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Last week Behringer announced the launch of the Behringer Wave. The new instrument takes inspiration from the legendary PPG Wave sold in the 1980's. .
PPG Wave
Many will see this as a clone and uninspired copy of the 80's synth designed by the German company Palm Products GmbH.
The feature that distinguished the PPG Wave from the rest of the market in this early to mid 1980's period was the concept of wavetable synthesis, at a time when all the other manufacturers were still promoting simple waveforms to create the synthesiser's tonal qualities.
Wavetable synthesis was developed in 1958. Wolfgang Palm, the designer behind the PPG Wave, developed the concept further during the 1970's leading to the development of the original PPG Wave series of synthesisers between 1981 and 1987.
Following the demise of Palm Products, another German company Waldorf continued the development of the wavetable concepts.
Behringer Wave Development
Following the announcement in 2020 that the Wave was under development it took Behringer 4-years to develop the new Behringer Wave. Most of that would have been reverse engineering the original analogue circuitry and porting this across to the ARM production platform that Behringer had developed for this and several other classic synth re-imaginations that Behringer has announced.
Like the Behringer UB-Xa that dropped into the market at about the same point in 2023, the Wave uses a combination of digital circuitry modelling and analogue components to generate the distinctive PPG characteristics.
The Wave is delivered as a 49-key synthesiser and uses the same blue and white colour scheme as the original PPG Wave 2.2 synthesiser it was modelled after. In addition to the wavetable synthesis the instrument is presented with a step sequencer and arpeggiator.
A feature that I spotted on the promotional material is that in addition to the Stereo outputs, the synth has 8 further mono outputs, one for each voice being generated.
If you can find one, you would expect to pay £10,000 or more for the PPG Wave 2.2 so at sub £/$600 this instrument looks like it is worth further investigation.
Behringer Wave alternative
There is of course another alternative to the Behringer instrument. Groove Synthesis launched the 3rd Wave analogue synthesiser a few years ago. Again, keeping with the original aesthetics. How does this compare to the Behringer Wave instrument, we will have to wait for either someone with deep pockets to put them side to side or one of the music portals to persuade both manufactures to put them up for test. I am sure Behringer would love this, not sure Groove would be as enthusiastic.
The 3rd Wave currently retails at £4,850 in the UK.
Until next time....
About the Author
Jon describes himself as a frustrated musician with a passion for the electronic instruments that help him and other musicians be creative. He started playing keyboards in his late teens and re-ignited his passion and built a new studio following his seperation.
About the Blog
The Music Tech Guy UK's Blog, Website and YouTube channel were started to share Jon's experiences and views on the industry at large and how these effect the small musician. Plus technical tips how to configure and maintain the equipment he owns.
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