Even though I've been using synthesizers since the early 80ies, especially subtractive and FM, I'm not very familiar with wavetable synths. Being a fan of Tangerine Dream, I have heard a lot of PPG sounds, but I've never programmed a PPG or Microwave myself. After listening to the WT oscillators on Solaris and reading about PPG Wave on the Internet, I'm still unsure about how to program these oscillators. The wavetables containing a single harmonic progression are, of course, usefully sweepable over an arbitrary range, up to the entire table. But what is the best use of tables containing several progressions (e.g.
#14 or
#18)? Should only part of such a table be swept?
I realise that there are no binding rules on this matter, and one may say that anything goes as long as it sounds good. However, I hope that someone with experience of wavetable synthesis would give a bit of advice so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.
There are some WT presets among the presets delivered with Solaris. I'd like to ask John and other Solaris users for more WT presets, possibly recreating some famous PPG sounds. Such presets would also have an educational use by demonstrating another side of the vast synthesis capabilities of Solaris.
