Some gear takes years to win you over. For Mike Dean, that was the PPG Wave—a hybrid ’80s icon he once dismissed for being "digital… with analog filters." But after some nudging from friends, he started searching Reverb for the cleanest example he could find. Once he got it serviced and dialed in, it became, in his words, "the best piece of gear I’ve ever got on Reverb."
The magic is in the architecture: digital wavetable oscillators running through analog filters. That combination gives the PPG its signature sound—glassy, gritty, and just unstable enough to feel alive.
The wavetable stretching can get beautifully warped, and as Mike puts it, "all the messed up is what makes it cool." No delays, no tricks—just raw wavetable cycling doing the heavy lifting.
In the studio, he moves from bell-like tones to brash leads, stacked octaves, choirs, and layered textures that sound like multiple synths fighting (and winning) at once. It’s unpredictable in the best way—the kind of instrument that doesn’t just recreate a sound, but sparks a new one.
For a synth that defined ambitious ’80s productions, the PPG Wave still feels futuristic. And for Mike, it’s proof that sometimes the gear you overlook ends up being the one you can’t live without.