Der Wave konnte dann ja noch mehr in Sachen Wavetable Erstellungen. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema.
Unvergessen, als Claudius Brüse das damals auf der Musikmesse in Frankfurt vorgeführt hat. Ich zitiere hier meinen zeitgenössischen Bericht von 1993, wie er bei Google Groups gefunden werden kann:
So, here we are, the promised report on the TSI shows WAVE MUSIC DEMO and
INSIDE THE WAVE.
WAVE MUSIC DEMO
The Waldorf Wave live on stage (Axel Hartmann)
This show continued the tradition of bone shaking Messe-Demos by
A. Hartmann (thanks to him, we now have this wonderfull BIG RED KNOB)
as during the last years.
Before this show they had a slide show, featuring all products,
distibuted by TSI, ending with pictures of the PPG Wave and the
Waldorf Wave. Then the silver screen rose up and to shimmering
(Micro)Wave sounds Axel sift out of the fog, hit by a spot.
To a running sequence driving two or three MicroWaves and a
drum machine (can't remember which one) he played live on the Wave.
Driving beat, more than enough volume to stir up the contents of
your stomach and the great analog/hybrid/digital sounds of the Wave.
Well, words can't describe the mood of this show. Well, MY words can't.
INSIDE THE WAVE
Introduction into the mysteries of the Waldorf Wave (Claudius Bruese)
I take part in the show 3.00 pm. The soundproof demo-box was filled up
with lots of curious people. C. Bruese (the Wave is his brainchild)
explained the new features of the Wave (dynamic spectral wavetable etc.)
while playing some music. The first persons left the box ("Oh, there is no
piano in it, let's have a look at the 01/W"). Then he stated the advantages
of the full front panel. To demonstrate this, he switched to the init-
sound, tweaked some knobs, filled with enthusiasm like a child. During
this, he continued to play some notes. The resulting unpleasant sound
at this high volume drove away the next few listeners. So we were left
with only the people which are really interested in the Wave.
Next point, the multiple modulation possibilities. Play speed as a
modulation source. Number of pressed keys as a modulation source. Hold
a chord with four voices, pad sound. The fifth note pressed, triggers a
complete different solo-sound, independend of key number. Pad in mid range,
solo with high or low notes.
The wavetable editor. Using the eight sliders, you can create new
wavetables, either by defining the intensity of the harmonics, drawing
in the time-domain or by means of frequency modulation. Create some
waves and put them into a wavetable. Each fader movement can be heard
in real-time. There are some glitches and pops during the editing
process, because the Wave displays time-domain and frequency-domain
simultaneously. They are gone in play mode.
Sample conversion. C.B. loaded a two second sample of someone saying MYSTERY.
The Wave did spectral analysis of this sound, and some seconds later C.B.
played the sound. You could hear the Wave singing MYSTERY. The quality
is not best of all, but it's OK, they don't want to compete with full
featured resynthesizers, so they don't call it resynthesis.
To my disapproval, he didn't demonstrate the multi-mode filter, so there is
some mystery left. An ad of the Syntesizer Studio Bonn stated an additional
12 dB high-pass filter, but they stated end of february as the release
date of the Wave, so who knows. The 24 dB low-pass plus panning unit, CEM
something remains the same as in the MicroWave.
During the show he mentioned all those features of the Wave, which can be
found in the 1993 Messe Flyer (see corresponding posting).
After the show I asked C. Bruese some questions. He was very short and
uninformative. The structure of the waves and wavetables remains
mainly the some, he said. Same resolution (No of bits, No of steps).
I'm pretty shure, they use the some ASIC in MicroWave and Wave. I
tried to get more information about the sample conversion/analysis.
Can one say, I asked, I like high resolution time-wise in the beginnig
of the sample, lower at the end? Or is whatever analysis done in
equidistant steps, giving the waves of a wavetable, which is than
scanend to recreate the time evolution of the spectra? Well, the answer was
actually none, at last in my opinion. He said, the Wave does no FFT, it looks
at the spectrum, or at spectral groups, taking an overall approach, or some
other blurb similiar in information contents. I think, he didn't want to
give an answer.
Later I asked Axel Hartman about the price and the release date. According
to his words, the Wave will be released in June or July, the price will be
14.000,- DM. They have allready orders from Vangelis and J.M. Jarre, to
name some.
He think that they sold 2500 to 3500 MicroWave's worldwide until now.