This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave 24M MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave 24M: what it answers to, and the 518 controls it offers, on firmware 2.0c.

At a glance

Firmware

This page describes firmware 2.0c.

MIDI channel

1 to 16.

MPE

Received: its voices are spread across its MIDI channels, a note to each.

Voices

24.

Note range

Not recorded.

Velocity

Not recorded.

Aftertouch

Not recorded.

Pitch bend

How far it bends is not recorded, and the range can be changed.

Program change

Sent.

MIDI clock

Sent and received.

Start and stop

Received.

Control change

100 controls, in the tables below.

NRPN

Supported, and preferred to CC. 418 of the controls below have one.

System exclusive

Supported.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("groove_synthesis/third_wave_24m") has loaded them.

3rd wave control

Single

Multi

Global

Where these facts come from

Source documents

• 3rd Wave MIDI CC + SysEx Spec v2.0, v2.0, dated 10 September 2026, its MIDI implementation, read on 7 October 2026 (the file read).
• 3rd Wave Desktop Module User Manual, 1.9, dated June 2025, its user manual, read on 10 October 2026 (the file read).
• 3rd Wave OS version 2.0, 2.0c, its release notes, read on 7 October 2026 (the file read).
• Support – Groove Synthesis, its download page, read on 7 October 2026.

How they were read

The maker's "3rd Wave MIDI CC + SysEx Spec v2.0" (spec p. 1), published as a document linked from its support page and read as the PDF that document exports, 75 pages: the 24M's controller table is spec pp. 8-14 and the NRPN table spec pp. 18-39. The export prints no page numbers, so it is cited by the file's own pages. Beside it, the 24M's own manual, version 1.9, for the voices, the parts, the MIDI settings and MPE (pp. 1, 10, 73, 100-101, 106 and 113-115); the notes for every firmware release from 1.0 to 2.0c; and the support page that lists them. These are the documents the keyboard's definition cites, the same bytes, but for the manual. A fresh export of the specification on 2026-10-10 differs from the copy cited in one byte, the version of the renderer that made it; its text is the same on every page.

READ TWICE, IN TWO RENDERINGS, BEFORE ANYTHING WAS CARRIED. The maker's document exports as a PDF and as plain text. The 24M's table and the NRPN table were read from each - the PDF by its ruled grid, the text by its cells - and the two agree on every row of every sub-table, but for one NRPN cell where the PDF wraps in-tempo-sync in the middle of a word.

TWO MAPS, AND A SETTING CHOOSES. The specification's global settings say a MIDI param send setting chooses "MIDI CC, MIDI nrpn parameter values, or off" (spec p. 2) and a MIDI para receive one "MIDI CC, MIDI nrpn, or off" (spec p. 2), and the manual's own list of the settings calls NRPN "the preferred method" (manual p. 115). The NRPN table says the receiving setting's third value is something else: "0: off, 1: CC, 2: CC+NRPN" (spec p. 38). The prose, the manual and the table do not agree about whether the instrument can take both at once, and nothing here depends on which is right.

THE CONTROLLER TABLE STARTED WITH KNOBS AND GREW, AND THE MAKER SAYS WHY. "originally the MIDI CC implementation was designed to map physical controls on the synth" (spec p. 2), but "as the desktop and 8M came out, it was clear that this was not ideal." (spec p. 2), and "In later releases there has been a shift to expose more parameters over MIDI CC instead of using them to map knobs and buttons." (spec p. 2). The 24M's table shows both: a main table of its panel's controls, where one set of oscillator knobs edits whichever oscillator is selected, then "New in version 1.8e (control each oscillator independently)" (spec p. 12), "New in version 1.9a (remapped CC 65, 66, 67 to prevent conflicts)" (spec p. 13) and a 2.0a sub-table that gives the envelopes, the wave surfer and the effect mixes numbers of their own (spec pp. 13-14).

