112 How to Sound Like a Vintage PPG
Groove Synthesis
Group B could be any wavetable that you selected, but Group A would
always be wavetable 30.
The 3rd Wave allows up to 4 multi-parts/sounds simultaneously, so it is
easy to create this effect by assigning two different “P” wavetables to
multi-part 1 and multi-part 2 (Group A and Group B on the PPG, respec-
tively).
Use Just Two Oscillators and Detune Them
The last thing to remember is that the PPG had only 2 oscillators per
voice — unlike the 3rd Wave which has 3 oscillators per voice. Also, on
the PPG, both oscillators had to use the same wavetable. So, even though
the 3rd Wave allows you to choose a different wavetable for each of its
three oscillators, to be authentic, use only two oscillators and choose
the same wavetable on both oscillators. If this sounds limiting, you can
always set the wave offset differently on each oscillator. For instance,
Oscillator 1 can have an offset of 2 on a given wavetable and oscillator 2
can have an offset of 14. This is what allowed PPG sounds to have more
variety even though they had to use the same wavetable.
Don’t forget to detune the two oscillators in order to sound authentic.
Look at some of the factory patches in the 3rd Wave that are recreations
of PPG presets. A common technique is to set the Fine control of Oscil-
lator 1 to -3 and the Fine control of Oscillator 2 to +3. On the PPG, this
was equivalent to a Detune setting of 2 in the Tuning section. Some
of the original PPG programs went much further than this, so don’t be
afraid to go further.
Use “Circuit Drift”
Finally, use the
circuit drift parameter in the 3rd Wave’s misc menu to
add voice-to-voice micro-variations in oscillator pitch, envelope times,
cutoff frequencies, and other parameters. This gives an organic feel with
considerable movement. A setting of 64 is a good place to start.
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