Vintage PPG Wave vs Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave
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- Опубликовано: 31 мар 2024
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Thank you Starsky and Barney for doing this comparison! We went to great lengths to make sure this 3rd Wave mode was as spot on as possible including all the oddities of the 2.2 and 2.3. This will allow someone to bring those PPG sounds back to life. Great studio too!
The 3rd Wave has been living in my head since its release and it's probably the only hardware unit I still very much would love to have. The stream of updates has been very impressive.
Thank you for making this fantastic synth, Bob! I still don‘t have it, but I will this very month (April, 2024). 🤩
cheers Bob,
is 3rd wave Surface Mount or through hole technology?
@@Bigger-Circuitry-Bigger-SOUND SMD for the main board. Through hole only for the buttons, encoders and pots. Have a look inside here: till-kopper.de/3rd_wave/3rd_wave_opened.jpg
Great video Starsky! I'm a huge fan of my 3rd Wave but have never played a real PPG, so this was a joy to see how close they are!
General tip for anyone considering buying the 3rd Wave desktop module: make sure you have a good quality keyboard controller with polyphonic aftertouch at a minimum + preferably MPE since the 3rd Wave now supports it!
Great Job as always Starsky! amazing synth!
Can’t wait for your full review
A few former co-workers and friends made that beautiful 3rd wave. :)
👍🏻
Starsky, this video is absolutely spot on. I have always been fascinated by the PPG but never seen or heard one in the real world. I am thinking about buying the 3rd Wave keyboard and your video has answered the question for me. They are the same. I love the PPG sound and the 3rd Wave will give me what I have always wanted. Looking forward to your deep dive video. Thank you for this.
Great, if there’s anything g in particular you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if I can squeeze it in.
Spectacular. Great work.
Bob and co brought us a beautiful instrument that does offer a genuinely more modern take on OG PPG.
This is a desert island bit of kit for me, just need to be able to afford 1 1st.
Props to Barney for rescuing that PPG from the depths of the SAW storage warehouse. That studio looks super fun too!
He’s also got the ‘never gonna give you up’ Fairlight! And their Prophet 5
If you still have the Waldorf M, I would be super interested to see a comparison between that and the 3rd Wave. Direct lineage vs direct inspiration! Appreciate all the work you put in for these detailed vids.
What a wonderful instrument. Can’t wait to get the 3rd Wave and the Super Gemini.
Interesting that at the end you mentioned about the 3rd wave having more bass as that was my immediate thoughts on the first sounds you played. That said I thought later sounds were pretty bang on. Hadn’t considered this synth mainly coz of the price but after playing with it at Superbooth it’s got to go on what’s becoming a long list. Great vid as usual Starskey looking forward to the full one and great to meet and chat with you in Berlin.
I don't have a 3rd wave yet (maybe hopefully later this year). I would love to see that voice semitone offset in the 3rd wave. Basically, if it already has a chord mode, I would use the semitone offset to randomize the octaves of the voices and therefore randomize the inversions of the chord in chord memory. That is like a dream function of mine for a synthesizer. And yes, I do write music that does this sort of thing and it would save me 15-20 minutes of setting that up in a sequencer every time.
Nice comparison, I play the 3rd Wave for a couple of months now and couldn't be happier. However I also played the PPG back in the days. The version 2.0 which has just a bit more grit to it. Very rare those 2.0's hopefully someone can make the comparison with the 2.0 here on youtube.
Oh man! This has those 1984 Depeche Mode Some Great Reward types sounds. I WANT IT!
In that case you should really get a synclavier regen or arturia synclavier V :)
I get considerably more low end on the 3rd Wave examples here on my studio monitors. Mainly audible at the square upper wave. I love the low end on my 3rd wave 😃
I’m not imagining it then. It definitely purely has more depth than the VS
Cheers guys, nice to see a little bit of our Liverpool music culture getting some airtime. Whilst we love the hardware comparisons, real world usage makes one hell of a difference. And Barney, don be so shy mate😂
Very nice. Maybe the 3rd wave should include esq-80 wavetable mutii samples waves. i used to have a sq-80 made good sounds, but the machine was unreliable and broke.
Wonderful comparison. I've never understood why PPG 2.2/2.3 emulations over the years have insisted on limiting themselves to the incomprehensible user interface - I suppose they thought authenticity was more important than usability. But I'm looking forward to having a go with the 3rd Wave at some point, I have been really impressed so far by what I've seen/heard.
