The PPG 360 Wavecomputer was the first serial produced synthesizer featuring wavetable synthesis.
That is if you are one of those persons that consider approximately 40 produced units to be serial production.
The PPG 360 Wavecomputer came in two versions; a 4 and an 8 voice configuration.
It had 30 different wavetables, 100 presets of which 30 were ROM programs showing the 30 different individual wavetables (program 1 utilizing wavetable 1 - program 2 wavetable 2 and so forth), and the machine was using 8 bit wavetables.
It did not feature any kind of filtering, and could roughly be compared to something like a PPG Wave 2 with no filters, no LC display and no knobs for tweaking the sounds.
Not that you couldn't create your own presets on it - you could - it just mainly used sliders instead of the knobs we're so familar with these days.
Also - it was not blue but black or grey (I think I saw a dark-blue one as well at some point - but not 'PPG blue').
It was not exactly a huge success as musicians at that time found it cold and digital - which it in many ways is.
This being in the late seventies where most keyboard players wanted analog filters and analog oscillators.
So Mr. Palm had to get back to the drawing board and created the PPG Wave 2 a few years later in 1981 - a worthy follow-up.
Inside the PPG 360 Wavecomputer you would see two or four separate voice boards as its voice boards held two voices each.
My PPG 360 Wavecomputer is serial # 007 and looks kind of like a prototype inside.
All kinds of manual wiring and soldering and not all connectors are ... connected. I truly love the sound of this thing despite it's unreliability - and I couldn't see my studio or PPG collection being without it.
|