How to import wavetables into Wavetable (Live)

What Wavetable (Live) expects

Live does not read a packed wavetable frame-for-frame. When you drop a WAV on the oscillator display, Live re-slices the audio into its own 1,024-sample wavetables and cleans the frames up — Raw mode switches that cleanup off. Plan the export around the re-slicing, not around Serum-style 2,048-sample frames.

Drag-and-drop WAV or AIFF onto the oscillator's wavetable display (Live 10.1+, Suite). Live slices imports into 1,024-sample wavetables — at most 256 per file, downmixed to mono — and post-processes them unless Raw mode is on; files created in Serum (2,048-sample frames) are downsampled to 1,024.

Step by step

1. Export from Hyperwave as a packed mono WAV at 1,024 samples per frame so each frame matches Live's 1,024-sample wavetable definition.
2. Drag the WAV from the browser, a clip slot, or Explorer/Finder onto the wavetable visualization in the oscillator section.
3. Enable Raw to bypass Live's cleanup — fading, phase minimization, normalization — since the export is already prepared as a wavetable.

If something goes wrong

My table got replaced by Simpler when I dropped the file.

The file must land on the oscillator's sprite visualization — dropped anywhere else in the device, Wavetable is replaced by Simpler.

Only the first part of my table loaded.

Live keeps at most 256 wavetables from a file — longer tables are truncated. Export at 256 frames or fewer.

Export settings for Wavetable (Live)

Hyperwave's export dialog has a preset for Wavetable (Live) — pick "Ableton Wavetable — 1024 × 256" and the geometry below is what you get.

Ableton Wavetable — 1024 × 256

1,024 samples per frame × 256 frames · 32-bit float · 48 kHz

Sources