Palm Products GmbH

Wolfgang Palm was active as a keyboardist in bands in the Hamburg area before becoming aware of the then-burgeoning synthesizer market.

Due to the rarity of the PPG 360 Wave Computer, false information about a 4 voice version and "harsh and tinny" sound [1] circulate.

Despite its own shortcomings, which included its complex functionality and its high price, it received publicity when it was used by Tangerine Dream and Thomas Dolby during the early 1980s.

It contained analog envelopes, LFOs and filters, combined with digital wavetable oscillators in a "hybrid" configuration.

The PPG Wave has been used by artists such as David Bowie, The Fixx, Thomas Dolby, Depeche Mode, Art of Noise, The Cars, Jean Michel Jarre, Pet Shop Boys, Rush, Gary Numan, Robert Palmer, Costin Miereanu, The Psychedelic Furs, Talk Talk, Tangerine Dream, Tears For Fears, Ultravox, Steve Winwood, Stevie Wonder, and many others.

In 1986, Wolfgang Palm designed and began work on a prototype for the Realizer, an all-in-one studio machine not unlike modern day music workstations which combined production, recording, sequencing, and mixing tools into one machine in addition to a sophisticated sampling and synthesis system.

The system was too complicated and unfeasible for its time period, and its expensive manufacturing costs caused a projected retail price of almost US$60,000 (GB£34,000).

[citation needed] As interest in Palm's other products waned, the cost of developing the Realizer put PPG into debt.

Used by many professional artists (including Ace of Base and Depeche Mode), the MicroWave (alongside its keyboard-equipped equivalent the Waldorf Wave) continued to be used long after production ended in the mid-1990s.

Later Waldorf products like the fully-digital MicroWave II, XT, Q, microQ, and the Blofeld had all or several of the original wavetables and waveshapes of the PPG Waves.