Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave Desktop verison announced ($3500)

Anything about hardware musical instruments.
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So I got my desktop module

The module feels heavy duty and a solid chunk of metal.
Industrial rugged like the keyboard version.

I like the smaller buttons better, they feel tight, clicky and tactile. The knobs are the same and feel somewhat cheap, just like the keyboard.
Plastic caps with metal shafts. A slight wiggle but feel good. Would have liked Prophet 10 style knobs

The front panel overlay feels thick and well secured - looks and feels hard like metal.

There are vents at the bottom and rear, and she does get quite warm. So a laptop stand with holes in it is ideal.

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I did some testing

Waveforms start to clip around 90-100 combined levels

The VA Sawtooth looks and sounds strange on the scope.
Like there is a sinewave mixed into it.
Polybrute and Trigon 6 have pure sawtooths.
Mks80 rev 5 has a weird sawtooth too, due to bass boost, which cleans up with highpass at 39


Sawtooth..?
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Square :p
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Triangle
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Highpass around 15-19 cleans up the waveform a bit and the bass boosted sound
Would like an option to remove bass boost if possible, for a more neutral sound option.
So I'm not stuck using the highpass filter all the time

Bass is too overloaded due to this boost. OK on thinner wave tables but too much on the harmonically richer waves and VA waves
single sawtooth bass sound, then with highpass at 19.

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/3rd-wav ... al_sharing


Glide doesn't sound as good/ natural as my other analog synths, especially on arps.
Also annoying that it is in the global menu list rather on a knob.
I sometimes turn it on and off while playing, which is hard to do if it's in the menus

Can sometimes sound punchy, but the overloaded bass spoils and makes the snap less present.
Velocity to envelope gives good snap

Would like a confirmation option when moving the program knob on an edited patch.
Lost a few patches doing this....
Hydrasynth offers this as a global menu option.
Any synth that uses a knob to change program, as opposed to buttons should offer this.

Looks to have an IPS LCD display, so no OLED burn out worries.
But I have set my display to go blank after 1 min of inactivity to keep the back light going for many years.
Like my Lynx hilo's touch screen which is on 8 hours a day for the last 15 years.
Still working like new, but it has an industrial medical spec display

Can sound convincingly analog, well some flavours of analog, especially once you remove the excessive bass bump.

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Dreamy arp patch - my speciality :)
Dual sawtooth oscillators to start, then joined by a third wavetable later on

just under 40% stereo spread, still hoping a future firmware brings in a stereo spread mode where there are more centred voices

Dry and unprocessed

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/groove- ... dreamy-arp

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So I did a waveform comparison between the 3rd Wave VA waves and two of my analogs.
Surprisingly the Polybrute is pretty clean, while the Trigon is less perfect than I thought :)

And an audio comparing the 3RD Wave's sawtooth against the Trigon-6.
You can hear that bassy sinewavey harmonic in there in the lower ocatves.
Trigon played first, from C2 to C6

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/trigon- ... al_sharing

Soundcloud compression sucks on raw waves - try this
https://gearspace.com/board/attachment. ... 1702212770

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Yesterday I played around with the osc sync on the VA waves and found out that it doesn't sound good, in fact I think there is a bug in how sync works because going to higher notes gives unexpected results for saw waves.
I'm not going to be using this as a virtual analog much since to me it sounds so unabashedly digital- I bought it for wavetables and that is what it's made for.

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Constructed Identity wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2023 5:06 pm Yesterday I played around with the osc sync on the VA waves and found out that it doesn't sound good, in fact I think there is a bug in how sync works because going to higher notes gives unexpected results for saw waves.
I'm not going to be using this as a virtual analog much since to me it sounds so unabashedly digital- I bought it for wavetables and that is what it's made for.
With earlier firmware, there was an issue with Saw waves when "Free Running Oscillators" was enabled. When bending pitch, there were audible glitches (pops).
That's since been resolved.

Groove Synthesis has been pretty responsive.
If they're aware (or made aware) of an issue with Sync and Saw waves, I'm sure they'll address it.
Jim Roseberry
Purrrfect Audio
www.studiocat.com
jim@studiocat.com

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Yeah definitely contact Groove about any audio issues.They are very responsive.
They said they are looking into the VA waveform issues

I also requested some ARP hold mode tweaks

I only wish I could get my wishes acted upon on the Polybrute and Prologue 16 the same way and at the same speed....

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CoolColJ wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 12:42 am

I only wish I could get my wishes acted upon on the Polybrute and Prologue 16 the same way and at the same speed....
Haha - Korg is a big company and updates don't pay the bills... I want a Prologue XL, 3 LFOs, a mod matrix, after touch keybed, and the pad/effect from the Modwave.

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Constructed Identity wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2023 5:06 pm Yesterday I played around with the osc sync on the VA waves and found out that it doesn't sound good, in fact I think there is a bug in how sync works because going to higher notes gives unexpected results for saw waves.
I'm not going to be using this as a virtual analog much since to me it sounds so unabashedly digital- I bought it for wavetables and that is what it's made for.
I tested it out and seems to behave ok?

You can sync each oscillator, but you need to leave one unsynced as the master

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Starskys demo pierced my ears with harsch harmonics
- but guess with fully open filter those kind of tests he did

Real presets with filter in normal cutting operation must sound better, I guess.

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lfm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 3:47 pm Starskys demo pierced my ears with harsch harmonics
- but guess with fully open filter those kind of tests he did

Real presets with filter in normal cutting operation must sound better, I guess.
I think you saw the VS waves video.

I haven't tried them, but the current wavetables I have tried and the VA waves are no more piercing than the norm to me
In any case you have two filters in series - an 24db analog filter and a 12db digital SVF, so you can use the SVF tweak the waveforms how you like

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Mellow Wavetable sequence noodle
Sound is Dry. Filter resonance compensation turned off

Single wavetable oscillator to start, two parts panned left/right, then sawtooth and square oscillators added later on

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/groove- ... seq-noodle

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My desktop is on it’s way!
Zerocrossing Media

4th Law of Robotics: When turning evil, display a red indicator light. ~[ ●_● ]~

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Behringer PPG Wave soon. Just sayin.
<list your stupid gear here>

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Had this 3rd Wave ostinato going, originally created by recording the latched Polybrute arp into the 3rd Wave sequencer.
Really tickles my brain somehow, had it going for ages.
Then playing my Trigon-6 over the top.

https://soundcloud.com/coolcolj/3rd-wav ... d-trigon-6

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Little brother announced: https://www.groovesynthesis.com/8m/

• 8 Voices of full 3rd Wave sound engine with complete patch compatibility
• Bi-timbral operation with two independent parts
• Premium analog filters and output stages—identical to our flagship models
• Multiple synthesis types: wavetable, analog-style, FM, and sampling
• Streamlined interface with larger, more intuitive display
• Compact desktop format that fits your creative space

I think I saw a price of $2K mentioned somewhere, but don't quote me on that.
Logic Pro | LUNA Pro | OB-X8 | Prophet 6 | OB-6 | Rev2 | TEO-5 | Pro 3 | SE-1X | Minitaur | Deepmind 12D | Slim Phatty | TR-1000 | Analog RYTM mk2 | Digitakt 2 | TD-3 MO | TD-3 | Maschine+

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