Tell me about the Waldorf Blofeld

[John_McEnroe]

I am thinking of picking one of these up. Any users care to share their thoughts?

[Purity_Control]

You seem to have headed off the most obvious gag in your sig:facepalm:

 

There's certainly a lot of them around used at the mo, though whether that's because they're not the new hot thing anymore, or 'cos people are finding the user interface limiting, or 'cos they're buggy, seems to be a matter of opinion.

[Gribs]

It is a very nice synth in concept and in design for the most part. There are bugs that disturb people who work with lots of MIDI-related things. I would check the waldorf mailing list for more info

[Andy's Eyebrow]

I just bought one a couple weeks ago so I can't give an in-depth review yet, but I can certainly give you my initial impression...

 

The Blofeld is very well built. It's made of steel with aluminum knobs and is a solid, heavy unit.

 

The operating system is at 1.15 and I haven't come across any bugs yet. The only thing I'm wrestling with currently is trying to figure out how to make the knobs transmit MIDI. I think this is possible but I'm not getting results. Updating the operating system was easy.

 

The interface is actually pretty good. All the basics you'd want for real-time control are quickly accessible. You have to menu-dive for a majority of programming but it's not an esoteric machine so if you have experience with any regular subtractive synth then everything is pretty familiar.

 

I'm really impressed with the filter... it's responsive and has a lot of character. I read somewhere that the Waldorf Q is more analog than real analog... in that you can really push the unit further than what real analog can do, yet do it in a very analog sounding way and the Blofeld carries this tradition.

 

I think the best selling point of the unit is its random patch generator and the manual says that that was the starting point for most of the factory presets. It's great fun to start with something random and then dial in something to your taste.

 

I bought the Blofeld because I wanted all the history of Waldorf's digital synths from the Wave to the Q in one nice little affordable package and the Blofeld delivers. It's a hell of a lot of synth for $500-700. It easily competes with a Nord or a Virus on features and sound.

 

At this point I only have two complaints... all the preset memory is filled and you have to overwrite factory presets for your own patches. Not a big deal but I wish they had a global INIT feature to just wipe the memory of the thing. There's a couple free software editors available that might assist in this but I haven't tried them yet.

 

And my other complaint is that I wish the aluminum knobs has some sort of grip surface on the sides as they can get kinda slippery if your fingers have any perspiration on them. It also takes a couple turns of a knob to cover an entire sweep of, say, the filter. Nice for fine adjustments but not so great for large value changes in real-time.

 

But like I mentioned before, you're getting the best of the best of all that is Waldorf for a great price and the thing sounds just great and is fun unit to tweak on.

[clarknick67]

 

It is a very nice synth in concept and in design for the most part. There are bugs that disturb people who work with lots of MIDI-related things. I would check the waldorf mailing list for more info

 

 

waldorf mailing list is sure to help a lot

[MuzikB]

Love mine for it's PPG filter. All my created sounds use it. I think it's a must have for House music. I think it caters to the genre really well.

 

The bad: well, Waldorf seems to be putting more time into their software than their hardware. I thing the OS menu system could use some tweaking in multimode. Although I have to admit, most of my gripes were fixed in the 1.15 OS upgrade.

 

Definitely worth the money. Best used for House, Pop/Dance, and Ambient/Chillout IMHO.

[John_McEnroe]

Thanks so much for the replies. I saw a few new waldorf blofeld keyboards being blown out for $899 and that seemed like a great price. I will definitely take another look as I LOVED the presets I heard. Incredible pads.

 

$899 seem like a good price on a new keyboard?

 

Thanks for the help!

[DocT]

I have some Blofeld audios on my hp, no video however just oldstyle mp3s

 

http://www.trippler.net/files/blo/

 

My very own style however, more of the harsh and distorted kind.

[Gribs]

I think that a lot of the bugs that people complain about are as much or more related to their own personal computer and USB-MIDI setups as the Blofeld. Some people have difficulty connecting via USB and/or getting their computers to recognize the Blofeld when connected using USB for example, but I have never had a single issue.

