Groove Synthesis Releases OS 2.0a for 3rd Wave Synthesizers
Orinda, CA, August 24, 2026 — OS Version 2.0a for all three 3rd Wave models is now available as a free update, and it’s the kind of release that gives you new sounds to chase the moment you install it.
“The 3rd Wave has come a long way since it first came out, capable of things we never dreamed of at launch,” said Andrew Silverman, co-founder of Groove Synthesis.
With this release, we have decided to move our OS version forward to 2. We have added so many features, including synthesis methods, since we first started, and we are excited about these latest improvements under the hood that now unlock even more possibilities compared to where the 3rd Wave began.
A Brand New Shimmer Reverb
The first highlight of this release is a new effect: Shimmer Verb, living in effect slot 2 right after Super Plate. The idea behind a shimmer effect isn’t new, but the way we’ve built ours gives you a lot of freedom to create and control inside the synthesizer. Most importantly, it sounds great without harshness or the need to EQ.
This Shimmer will give you the ability to shift the pitch in fractions of a semitone across a full two-octave range, from one octave down to one octave up, which means you’re not limited to complete octave or semitone shifts. Dial in something in between, and you’ll land on intervals that most shimmer effects can’t reach, from lush and consonant to genuinely dissonant and unsettled, depending on where you land and how you play into it.
“I was surprised by how it makes even the most simple patch sound immense,” said Bob Coover, co-founder and DSP engineer at Groove Synthesis. “The effect is really wide. Route a single sustained note through it and just let it spread the sound out and up at the same time.”
The Filter Cutoff parameter lets you shape the reverb’s tone from dark and filtered to bright and open. There are also several other useful controls in the “Extra” section.
What makes the effect especially cool is that Rev Time, Pitch Amount, and LP/HP Cutoff are all available as destinations in the mod matrix. Modulate the cutoff with an LFO or envelope, and you get a shimmer that breathes and shifts tone on its own, evolving the sound in a way a static reverb never could.
A Smarter, More Capable Way to Make Waves
OS 2.0a also brings real improvements to Make Waves, the 3rd Wave’s built-in wavetable creation tool. If you’ve tried turning your own audio into wavetables, you’ll notice the results are more consistent right away with the existing modes.
The big addition is a third mode: Spectral. Make Waves has always given you two ways to turn audio into a wavetable. Pitch On is built for sources with a clear, stable pitch, and does its best to detect that pitch and lock the resulting waveforms to it. Pitch Off skips pitch detection entirely and instead finds the best splice points to carve unpitched material, like drums or found sounds, into a clean set of waveforms.
Spectral mode takes a different approach from both. Instead of tracking pitch or hunting for splice points in the waveform itself, it analyzes the audio in the frequency domain to find the best slices across the entire file. That makes it the mode to reach for on sources that might not have worked for the other two. Chorused sounds, ambient recordings, anything with a pitch that wanders or never quite settles should do well with the Spectral mode. Where Pitch On would fight to lock onto a moving target, and Pitch Off would just slice without regards to pitch, Spectral mode is built to make sense of exactly that kind of material. Feed it something strange and Make Waves will find the wavetable hiding inside it.
Once a table is made, it lands in the last wavetable slot, labeled WM for Wave Maker, ready to dial up on any oscillator. Not happy with the result? Hit Make Waves again, adjust your settings, and try again until it’s right. And if you are happy, go back to the Make Waves window and save it to a Wavetable location on the 3rd Wave.
Get an in-depth look at the Shimmer reverb and the new Wave Maker algorithm in this video by The Midlife Synthesist:
Everything Else in 2.0a
Beyond the two headline features, this update carries a few other noteworthy improvements: expanded MIDI CC mappings for the 24M and 8M desktop modules, new MIDI SysEx features including wavetable and sample import/export, a new envelope retrigger option with a quick reset, and various bug fixes worth checking out in the release notes on the support page.
Building Toward What’s Next
OS 2.0a completes the MIDI SysEx work needed to control and manage the 3rd Wave from outside the instrument itself, opening the door for third-party tools and the software companion that we are developing to make it easier to organize and edit your 3rd Wave sounds from a computer. We’re not ready to share details yet, but we’re looking for a small group of early adopters to help us test it in the coming weeks. If that sounds like you, reach out to us at support@groovesynthesis.com and let us know you’re interested.
Get It Now
OS 2.0a is available immediately as a free download for all 3rd Wave 24K, 24M, and 8M owners. Grab it from our support page, and if you run into any questions along the way, we’re here to help.
Visit our support page for additional resources and to download our reference manuals.
Happy shimmering.