The latest video from gstormelectro offers a review of the Behringer Wave synthesizer.
Video Summary:
“Today I am giving a user review of the new Behringer Wave. My personal thoughts and opinions. I bought this synth with my own tax refund money. So nobody has input into what I’m posting here today.
The Wave is promoted as a faithful reproduction of the PPG Wave 2.3 digital synthesizer in all its lo-fi glory. With a touch of some modern feature additions. While I have tried a friend’s original PPG, this is not a comparison to the original. Nor is this an exhaustive how-to, nor covering all features.”
Topics covered:
0:00 Introduction and Brief Overview
1:01 Build Quality
2:23 Features, Sound
4:39 User Interface and the Synthtribe App
6:10 Final Thoughts
7:59 One more thing
Cool, for that guy. I dont get any tax refund this year…
Congratulations, you make a living wage.
Easy now. Whether or not you get a refund has nothing to do with making a living wage. You can make nothing and withhold nothing, or make a lot and withhold the right amount too little, and either way you’d have no refund.
I am a bitter person, don’t mind me.
Ridiculous comment about living wage
Come to Cayman islands
nice to see someone else’s hands for a change. what was that siri’s uncle?
wave is a clone, so if you are not into 80s, it is not for you – better buy a modern wavetable synth and be happy. for an 80s guy like me, it is great. i used a PPG system back in the day for studio work, so the wave takes me back to these days. understanding the menus of wave is a lot easier than most people think, it is actually quite straightforward with some small exceptions. sound is great, especially in combination with my UB-Xa. i disagree with the video on the panel being dirty easily, mine is not. maybe i do not touch it as often, i touch knobs and keys only.
The panel is dirty because he has been kissing it, which it quite common practice for people with new synths!
The sounds of the PPG Wave are cool,
the antiquated, pre-historic menu-implementation of the Behringer Wave is cumbersome.
In that regard, a Korg Modwave with a PPG soundset is much more acommodating and a lot more versatile.
I was a big Ultravox fan back in the day and still am. Ultravox was one of the early users of the PPG Wave. I wanted a PPG Wave back then but was nowhere near being able to afford it (heck, I wanted a lot of synths that I couldn’t afford). When the PPG Wave bass synth kicks in at 0:18 in this Ultravox song, it sounded great when I cranked it on my stereo back in the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug4QIKJR9yQ
I was/am also a Rush fan. Rush was another early user of the PPG Wave. I always thought that the PPG Wave used throughout this song sounded great. I especially like that PPG note at 1:54:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxwRzW6ehAU
Maybe I’ll order a Behringer Wave for the sounds and nostalgia factor.
you can have mine, i’m not paying any fake tariffs.
Setting aside any preconceptions or side debates, if someone handed me one of these for a trial run, I’d have to call it a win. I’m not wild about the plastic shafts or the base GUI, but the editor pushes a lot of those worries into the background. The multiple outs usually appear on more upscale instruments. I’m curious to see if it starts appearing over a few Nords. Check out the hot red/blue action.
If I have to use a computer-based editor because the UI is a copy of the wildly cryptic PPG interface from the early 1980s, I might as well just buy Waldorf’s Microwave 1 plugin and save myself hundreds of Eurodollars. Life is too short for cryptic hardware, especially when the unit is so confusing that it doesn’t even have a “save” button for patches.
Yeah, but it’s big and blue and has lots of keys.
If you squint when looking at it, or are 3 beers in, it also looks kinda sexy in that way that only a synth can look sexy.
I guess I’m trying to say it is a very aesthetically pleasing synth, to me anyway.
Tactile.
Insert other words here.
Not buying one though.
Too big, too blue.
A Modwave though…..
I think you have to take this synth at face value: it is an excellent replica of a vintage hybrid digital/analogue synth, and it does that very well.
It’s a bit like complaining about an AC Cobra replica:
It’s not a Porsche, or a Lotus, and a Ferrari would get you round the track quicker.
It doesn’t have the giant screen of a Tesla.
It’s not as fast or versatile as driving virtual cars in Gran Tourismo.
But it is a head-turning gorgeous fast and rowdy v8 sports convertible, with no ABS or traction control. And that’s what it’s meant to be.
(There’s no radio either cause you’d never hear it anyway.)
All joking aside, I’m a massive fan out the individual out for the 8 voices.
I feel a lot of modern synths, while still really amazing, lack the connectivity and multi timbrality of the synths of yesteryear.
I still regularly use my little Novation Nova exactly for that reason.
I guess Roland do multi out via USB on a lot of their newer stuff (and that is probably the way things are going), but no one else is really doing multi out and multi timbrality on mainstream syths anymore it seems.