[sdiy] PPG sacrilege!

[Aaron Lanterman]

On Wed, 10 May 2006, Paul Maddox wrote:

> OW!!

Eeek - I didn't mean for that lecture to come off as anti-PPG. I have an 
original Microwave and I love it - if I were to start selling off my other 
hardware, it would be the last thing to go. (I also have a Prophet VS 
rack, so I am a fan of the wavetable thing.) I would certainly not kick a 
Wave 2.3 out of bed. ;)

> The waveforms in the PPG were *NOT* sampled, they were generated in a 
> very very old 4809 based computer.

Did I say they were? Shoot, didn't mean to if I did. I might have been 
getting it mixed up with the Prophet VS - I recall the waves from that 
came from a variety of sources.

As the course progressed I got more ond more busy with non-course related 
things (I graduated two PhD students this semester and got to "hood" them 
at graduation last Saturday! Yay!) so the lectures get less and less 
coherent.

> How can you say that the wavecomputer sounded horrible??? I'd like to 
> suggest buy 'Windpower' by thomas dolby, and turn it up loud.. the bass 
> line is from a PPG 340/380 system.

I have to confess I was just quoting what I'd heard from various sources. 
I've never actually heard or seen any of the early PPG digitals in person.

> The reason the PPG crashed was because people used to chuck synths 
> around, I had a 2.2 and it was ROCK SOLID. A PPG was no less reliable 
> than any 'cutting edge' synth at the time (memory moog anyone?)

Again, was just quoting what I'd heard. ;)

> your picture of the microwave is of a microwaveII, which is DSP.
> The microwave I is digital oscillators and analogue filters.

Ooops - darn. I was in a big hurry putting that lecture together.

> The DX7 wasn't the death of PPG, it was poor marketing and 'over 
> reaching' themselves with the Realizer.

That certainly is true - but when the DX7 came out at its price point, it 
must have taken a bite into PPG, no?

> Further points,
> The Wave 2.0, 2.2 and 2.3 *ALL* played back waveforms in 8bit format!
> The wave 2.2 had the ability to play 8 bit samples, sent to it from the 
> waveterm-A
> The wave 2.3 had the ability to play 12bit samples, again, sent from the 
> waveterm-B

Oh, the first point there I didn't know - I thought the wavetables in the 
2.3 were 12 bit.

> BTW, Thanks for the plug of the Monowave :-)

Did you know that the Monowave filter was part of one of my homework 
problems? Check out HW #6... ;)

- Aaron

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