almost additive sounding, whereas ANA2 has got a rough gritty sound that's hard to find elsewhere.

I'm surprised to see so many votes for Pigments. I love it for granular but never found it's wavetable oscillator near as pleasing as most other wavetable synths.

[teilo]

Tough choice between Icarus and ANA2 for me because they sound so different. Icarus has a very clean digital sound, almost additive sounding, whereas ANA2 has got a rough gritty sound that's hard to find elsewhere.

With Icarus, I mostly find myself using its granular resynthesis feature. I mean, it's not really granular, but it is unique and does things that no other synth does. For true granular resynthesis, see Parawave Rapid.

[BONES]

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.

Interesting, I've never heard anything that employed wavetables specifically for "wildest screaming sounds". That's something I'd always be looked to a combination of cross-modulation and my filter for. I tend to associate wavetables with mild pad-like sounds that evolve slowly over time so I'd be interested in hearing some of that other stuff. Can you point me to any factory patches, I can always download a demo version if it's a synth I don't have.

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.

Sadly, that's the easiest approach with DUNE, it's not exactly easy to get complex with from scratch.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Tough choice between Icarus and ANA2 for me because they sound so different. Icarus has a very clean digital sound, almost additive sounding, whereas ANA2 has got a rough gritty sound that's hard to find elsewhere.

With Icarus, I mostly find myself using its granular resynthesis feature. I mean, it's not really granular, but it is unique and does things that no other synth does. For true granular resynthesis, see Parawave Rapid.

For true granular, it’s pretty hard to beat Pigments actually. One of the best granular engines out there.

[layzer]

i <3 SURGE. MEGABANG for zero bucks

[zerocrossing]

I picked Dune 3. I love it, all the new filters. Very easy to use and get good results. However, there are a lot of wavetable synths that I love and get use out of. Omnisphere, Falcon, are great because they’re synthesis playgrounds. Zebra 2 is still amazing and flexible. Icarus seems to be amazing at turning any sample into an amazing wavetable with ease that I can never find in Serum, but Serum is still great. PPG 3 has such a great vibe and in some ways sounds even better than the original. Massive X popped out and that one is amazing too... so many great options.

[zerocrossing]

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.

Sadly, that's the easiest approach with DUNE, it's not exactly easy to get complex with from scratch.

Really, in what way is it difficult? Seems very straight forward to me, though I admit I’ve not used the wavetable creation features yet.

[BONES]

Wavetables are a good example. In DUNE you have to select the osc you want to change, then select WT as the osc type before you can start to do anything. In Thorn, by way of comparison, you don't have to do either of those things before you can select an oscillator waveform. And in DUNE you can never see both osc waveforms at once, whereas in Thorn all three are simultaneously visible all the time.

Another example is adding velocity modulation. In Thorn it is on the front panel, with the envelopes, which is exactly where you'd most likely need it. In DUNE it is in Settings, so you have to switch the panel display or use the Mod Matrix. Either way is more work and less intuitive. And that's just a single layer, if you are trying to edit a preset that's got 4 or 5 layers, it becomes exponentially more of a pain, and all for no good reason, as it is trivial to add 4 or 5 instances if you need to layer sounds.

[jamcat]

I voted for Pigments because it's the only one I own.
I have no idea how to use it though.

I bought it on a $49 special hoping it had some usable pad presets.

[revvy]

Isn't Korg Wavestation wavetablish?

[EnGee]

I'm demoing ANA 2 now. I must say I'm really impressed with it. The sound quality is great. It can do many kinds of sounds and switching fast is very easy. I've spent only about 15 mins and I feel I can tweak the sounds to make them what I want! This is a very difficult balance between ease of use and features.
It sounds more pleasant than Synthmaster and I can say it is up there with Dune 3 but with much more intuitive user interface.

And ... I bought it It is discounted heavily now and for 49 pounds it is from the best bargains available!

[Ingonator]

Isn't Korg Wavestation wavetablish?

Besides being a big fan of wavetable synths i got a Wavestation EX since 2004 and the plugin since 2006 and and am a big fan of that synth too.
Indeed the Wavestation wave sequencing can replicate wavetable sounds but it could also go beyond that.
In each step of a wave sequence you can choose either single cycle waveforms or samples while wavetables only include single cycles.

Opposing to wavetables those wave sequencing parameters can be adjusted for each step/wave:
- Sample or single cycle waveform
- length of the step
- coarse tuning
- fine tuning
- crossfading amount
(- volume/level) -> also possible with wavetables but not as simple as in wave sequencing

In wavetables each waveform has the same length and pitch and crossfading is a global parameter for all waveforms in a table.
Some wavetable synths do not have an adjustable crossfading amount or no crossfading at all like e.g. Xfer Serum. This is a reason why in Serum you need many more wavetable steps for a smooth transition than in a wavetable synth with crossfading. Actually in a wavetable synth with good crossfading/interpolation you can get a smooth transition/morphing of waveforms with just 2 waveforms. Same is true about the crossfaing feature in the Wavestation where 2 waves/samples might already give nice results.

Adjusting the level/volume of waveforms in a table is possible in certain wavetable editors. In the Wavestation this can be adjusted for each step/wave.

[revvy]

^ There ya go, thanks.

So my fave wavetable synth is Korg Wavestation, also not on the list.

[DJ Warmonger]

Some wavetable synths do not have an adjustable crossfading amount or no crossfading at all like e.g. Xfer Serum. This is a reason why in Serum you need many more wavetable steps for a smooth transition than in a wavetable synth with crossfading.

Alright, but you can generate 256-frame wavetable on the fly.
Yes, there is no simple crossfade since wavetables are conected to FFT synthesizer engine which generates them on demand and not in real time.

[chk071]

^ There ya go, thanks.

So my fave wavetable synth is Korg Wavestation, also not on the list.

The Wavestation is a wavesequencing (or vector synthesis) synth though, not a wavetable synth. I assume you can get similar tones out of it, but, in its core, the synthesis method is different.