Brilliant vid, cheers dear sir
Thanks… glad you like it.
This is so high up on my list to get
😃 I love hearing the 3rd Wave. Great comparison - sounds pretty close to me!
Theres so many great synths right now but the 3rd Wave is truely something special. I still haven't bought one because spending that much on a synth scares the heck out of me. But I think if I owned one I really wouldnt need much else.
This was a very interesting compare. The Polyend Tracker actually plays those PPG wavetables. I'd like to hear a comparo with that as well.
Interesting f I forgot about that.
The number of times I've driven past the wind factory, not know that cool synth studio was in there! (I'm also a scouser)
Top comparison video - nice one
Yeah it’s a very funky space
4k 🎉🎉
Many thanks for this short but very interesting comparison! What do you think about the analog side of the synths? Do the filters sound similar? I know the 3rd Wave uses a modern SSI filter but does it actually sound close to the original? And is it a great sounding filter regardless?
Yeah it’s lovely. It’s got 2 - an SEM style multi mode as well. I’d have gone into more depth but it’s hard to compare on the fly. I normally spend a day or so matching stuff and writing patches but couldn’t do that here. It’s why I asked Barney for his input - he knows the original inside out.
@@StarskyCarr Thanks for you answer!
I own the Waldorf MWII and the Argon-8 and although good synths in their own right, they never quite got close enough to the PPG for my liking. So I jumped on the 3rd wave KB when it was first announced and Iove it. It can be 'dumbed down' to PPG-equivalent settings to sound spot on, and it's certainly easier to get around on than the original, not to mention being a 1/3rd the wealthy collector prices they're going for nowadays.
the waldorf MWII doesn't have analog filters like the MWI. while the MWI sounds fantastic, not sure how it would compare to PPG or 3rd wave though.
Great taster Starsky, I’m just thinking about pushing the button on a 3rd Wave so can’t wait for the review. Does anyone have an opinion on the 3rd Wave over than the Iridium or Quantum for that classic PPG sound?
If you really want the PPG time then this is the one. Iridium is a very good close approximation but not as exacting as this. Iridium is closer to the microwave but the M is much closer still. I’d see the iridium as a very flexible workhorse and amazing sound design tool, but if you want PPG this is the one. Check out my iridium vs M video (more microwave focussed but it gives a good overall impression hopefully)
@@StarskyCarr just watched the Iridium vs M video, as always I appreciate the effort you put into your videos and really like your format. The analogue filter on the M makes all the difference for what I’m looking for, so will definitely be going ahead with 3rd wave. Pity you don’t have any affiliate links in Australia!
Great video.
I do wonder what a Microwave XT vs 3rd Wave play off would be like.
orange vs blue
sweet
I've only got the wave 2 (and I know it differs a bit from the 2.2 and 2.3) so my examples might not be doable on the 2.2. Programming the semitone tuning of each oscillator can be lots of fun, either a wee sequence that plays by repeating one key, or setting each to a different octave can have interesting results, or program each note of a massive chord then set the keyboard to monophonic and play the chord with one key 😊
Barney had never thought of using it as a chord mode, so I was very pleased with myself to suggest it!!
Thank you for this, but it would have been nice to hear more sounds on both synths.
Yeah… I agree but time wouldn’t allow. The vintage unit had its presets overwritten so this was the only original that was also on the 3rd Wave. It takes a lot of time to reprogram things in such an exact way so as not to get annihilated in the comments. Even this needed a little fiddle here and there. Any minor differences are ripped apart in comparisons and it really takes a while to balance everything perfectly.
This is why I asked Barney for his comments as the owner of the original. Between us we’d done enough playing around with the tones and waveforms to get a good understanding.
It would be interesting to hear the 3rd wave vs plug-in comparison.
lol, Nan’s House … love it.
Haha I know. The fireplace is a nice touch as are the lamp and the little tea set on the kitschy coffee table.
The 3rd Wave definitely has massive low end. More bass than any synth I’ve ever used.
Everyone raves about the 3rd Wave as it seems as if they took the PPG wave and put it on steroids. However, programming the 3rd wave seems to be more of a challenge. Thanks for this great video. I’m seriously considering it. This was quite helpful. Cheers!
