Feature | The ultimate guide to digital synthesis
What is wavetable synthesis?
>Wavetable synthesis is nothing new; it first appeared in the hardware realm in the early ’80s with the launch of Wolfgang Palm’s PPG Wave, later followed by a string of influential hardware synths created by PPG successors Waldorf. It has really come to the fore in the 21st century though, becoming almost the de facto synthesis method for modern plugins.
Native Instruments’ 2007 Massive is the synth responsible for the modern wavetable boom. Its powerful, versatile sound and copious modulation options defined the growling, frequency-filling sound of modern DnB and American EDM. Its popularity has inspired no shortage of evolutions, the most notable being Xfer Records’ Serum, but wavetable oscillators are also a key part of Arturia Pigments, Kilohearts Phase Plant, Bitwig’s Polymer, Ableton Wavetable and KV331 SynthMaster, to name a few. In hardware we have ASM’s fantastic Hydrasynth, Modal’s Argon8 and Waldorf’s Quantum.