The Modwave wavetable synth revives Korg’s classic DW-8000

> It looks like the Opsix/ Wavestate format is officially a ‘thing’ now, and we’re 100% onboard with that. The latest in the line is Modwave, a wavetable synth loosely based on Korg’s mid-’80s hybrid DW-8000 synth. What’s more, it adds a Kaoss pad to the mix for good measure.

Modwave’s synthesis engine seems to be rather deep, with 200 wavetables, each containing up to 64 waveforms. The structure allows you to utilise 30+ Modifiers to change the character and 13 Morph Types for realtime processing. Combined with the A/B Blend function, all of this adds up to a dizzying number of wavetable variations, over 230 million to be exact. If that doesn’t blow the mind enough, you can add more by loading your own custom wavetables in Serum or WaveEdit formats via the Editor/Librarian software.

Modulation takes up a large part of Modwave’s architecture with the return of an old friend to help you get more creative results out of the synth. The Kaoss pad is back and Korg have deployed its fabled XY pad controller as a new modulation source. The pad is part of Korg’s new ‘Kaoss Physics feature’, which models a ball rolling on a surface and/or bouncing off walls. Using the pad you can control the ball, or have it automatically triggered via a Gate + Damper. The virtual environment lets you either have the walls slow down the movement of the ball, like a cushion or bounce off the walls, accelerating the ball’s movement much like a pinball machine.

The Kaoss Physics, alongside Motion Sequencing 2.0 from the Wavestate, make for very interesting modulation possibilities, especially with four envelopes and five LFOs onboard. Other highlights from the Wavestate and Opsix are carried across too, including the same 37-key Fatar keyboard and range of analogue-modelled filters, including MS-20 and Polysix designs.

There’s no word on price but it should be somewhere in the £700 region, based on its predecessors.