EVERY ROW OF BOTH TABLES IS ACCOUNTED FOR. The 24M's table prints 110 rows: 69 in the main table and 16, 4 and 21 in the three sub-tables. 32, "MIDI bank select" (spec p. 9), is carried, as bank select is wherever a maker numbers it. Ten are not carried: 65, 66 and 67, the low-pass filter's cutoff, resonance and envelope amount, which the main table still prints marked "changed in version 1.9, see below" (spec p. 10) and which 1.9a moved to 9, 37 and 39; and seven the main table marks "(deprecated in version 2.0a)" (spec p. 9) - the four LFO enable buttons at 43 to 46 and the three oscillator select buttons at 110 to 112, these on p. 12 - whose numbers the 2.0a sub-table gives new jobs: 43 to 46 the filter envelope's four stages, 110 the fourth envelope's sustain, 111 effect 2's mix and 112 the fourth envelope's amount. The specification says deprecated, not removed, and on firmware 2.0c the 2.0a meanings are read as the live ones. So 100 controls come from that table. Some settings then have two numbers each: the filter envelope at 70 to 73, shared there with the third envelope, and at 43 to 46; the amp envelope at 75 to 77 and 118, shared with the fourth, and at 23 and 52 to 54; and the effects' mix at 104, for whichever effect is being edited, and at 114 and 111. All are carried.

The NRPN table prints 469 rows, 0 to 468 without a gap, and 418 are carried. The 51 not carried are left out for what each row says it is: the part-select bitmap at 0; eleven rows of sequence data, a stream of commands rather than a parameter; 27 whose value packs two numbers into one, which a single range cannot describe; six marked deprecated; three marked not used currently; 444, filed as Not settable; and the two that open 8M selected (spec p. 38), the 8-voice desktop's. The five rows "used only on Desktop module" (spec p. 37) are carried here, as this model's - the selected oscillator, the third and fourth envelopes' buttons and the two effects' edit buttons. That is a reading: the rows do not say which desktop, but the specification calls this model "the desktop" beside the 8M - "as the desktop and 8M came out" (spec p. 2) - and the release notes call it the desktop module in their earlier entries and, in 2.0a's, "Expanded MIDI CC mappings for 24voice module and 8M" (release_notes). This model's own table has controllers for exactly the five buttons the rows name - oscillator select at 110 to 112, the third and fourth envelopes at 81 and 82, and the effect edit buttons at 102 and 109 - and its panel has the two effect edit buttons, "press edit button (1 or 2)" (manual p. 73). The 8-voice desktop has oscillator select buttons and ENV 3 and ENV 4 buttons as well, as groove_synthesis/third_wave_8m records, so the effect edit buttons and the naming are what decide it; and the 8M's envelope buttons have a row of their own, 8M selected env type (spec p. 38). Some rows that name no model name panel buttons all the same - the wave envelope's and the LFOs' button selects and Env3/4 button select (spec p. 20) - and are carried as the table prints them, since no row says whose it is.

ONE CONTROLLER FOR TWO EFFECTS, AND NO RANGE FOR IT. Effect type is 103 for both effects, with "Effect 1: 0-8" (spec p. 11) and "Effect 2: 0-12" (spec p. 11) in one cell, and no page says which effect it reaches when; the edit buttons at 102 and 109 are the likely switch, and the same would hold for the mix and the three parameters at 104 to 107. No single range describes it, so none is recorded. Both lists stop before the shimmer reverb 2.0a added to effect 2 - "New Shimmer Reverb added to the list of effects for Effect 2" (release_notes) - and so does the NRPN row for the same choice, 0-12 (spec p. 28); the keyboard's table lists it as 13.

THE MULTI-PART ROWS ARE ADDRESSED THROUGH THE PART BEING EDITED, AND THE FORMAT HAS NO WORD FOR THAT. Most carried NRPN rows are of the category whose "program contains 4 separate values for a multi-part setting, one for each of its 4 parts" (spec p. 18), and a value sent to one of them reaches whichever parts NRPN 0 has chosen: "Use NRPN #0 to change the active part that you are editing for multi-part settings." (spec p. 18). Since 2.0a a global setting can give each part numbers of its own instead - "In this mode it adds 1000 for each part to the NRPN number" (spec p. 18). The numbers below are the table's, which are part 1's in that mode and the edited part's otherwise; the three further copies are not written out.