Programming it to be a 3rd wave is a doddle. Knowing the original PPG wave limitations is another thing. Once you know them it’s easy - but it was such a weird synth you can’t intuitively work it out.
The UI seems very close to something like a Prophet Rev2, which I own one of and has the best, most straight towards controls of any synth I've owned.
In other words - I'm pretty confident the sound design process is a breeze based on what I'm seeing. ( At least on the full keys version )
I just don't have the guts to spend that much on a synth yet.
it's butter to design on the 3rd wave
Even in a RUclips video with it's compression and stuff, the PPG sounds more raw, and more punch, the PPG 2.0 is even more of that, a friend of mine had it (was on repair all the time), it sounded like a force of nature, it was like digital made of flesh and blood, crazy. My MicroWave 1 in comparision sounded hollow and weak.
If you want to get all of these kind of sounds a lot cheaper and with less options do you recon the Waldorf M would do the trick?
I have an M and 3rd Wave. M can absolutely get you there but I find a pain compared to the 3W. It’s still a bit buggy and some of the menu options are plain odd - and I say that as a former PPG owner 😂
M can load samples though, which is a lot more useful than it sounds, especially in PPG-context. M has over 1500 patch locations - I’ve filled mine and in honesty use it mostly as a (brilliant) tweakable preset synth now.
The 3W is much more inviting to program.
I have the M so maybe I’ll throw them together at some point.
@@StarskyCarr I’d absolutely love to see a comparison of the M and 3rd Wave!
Wild pedigree!
The PPG Wave has unique sounds and the 3rd Wave seems to emulate them very well.
Absolutely. The trick is just limiting the functions on the 3rd wave, but the sound engine in ‘PPG mode’ has all the same artefacts- maybe not 100% exact but definitely close enough to give the same vibe.
Are these two machines not running the same waverables? If so, I'm not surprised that they should sound alike. I would think that an A-B comparison would only identify architectural variances, which are hopefully minimal.
They are running the same wavetables. The architectural differences can result in huge discrepancies if it’s not processed correctly. Take a look at my Behringer ProVS versus the Prophet VS - same wavetables but completely different tones. The processor speed matching the original is essential which was @240kHz per voice. That had 8 voices this has 32. So it’s not as simple as just playing the wave. Interpolation between notes etc has to be the same.
Here they’ve added PPG envelopes, we have the same sized waves, (in the PPG section at least) and options for no anti-imaging or anti-aliasing same as the original plus no wavetable smoothing, reverse Key to wave .. so all those little bits that create the vintage sound.
You can have it running smooth in the normal 96kHz mode
I'd be interested to know which VST's are closest to the 3rd Wave. It's out of my price range, unfortunately.
I’d say something like arturia pigments. It has VA or wavetable (plus extras), also lots of LFOs and envelopes and a couple of filters per tone plus onboard FX
It's nice but I'll never be able to afford either. Have to stick to my wavestation :)
How dou you think the "M" compares to these? Nice video btw =)
Thanks. I’ll have to get the
M out at some point
@@StarskyCarr Yes please! :)
If there is a difference, it will be only the sound quality due to the da converter.
Yeah.. it’s well close enough. If that’s what you’re after.
Filters, resonance and the speed of the attacks and envelopes would have been interesting to compare.
Yeah. We played round with everything but didn’t get a perfect take with everything recording .. it all got a bit complex doing it out of my studio without all my bits. The takes we got weren’t ideal and I get slaughtered if anything’s not exact! That’s why I asked Barney for his take ‘on record’ - he’s had this one for years and knows it inside out.
If I owned a classic (and notoriously trouble prone) PPG 2.2/2.3 I would sell it in a heartbeat to get a 3rd Wave. Could probably afford the keyboard _and_ the module for what I could sell the OG for.
Haha easily!
I used to own a PPG Wave 2.3 and played a friend's 3rd Wave for several hours. They can sound very similar but so can the Wave and the Waldorf M, which I bought to replace the PPG. I was a bit disappointed in the 3rd Wave. It could have been developed to do much more, but then again, that emotion saved me a lot of money.
@@Pepijn_a.k.a._Akikaze - 3rd Wave does more than a Waldorf M, which is really just a clone of the original Microwave that almost but not quite nails it's predecessor.
