It’s not always on. You toggle Multimode on in the Global settings. One program (which is unique) consists of the 4 parts and you load 4 new parts on the next program. You can load any other part from any other program manually. So a program is a container of 4 parts like the way Sequential synths work.
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Played around with the keyboard version of this synth at Schneidersladen today and my what a synth!!! The sound is rich and powerful but that user interface!! Best & most interesting wavetable UI I’ve experienced on a hardware wavetable synth so far.
The freaking thing is too expensive for me, also because I already own an Iridium Keyboard, but in a room with a Prophet 5/6, Super Gemini and more, the 3rd Wave stood out to me big time.
I hope those of you who own one love it dearly!
EDIT: I’m gonna Macro that Wave Surfer knob on my Iridium, such a cool idea and a real nice knob for that function too 
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I have a desktop version and am getting some clicks/static. Any other owners encounter this?
Both amp and filter envelopes have attack of 2, and increasing attack doesn’t help.
Not here. Are you using an init patch?
Nope, it was the attached patch.
I wrote to Groove Synthesis and they wrote me back within a couple hours, which is awesome. He wrote:
“I played around with it, and I can hear the same clicking. To me, it sounds like there is some kind of discontinuity happening when you play quickly and voices are stolen. It is easiest to hear when the audio is being low pass filtered with a low cutoff. I will look into it more and get back to you soon.”
They are super responsive, which is great… but then yesterday I was messing around with a simple patch for sub bass consisting of a couple sine waves and I got more clicking. Either my unit has a bad case of the clicks or something about my poor sound design skills keeps landing me in clickville.
I hope it’s fixable because there are things about this synth I love.
B05P065.pro (7.0 KB)
For posterity: the team at Groove Synthesis solved this issue by fixing the voice allocation logic. It will be in the next firmware update. Very responsive team over there
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This looks PERFECT for my purposes. I really wanted a 3rd Wave back in the studio, but with the Gemini, I don’t really need 24 voices, just the sound architecture and a few voices. I am getting one of these as soon as able. 
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At $2000, this is one I’d actually consider! The price point of the original was just so far outside of my music budget it was hard for me to be interested. I’m still a huge fan of the blue 
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I would definitely go for the 8M if I was to buy the 3rd Wave today. 4 parts is cool but not that necessary when I also have the DN2. I’m heading to SuperBooth now so will check it.
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For me, the Hydrasynth is more than sufficient when it comes to Wavetables. I’ve tried other Wavetable Synths but ended up returning to the HS. And apart from « grooveboxes » like Elektrons, I prefer one Synth, one Sound.
Nice, have fun!
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Does anyone know if they updated the 3rd Wave to allow the envelope looping to be clocked to BPM? Thanks
I don’t see it listed in their very detailed firmware README history, but I’d suggest shooting Groove Synthesis an email. I’ve found them to be super responsive.
https://groovesynthesis.com/downloads/3WAVE/readme/readme_1_8.txt
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I’d also love to see that.
I’ve been pondering one of these again.
Has anyone tried using the Editor/Librarian (3rd party, not from Groove)?
Something to make it easier to manage patches would really go a long way with this synth.
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I haven’t used this one but everything I’ve read points towards it being the current way to go.
this I am super interested in, could replace my Prophet 6 module, it is soo convincing as a VA and has sampling and of course wavetables. All the same analogue filters and back end as larger ones so will sound the same
Heard the demos of the 8 voice and it sounds incredible. I am not a fan at all of the hydrasynth, but the tone on this and thick and rich like an analog synth. Before I start saving up cash, has this been replicated in software? I know Waldorf made a PPG plugin which is not bad, and I know B made a clone. But this sounds special, or am I nuts?
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there’s no 1:1 vsti equivalent, though I won’t get into whether that’s possible to recreate or not. I think it’s definitely a special machine, and I think part of that is the analog filter and how it feels to use it. definitely the best UI of any synth I’ve touched so far.
granted it’s not perfect and has its limitations. I will forever curse its abysmal storage capacity for presets, wavetables and samples. I could be mean and say that’s the part they got most right with emulating the old PPG; but even the PPG had expandable storage add-ons.
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I think the magic is mostly the filter and maybe the 8 bit modes with waveflow and wave smoothing off. This results in the classic PPG imaging for low notes. I dunno if any VSTs nail this, but outside of that trick the capabilities aren’t that special and any modern wavetable VTS ought to get you there - but they won’t have a 2140 filter. Of course, they’ll likely have all sorts of other filters.
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