On this page, I've tried to document the history of all the Waves I have and had, as far as possible. These beasts sure do come around...

PPG Wave 2.2

Got no serial number - these were written on the back panel with a felt pen and came off easily. This was my first Wave (V4.0, no MIDI). I bought it from Günther Loidl (Vienna) in 1990, together with a Waveterm A. Cost me a fortune at that time...

This one went to Olivier Trambouze, France, in 2001, since I had to finance a Wave 2.3...

PPG Wave 2.2 Ser#1021

This one is a very special thing - my "tinkering Wave". I bought it in form of a giant heap of spare parts (some working, some not) from Simon Alexander, England and spent a good year to hunt down the parts and chips that were still missing. By now, it's nearly complete and should be working in a month or so.

Don't tell me I'm crazy, I'm pretty well aware of that fact :-)

PPG Wave 2.2 Ser#1413

The beginnings will presumably remain in the dark...

On 7-23-1987, it was obviously bought by Michele Franchella (he wrote it on the PCB board holder :-). At that time, the Wave was already equipped with V4.5, but had no MIDI. Since he didn't have a documentation for it and obviously found no fun in scratching his head over the strange values on the Digital Panel, he sold it again very soon.

On 9-14-1987, it was bought by Till Kopper (4500DM!) and used regularly for a long time. At that time, it still had a backlit display, a rarity in 2.2's... this didn't work any more when I got it. As you can read on Till's web site, he eventually sold his complete PPG System on 3-22-1995 to its next owner (who doesn't want to be named here).

This guy then let ASK do some modifications to the Wave. The Wave was MIDIfied, PPG Bus ID was set to 1 (so that it could be used in a PPG System, together with a Wave 2.3 and a Waveterm B, serial#29. Till couldn't get such a chip before, although he has tried repeatedly), the accumulator was replaced by a hand-soldered pack made of 3 normal 1.5V accumulators. The address of ASK at that time was:

Then there might be a gap, since the next owner unfortunately doesn't remember who sold the Wave to him....

In 1997 it was bought by Volker Abel, who sold it to me in 2001. In October 2001 it received a V8 Upgrade, and in November 2001 a Keyboard Upgrade was applied. In 2002, I applied a new LCD backlight. It's better than new now :-)

PPG Wave 2.3

This is a modified Wave 2.2. During the modification, it was MIDIfied and got 8 channel outputs. Unfortunately, this modification makes the serial number unreadable.

This Wave was owned from the start by Matthias Becker (author of the "Synthesizer von Gestern" series in the German "Keyboards" magazine, also available as a series of (I think) 3 books. If you own them - this very device is depicted in the books!). It then spent a long time as a reference device in the halls of the synthesizer company Waldorf.

In 2000, it was bought as defective by Andreas Voigt, who repaired it and restored it to a very good condition.

2001 he sold it to me as he didn't have enough space for it. In September 2001 I applied a Keyboard Upgrade Kit to make it even better :-) ... and in October 2001 I upgraded it to V8. In 2002, I added a backlit display... and in the summer of 2002, it went to Florian Preis of Sunbeam in Germany.

PPG Wave 2.3 Ser#1259

This one, too, is an upgraded Wave 2.2 with MIDI and 8 channel outputs. It was owned by Andy Scholle from Germany, possibly from the start, and I bought it as defective in 2001, together with an 8" Waveterm B and a very interesting PRK that holds some MIDI extensions (some fine day I'll take some photos of the innards of this thing).

With a little help from Virtual Music, I brought it back up into near-mint condition and upgraded it to V8.

2002 it went to Theodor Bloderer from Tyrol - I need more space...

PPG Wave 2.3 Ser#1364

This is an original Wave 2.3 that I bought as defective from Ariano Colzi, Prato (Italy), in 2002, together with a PRK and an 8" Waveterm A.

I revived it (without help this time), upgraded it to V8 and applied a new LCD backlight. In August 2002, it got a Keyboard Upgrade Kit, too.

PPG Wave 2.3

This is an original Wave 2.3 that I bought together with a Waveterm B from Robert Lexton in Croatia. According to him, the previous owner said it came from "a famous Croatian producer". Hmmm... I don't have a clue as to who that might be :-).

As usual, I upgraded it to V8.

Addendum: by coincidence, I ran into the previous owner on the Waldorf mailing list - here's the complete chain of owners before me: Dusko Mandic - Mr. Tutunovic - Slavko Nedic - Damir Rogina. The first three are, or have been, according to Damir, famous producers in Croatia.