Wavetable Synthesis - Wavetable

Wavetable

In the context of wavetable synthesis a wavetable is a collection of single-cycle waveforms. Together with the wave modulation it defines the basic sound, which is then often altered by additional post-processing like filtering. The structure of the wavetable, that is the number and length of entries, depends on the actual implementation. The individual waveforms and their placement in the wavetable have to follow the musical intent as well as the modulation capabilities of the synthesis engine. The creation of new wavetables was therefore a difficult process unless supported by specialized editing facilities and (near) real-time playback of edited wavetables on the synthesizer. Such editors often require the use of extra hardware devices like the PPG Waveterm or are only present in expensive models like the Waldorf WAVE. More commonly pre-computed wavetables can be added via memory cards or sent to the synthesizer via MIDI. Today wavetables can be created more easily by software and auditioned directly on the computer. Since all waveforms used in wavetable synthesis are periodic, the time-domain and frequency-domain representation are exact equivalents of each other and both can be used simultaneously to define waveforms and wavetables.