THREE GREAT

Wavetable synths are now everywhere, in hardware and plugin form

For much of the past two decades, the wavetable synth sphere has been dominated by two all-conquering plugins – first Native Instruments Massive, then Xfer Records Serum. Both are a little past their prime now. Massive has been superseded by a follow up, Massive X, while countless imitators and rivals have built on the ideas popularised in Serum in recent years, often offering a more modern look and workflow to boot. There’s still something to be said for these modern classics though. While the interfaces look a little dated, both Massive and Serum are still more than capable of creating a huge range of cutting edge sounds. Serum in particular still boasts a number of features that have added to its longevity, primarily its flexibility when it comes to uploading and editing your own wavetable sources (users can even upload .png image files).