Wolfgang Palm

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Wolfgang Palm (* 1950 ) is a German musician and inventor, founder and owner of Palm Products GmbH (PPG) and creator of various groundbreaking technical designs for analog and digital synthesizers . He is known as the father of digital wavetable synthesis and a trendsetter in the use of computer technology in electronic music .

Palm's interest in synthesis technology began as a keyboardist in various local bands in his hometown of Hamburg. His company of the same name began in 1975 with the production of modular synthesizers in small numbers for the electronica act Tangerine Dream and other musicians.

Palm is probably best known for inventing wavetable synthesis, a concept he developed in the late 1970s when he ran his Minimoog- like synthesizer - the 1020 - with digitally controlled oscillators instead of the voltage controlled oscillators that were still his 1002 -Synthesizer and almost all other analog synthesizers used at the time. He created the 360 wave computer as early as 1979 , which later became the well-known PPG wave series. Palm's design gave rise to the hugely successful PPG Wave synthesizer, which was used by numerous bands throughout the 1980s and beyond. The sounds in the PPG Wave inspired other digital synthesizer manufacturers such as Sequential Circuits and Ensoniq . Today, many digital synthesizers are based in some way on the concept of wavetable synthesis.

Palm was also one of the first to experiment with data transmission systems for exchanging data between digital synthesizers and music sequencers. His early design for an 8-bit parallel bus system was later abandoned and replaced by MIDI .

He also developed the ASIC used in the Waldorf Microwave .

From the year 2000, VST versions of some instruments were also available.

In March 2020 he announced his retirement from the active music business.

credentials

  1. ↑ Uwe G. Hoenig: Wavetable Synthesis - History. In: hermannseib. December 30, 2000, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  2. ↑ PPG 1020. encyclotronic.com, accessed August 9, 2020 (American English).
  3. ↑ Blue Box: PPG 1002, analog synthesizer. In: AMAZONA.de. October 7, 2017, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  4. ↑ PPG 1020, 1002 Analog Synthesizer. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .
  5. ↑ by Bernhard Lösener: PPG Wavecomputer 360 Wavetable Synthesizer (* 1979). March 28, 2016, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  6. ↑ The Microwave That Can not Cook - History of Microwave II. AMAZONA, September 27, 2008, accessed on August 9, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Plex VST software synthesizer by Steinberg and Wolfgang Palm. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .
  8. ^ Felix Baarß: Wolfgang Palm PPG WaveMapper 2 - Wavetable Synthesizer. Delamar, October 29, 2014, accessed August 9, 2020 .
  9. ^ Wolfgang Palm - PPG Apps. Retrieved August 9, 2020 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Palm, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH 1950