I'd sell several PPG Waves to get a Waldorf Wave. And I'd have to. 😂
@@ropeburn6684 - I would too. It's a better machine. But then I would rather have a 3rd Wave keyboard _and_ several 3rd Wave modules than a Wave.
Do you think the iridium gets anywhere close?
I made a Waldorf M vs Iridium video a while ago. I was concentrating on Microwave sound and the Iridium is close , but not quite the same. For most purposes it would be ok I think, unless your looking for really PPG specific artefacts etc Also I can’t remember if it has the PPG wavetables
Wouldnt sell the ppg for the 3rd wave, while sounds nice for experience new means worst when it comes to hardware that emulates hardware
Where's the Wave Surfer knob on the Desktop model?
there's a dedicated button for it that enables the first encoder above the screen to act as that knob
@@NikoNoxious ha. Good call
@jumpingman8160 I wish it looked as cool as the keyboard knob does tho- snazzy
I had several PPG waves for about 14 years in the past 37 years. And I got a PPG wave 2.3 at the moment. And its next to my 3rd Wave keyboard and my Waldorf M. The yellow text shown in the video at 2:34 is wrong. "KF" o the Digital Page stand for Keyboard to Filter. This is the filter tracking. And "KF3" is NOT zero filter tracking. "KF0" is zero Filter Tracking. "KF3" is 1:1 Filter tracking. And "KF4" is not "no loudness tracking" as stated in the video. "KL" is the name of the Keyboard to Loudness parameter. This one is bipolar. So "KL4" is zero loudness change by the keyboard. "KL7" is max keyboard to loudness. See at 2:56 of the video for the correct information. And the letters are printed below the LCD for easy reference. See them at 2:45. And "touch sensor" = aftertouch. And Modulation = LFO (with the mod wheel always attenuating the max amount). The velocity of the PPG wave keybeds is actually not available. You ned to use a MIDi keyboard or the PPG PRK keyboard for this. Greetings from a PPG enthusiast.
Nice info thanks. Good job I never changed the setting then… as it was sounding right. But… on this one KF3 and KF4 are definitely the zero points (as in zero effect, centre of a Bipolar mod). The cheat sheet I show momentarily is what Barney uses for his 2.2 - also these are the same settings as the 3rd wave manual. Possibly a difference in terminology? I’m using ‘keyboard tracking’ as shorthand for keyboard to filter - It results in the same effect as keyboard tracking on a filter on most synths - so without going into finite detail it’s easy for folks to understand what’s happening. Same with keyboard to loudness.
Btw how do you find the 3rd wave vs your vintage kit? Barney was very impressed.
@@StarskyCarr The 3rd Wave comes closer to the PPG sound than the Waldorf Synths. The Waldorf M is the second best. But only the PPG waves 2.2 and 2.3 got this very special aliasing in their bass notes.
@@StarskyCarr The cheat sheet I got (german version) and the one you show at 2:55 both state: KF 0-7 Keyfollow Filter , 0 - no influence,: 3 - 1:1; 7 - 1:2. This also like in the PPG wave manual, where the keytracking is also from zero (parameter KF=0) to 1 octave on the keybed gives two octaves of filter (KF=7). There is for sure no negative filter keytracking on the PPG wave. KL is bipolar. Not KF.
Ahh ok cheers! Gotcha. I was following orders and concentrating on sounds so must got mixed up. 👍
I've read that this can't do the choir sound of the PPG. Wish you would have tried to replicate that
It can 👍🏻
I don’t see why it couldn’t. We did try a few things and they all worked. It was my first time doing something like this out of my own studio so I didn’t manage to capture everything I wanted.
@@StarskyCarr it absolutely can. There’s a whole section of the 3W thread on Gearspace which pulls that patch apart.
@@StarskyCarr I stand corrected. The 3rd Wave was unable to recreate the patch due to how it treated the upper wavetables in earlier firmware. As of 1.4 and beyond, the choir patch is possible
The original seems less complex than the remake.
And the price ... well, I guess it reflects the limited number they expect to sell. But for 4000 EUR it wouldn't hurt to include MIDI 2.0 in the year 2024.
The price also reflects things like 48 analog filters. And yeah this is much more comprehensive. It’s also a great VA. 6 synths in 1 etc.
I’ve not used anything with MIDI 2.0 yet. .. at least I don’t think I have.
