A short history of wavetable synthesis
Answer in brief
Wolfgang Palm turned stored single-cycle waves into a playable instrument at PPG in Hamburg in the late 1970s. Waldorf carried the method through the 1990s, and software such as Massive, Serum and Vital made it one of the most common ways to build a synth sound.
Before the PPG
Storing one cycle of a wave and reading it back is older than any wavetable synth. Wikipedia’s history traces a wavetable oscillator to Max Mathews’ MUSIC II program in 1958, and Hal Chamberlin wrote about the technique in Byte magazine in 1977. What was still missing was an instrument that let a player move between many stored waves while a note played.
Wolfgang Palm and PPG
Wolfgang Palm, a keyboard player from Hamburg, had his company Palm Products GmbH, known as PPG, operating by 1975. Its Wavecomputer 360 of 1978 already held 30 wavetables of 64 waves each, but with no filters it sounded thin. The PPG Wave followed in 1981 and paired the digital oscillators with analog filters. The Wave 2.2 arrived in 1982 and the Wave 2.3 in 1984.
A costly instrument that shaped the 1980s
Sound On Sound described a full system with the Waveterm sampling computer as costing about twice as much as the Wave on its own. Acts including Tangerine Dream, Depeche Mode and a-ha played one, and the 8-bit waves of the Wave 2 and 2.2 gave it a grainy edge. PPG stopped trading in 1987.
Waldorf carries the line on
Waldorf was founded in 1988 by Wolfgang Düren, who had been PPG’s German distributor. Its first instrument was the Microwave of 1989, built on a custom chip that Waldorf says Palm helped design and paired with analog filters. The much larger Waldorf Wave followed in the early 1990s. Today the line continues in software with the Waldorf PPG Wave 3.V and the Waldorf Microwave 1 Plugin and in hardware with the Waldorf Iridium Keyboard.
Software takes over
Once computers were fast enough the method moved into plugins. Waldorf released a PPG Wave 2.V plugin in 2000, and Native Instruments’ Massive arrived in 2006 and became one of the most popular synths for dance music production. Xfer Records launched Serum in September 2014, built around a visual editor for drawing, importing and morphing tables. Ableton announced Wavetable for Live 10 in late 2017, and Matt Tytel released Vital with a free version in November 2020. Serum 2 followed in March 2025 with sample, granular and spectral oscillators beside the wavetable one.
Hardware is still made
Waldorf calls its Iridium a direct descendant of the PPG Wave. Korg says the modwave, released in 2021, builds on its 1985 DW-8000, which combined digital waves with analog filters, and the Korg modwave mkII now carries that line. Behringer released a hardware clone of the PPG Wave 2.2 and 2.3 in 2024.
Sources for this page
- Studio 56: Studio 56’s official website, the publisher of this reference.
- Waldorf PPG Wave 3.V: Waldorf PPG Wave 3.V’s official page, the source of its description here.
- Waldorf Microwave 1 Plugin: Waldorf Microwave 1 Plugin’s official page, the source of its description here.
- Vital: Vital’s official page, the source of its description here.
- Korg modwave mkII: Korg modwave mkII’s official page, the source of its description here.
- Waldorf Iridium Keyboard: Waldorf Iridium Keyboard’s official page, the source of its description here.
- Wikipedia: Wavetable synthesis: Max Mathews’ MUSIC II in 1958, Hal Chamberlin in Byte in 1977 and Palm’s work in the late 1970s.
- Wikipedia: Wolfgang Palm: Palm’s Hamburg background and PPG operating by 1975.
- Wikipedia: PPG Wave: The Wavecomputer 360 in 1978, the Wave models and years, their 8-bit waves, users, the end of PPG in 1987 and the 2024 Behringer clone.
- Sound On Sound: PPG Wave 2.3 and Waveterm B (December 1996): The original prices of the Wave and of a full system with the Waveterm.
- Wikipedia: Waldorf Music: Waldorf’s founding in 1988 by Wolfgang Düren, the Microwave in 1989 and the PPG Wave 2.V plugin in 2000.
- Ableton blog: The New Wave, an in-depth look at Live 10’s Wavetable (November 2017): The PPG Wave in 1981, Waldorf’s roots in a former PPG distributor and the Wavetable instrument for Live 10.
- Wikipedia: NI Massive: Massive’s release in 2006 and its popularity for dance music production.
- MusicTech: Serum 2 is finally here (March 18, 2025): Serum’s launch in September 2014 and the arrival of Serum 2.
- Synthtopia: New software synthesizer Vital (November 21, 2020): Vital’s release by Matt Tytel in November 2020 with a free version.
The practical advice here is our own. A maker's description of its product is not a test of how it performs.
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Cite this page
Wavetable Synth. “A short history of wavetable synthesis.” Studio 56 Reference. Content reviewed November 8, 2026.
https://wavetablesynth.com/history/