Wavetable Oscillators

Wavetable oscillators are pitched oscillators that cycle through a lookup table to generate a waveform. These are some of the earliest of the digital oscillators designed for audio use, having been around since the 1960s. Chowning’s FM synthesis required wavetable oscillators as they are inherently stable and can produce the same sequence of output values over and over. Wavetables were used in the first hybrid synths, such as the Sequential Circuits Prophet VS, as well as fully digital synths, like the Korg M1 and Yamaha DX7. Wavetable synthesis seems to come and go in popularity, but right now it is very hot – this may be due to the appearance of more morphing wavetable synths and tools that allow us to develop scores of wavetables at a time from algorithms or found-sounds.