@@StarskyCarr It's either hardware for me, in which case I won't invest unless it's MIDI 2.0, or I stick with software, such as the PPG Wave 3.V by Waldorf.
But who am I kidding? I can't afford all that expensive gear anyway, and I prefer to keep both kidneys.
Would be nice to see a side by side comparison between hardware and VST though.
@@StarskyCarrAnything people compare to the 3rd wave doesn’t have 4 separate synths in the one keyboard like the 3rd Wave, so the price gripe is kind of a non starter. Compare buying 4 identical copies of the comparison synth and add up the cost…now compare the price.
@@entropybentwhistlebang on
Waldorf M is not a PPG, it's a modern Microwave. You can do things with it that no 3rd wave can.
+1 for a comparison between the two.
I owned both for the better part of a year, and was able to recreate all of my favorite M patches on the 3rd Wave. Both are great synths, but for sound, stability of firmware and ease of programability I ended up keeping the 3rd Wave and selling the M.
The new one seems to sound a lot deeper.
Possibly. We did take a look at the FA graphs but it wasn’t obvious. I thought it had more bass than my Proohet VS as well as- possibly just better A/D converters these days or something. Easily sorted with some delicate EQ (but we still weren’t convinced if it was the synths, the desk, the volume etc).
cannot wait for the Behringer PPG clone to come out
It might do what the PPG did but not what the 3rd Wave does.
I'm super curious what theyre gonna do with it. For instance I wonder if it'll have wave smoothing, user wavetables, effects?
I know they like to keep the price down but a few bells and whistles would be really cool.
@@osirismaximus2787 - They will do what they do - Get it as close to the original as they can using their standard OS and chip sets. Other than the Poly AT keybed (best thing to come out of Behringer in years) and (probably) a doubling of polyphony I would not expect much, if anything in the way of new features. They sell nostalgia.
tbh those upgrades Poly AT and voice count increase is totally enough for me@@MFitz12
Same here.
Isn’t this 3rd Wave ridiculously expensive?
Well it's cheaper than an original PPG
@@Wagoo which is easy, because original PPG is a historical and rare kind of gear…
Pee Pee Gee.
Do I detect a Wirral accent?
How dare you sir!! ;) Other side of the river.
@@StarskyCarr Should have kept me mouth shut!
It almost sounds as if the R & D staff at Groove Synthesis went so far as to duplicate the hi-frequency aliasing of the Wave 2. Of course, one patching upset regarding comparing 3rd Wave with the Wave 2 would be that the Wave 2 (if I’m not mistaken) doesn’t have a touch-sensitive keyboard, whereas 3rd Wave (likely) responds to touch response.
That first patch puts me in mind of one record I know was played almost exclusively on PPG keys/synths, *Bach Handel 300.* It also puts me in mind of the score from a Canadian film called The Peanut Butter Solution (composer Lewis Furey may have owned a Wave 2).
Yeah but you can turn off the touch sensitivity, so that’s not an issue. 👍
Different sound. Different user interface. Different synths.
Obviously 😀… but Barney was taken by the sound. As a replacement for an ageing and delicate synth it definitely hits the mark. Nothing’s going to replace a vintage unit like for like. And why would anyone want to do that anyway? I’ve got a couple of rack fulls of vintage synths and I know nothing would be the same… for as many bad reasons as good.
Is stupid that people sells a synth because it was used on X song. The synth didn't do the magic, it was the writer, they could have used any other synth or sampler available and end up with the same hit.
Haha.. of course… but they didn’t 🪄it’s all about the magic.. not really it all about the fun of it.
I loved your iridium videos and I own the Waldorf iridium keyboard now. I love it!
Do you think there is too much crossover between 3rd wave and Iridium, or do they compliment each other?
You're right in that they are quite similar in lots of ways. Both have wavetables and can do analog stuff. The 3W obviously has analog filters, that may or may not be important for some. This does the old style 8 bit tone much more convincingly, although the Iridium does have its vintage modes. There's something really nice about the way you interact with this. It has much more of the classic experience whereas the Iridium is much more contemporary. I think that's where I'd put the main difference other than the tone tbh. I'd say they complement each other.. but then I do have the M and an XT as well! They all complement each other.
I love that fun fact! Music history synths ROCK! Excellent video!