Wavetable instruments and the files they load

Live’s Wavetable instrument reads any WAV or AIFF as 1024-sample frames, up to 256, mixed down to mono.

Bitwig Studio’s Polymer synth and the Grid’s Wavetable oscillator read Surge .wt files and Serum- and WaveEdit-compatible WAVs.

Synthstrom’s portable sequencer, synth and sampler, whose synth engine plays mono wavetable WAVs from the SD card on either oscillator.

Expert Sleepers’ earlier multi-algorithm module, with an eight-voice Poly Wavetable synth and wavetable oscillators that read tables from its MicroSD card.

Expert Sleepers’ multi-algorithm Eurorack module, whose wavetable algorithms read WAV files from a wavetables folder on its MicroSD card.

Two Eurorack wavetable oscillators that read WaveEdit banks: 64 waves of 256 samples, played as an 8 × 8 grid.

u-he’s Hive 2 reads WAVs as 2048-sample frames, up to 256, unless the file name ends in -WT and another size.

Korg’s wavetable synth and its software twin, modwave native, which import user wavetables as WAVs of up to 64 waves through the Editor/Librarian.

Arturia’s compact hybrid synth, whose User Wavetable oscillator plays a bank of 16 tables loaded from MIDI Control Center.

1010music’s palm-sized polyphonic wavetable synth, which reads 256-frame, 2048-sample wavetables from its microSD card.

Kilohearts’ modular synth loads a WAV or FLAC as a wavetable only when it’s exactly 256 frames of 2048 samples.

Arturia’s Pigments cuts any WAV into 2048-sample positions, up to 256, starting from the first sample.

A dual wavetable oscillator that morphs through a cube of 512 waves, loaded from eight WAV files on an SD card.

Polyend’s hardware trackers, Tracker and Tracker Mini, whose Wavetable play mode turns any sample into a wavetable with an adjustable window.

Xfer Records’ wavetable synth reads WAV files of up to 256 frames at 2048 samples each, tagged with Serum’s clm chunk.

The open-source Surge XT reads its own .wt format and tagged WAVs, with power-of-two frames up to 4096 samples and up to 512 frames.

Matt Tytel’s spectral warping wavetable synth slices any WAV into 2048-sample frames and blends between them.

Waldorf’s touchscreen synth, desktop and keyboard, which imports WAV or AIFF wavetables from an SD card or USB stick at a period you choose from 64 to 4096.

Waldorf’s flagship hybrid synth, whose wavetable import works like the Iridium’s. WaveStack’s Iridium / Quantum export target writes files for both.

Arturia’s hardware synth, which takes user wavetables from MiniFreak V since version 5.0, including Pigments tables.

Qu-Bit’s chord oscillator loads one custom wavetable at a time from its microSD card, made in WaveEdit’s 64-wave bank format.

A 10HP wavetable oscillator that loads Serum and Vital tables, 2048 samples per wave and up to 256 waves, from microSD.

An analog triangle-core VCO with a digital wavetable output that loads WaveEdit banks and Serum tables from SD.

Novation’s polysynths take user wavetables of five 512-sample waves through Components, which imports audio files, so a five-frame WaveStack export works.

A 12HP wavetable oscillator that reads four banks of 32 files of 32 waves from a strict folder layout on its SD card.

Doepfer’s 8-bit sampler module doubles as a wavetable oscillator with 256 tables of 256 samples, loaded by MIDI dump.

Modal’s eight-voice wavetable synth, with 180 factory wavetables and 32 wave modifiers but no user import.

Synthesis Technology’s earlier morphing wavetable VCO, with three fixed banks of 64 waves and no way to load your own.

A 16HP oscillator where you draw waves on its screen and arrange them into wavetables, with no documented file import.

ASM’s wave-morphing synth, which builds tables from 219 built-in single-cycle waves but can’t load your own.

Native Instruments’ wavetable synth plugin, with over 170 factory wavetables and no way to load your own.

Korg’s Altered FM synth, with six operators drawing on a fixed set of built-in waveforms and no user waveform import.

A small open-source synth whose wavetable is rebuilt from 15 single-cycle WAVs by Plinky’s own tool, which WaveStack can feed only with help from an audio editor.

Waldorf’s compact virtual analog and wavetable synth, which takes user wavetables only as SysEx, a format WaveStack doesn’t write.

Waldorf’s Microwave-style wavetable synth with analog filters, which loads user wavetables from SD as raw 8-bit files rather than WAV.

Korg’s wave sequencing synth, which can import your own multisamples through Sample Builder but has no wavetable oscillator to load tables into.

The Hamburg hybrid that defined wavetable synthesis: 8-bit digital waves, 64 to a table, run through an analog filter on every voice.

Sequential’s vector synth: four 12-bit single-cycle waves per voice, blended with a joystick and run through analog Curtis filters.

Waldorf’s first instrument: a rack-mount module that carried the PPG Wave 2.3’s wavetables forward with a Palm-designed chip and analog filters.

Waldorf’s flagship keyboard: the PPG wavetable approach with analog filters, up to 48 voices, and a knob for nearly everything.

Native Instruments’ 2006 plug-in that brought scanning wavetables to a generation of producers, with a fixed set of built-in tables.