FOUR PARTS ON FOUR CHANNELS, IN A MODE, AND NO PARTS DECLARED HERE. "The 3rd Wave is 4-part multitimbral" (manual p. 10), and a global setting puts each part on a channel of its own. Neither document says whether that setting is on when the instrument leaves the factory, so this file describes the instrument on its one MIDI channel and declares no parts. And the manual contradicts itself about the count, as the keyboard's does: the setting "allows independent MIDI control of multi-parts 1-2 on a given program" (manual p. 114), and the four settings that follow it give parts 1 to 4 a channel each.

THIRTY-ONE OF THE CARRIED CONTROLLERS ARE NUMBERS THE MIDI SPECIFICATION KEEPS FOR FINE HALVES. It makes 32 to 63 the fine halves of 0 to 31, and this table gives thirty of them parameters of their own; the thirty-first, 32, keeps the specification's meaning, bank select's fine half. Of the thirty, 25 have their own coarse number carried too. Three sit where the commonest fourteen-bit senders put their fine halves: 33 is oscillator 1's fine tuning where a fourteen-bit modulation wheel sends its fine half, 34 oscillator 2's fine tuning beside breath control on 2, and 39 the low-pass filter's envelope amount beside volume on 7. That is a fact about the MIDI specification set beside this table, not the maker's.

A MANUAL WRITTEN FROM THE KEYBOARD'S. The desktop module has no keyboard, and its manual keeps the keyboard's sentences: "Although the 3rd Wave doesn’t output MPE from its own keyboard" (manual p. 106), and settings for "the way the keyboard reacts to your playing velocity" (manual p. 100). They are read as the module's settings for incoming notes, and nothing below rests on them.

WHAT THE DOCUMENTS DISAGREE ABOUT, recorded and not resolved:

One worked example against the NRPN table. The specification's example of a program dump sends "MSB for param 254 (osc 1 level)" (spec p. 50), and its bytes make 254; the table gives 254 to the third oscillator's fine tuning and puts the first oscillator's level at 255. The table is carried as printed.

The modulation sources. The list of them is "Mod Source values (0-29 values)" (spec p. 39); the sixteen NRPN rows that choose a source give 0-26 (spec pp. 26-27), which stops before the last three - MPE pitch bend, the MPE Y axis and MIDI breath control (spec p. 40). The rows' ranges are carried as printed.

Banks. "The 3rd Wave has 500 presets divided into 5 banks of 100 presets." (manual p. 1), and the bank select controller the table names runs 0-3 (spec p. 9) - four of the five. The system exclusive messages index banks 0-4 (spec p. 48). The controller is carried as printed, 0-3.

Smaller ones. The metronome's volume is 0-100 by NRPN (spec p. 20) and Range 0-127 in the manual (manual p. 101). The MIDI in and out cables can be set off by NRPN (spec p. 39), where the manual offers "MIDI In Cable: (usb+midi, usb, midi)" (manual p. 114). The velocity and pressure curves NRPNs 38 and 39 name (spec pp. 19-20) are not the manual's lists (manual p. 100); the choices below are the table's. By NRPN 468 the tempo runs "(20.0 to 240.0)" (spec p. 39), and BPM: (20-210) in the manual (manual p. 76).

WHAT IS NOT RECORDED, each for a stated reason. Velocity and aftertouch: both are modulation sources (spec p. 40), and no document says which incoming kinds the module answers to, though the notes carry a "Fix for clearing polyaftertouch values" (release_notes) from controllers that send it. Receiving program change: the manual says only that "The 3rd Wave can send MIDI Program Change messages." (manual p. 106), and so the 500 presets are in this account rather than in a field that would claim the instrument answers to one; the hints the other way are the bank select controller the table names (spec p. 9) and a "fix for midi program change via midi din" (release_notes), which names no direction and no model. The pitch bend's depth: it is settable from 0 to 24 semitones up and down per program (NRPNs 36 and 37), and no default is given. A mode and a note range: there is no implementation chart.