 

Honestly my one personal gripe with the synth (if you can call it that!) is that the little rubber feet come off too easily. One workaround is to just not use them. This applies to the desktop module - I don't know if the feet are even on the keyboard version. Otherwise as mentioned above the synth is build solidly and the knobs and buttons all feel excellent.

 

Waldorf synths have a lot of character, and if you have room for the Blofeld keyboard at that price then that is awesome. It comes with the user sample option (single wave) that costs extra to unlock for the desktop module. I have a Q, the Blofeld desktop, and Largo software synth (an excellent software synth - another favorite of mine). Largo does not have the PPG filter model but the other two both do, and I agree that it sounds great. I also really like the comb filters on all three synths. The "PPGesus" patch on the Blowfeld is one of the only patches that prompted my wife to come into my office and ask "Is that *you* playing that"? I was using just a simple 16 step sequencer (AlgoMusic Atomic VST plugin) and modulating the root note on my keyboard with one finger to use Atomic like a complex arpeggiator (so I guess it was only *sorta* me playing).

 

Incidentally the new version of the Blofeld OS allows user wave tables (not just single waves but tables of waves). However the feature is not documented in the current version of the manual and as of now Waldorf has not provided any software to make the wave tables. There is user documentation and a generously-contributed wave table editor program available though (search through the Waldof mailing list archives). I have not messed with this at all.

[CfNorENa]

 

$899 seem like a good price on a new keyboard?

 

 

Absolutely! Mind sharing where you found it at that price?

 

I see it like this. Imagine a synthesizer that combined a Waldorf Microwave, a Waldorf Q, and a Nord Wave. That would have to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $4000. Now imagine a synthesizer that delivered about 75% of our imaginary synth for under $1k. That's a Waldorf Blofeld. Tremendous value-for-money.

[TropicThink]

I have to agree with you guys. I didn't like the Blofeld at first, but now that I've spent more time with one and heard more of what people get out of it (I was never a fan of the presets and didn't much like most of the demos I first heard) I think it's a pretty damn cool synth, and might even get one myself. And the value for money is fantastic.

 

I also happen to think the keyboard version looks great, btw. Terrific design.

[aymat]

I just sold my blofeld desktop... nothing wrong with it, just needed the money.

 

I did enjoy though. I wish there was driver support for Windows 7x64 and I might pick it up again if they ever release it. Sound wise its unique and definitely set itself apart from the rest of the synths in my studio. My only complaint is that I did have a difficult time getting sounds from it to sit well in a mix but other than that, its very awesome... especially for the price.

[John_McEnroe]

Can you load your own full samples like the Nord Wave? I have tried to search online to find that info but it's a bit hard to be clear about what the sample loading capabilities are. Can I load a 5 second sample of my own and play it pitched across the keyboard? Can I load different samples to each key like a drum kit? Or am I basically just able to load very short waves to be used as wave tables?

[uiua_audiovisi]

 

Can I load a 5 second sample of my own and play it pitched across the keyboard? Can I load different samples to each key like a drum kit? Or am I basically just able to load very short waves to be used as wave tables?

 

 

The sample loading is quite different to the wavetable section - you can do exactly like you ask. In fact, you can test it out without the blofeld by downloading the spectre application:

http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/downloads?relPath=blofeld/spectre

You can create multisamples in this and play them on your pc without owning the blofeld, to give you an indication of results. It seems to take about 42 mins or so to upload the 64mb or whatever of sample data over usb.

 

 

Apparently you can save start and end looping points in your samples too, using external software - and some of the samples it comes with seem to have this going on - but i havent yet got that working.

 

I love the synth, but bugs or issues which bother me with the keyboard version (which perhaps are things i'm doing wrong, but i don't think so):

 

-Whilst the keyboards multimode recieves on seperate midi channels fine, i can only seem to get it to tranmit on one midi channel at a time - meaning i can't use it as a controller with zones for external modules as easily as i'd like.

 

-There is no visual indication of which octave you have transposed to with the octave up and down buttons, which would make things much easier and safer in live performances

 

-it doesn't transmit midi clock start and stop (or perhaps what i mean is song position pointer information). It would be great if the 'free' button could be assigned to start and stop midi clock both internally and for external midi gear - but it can't (My number one wish!).

 

-Also there are occasional (but rare enough that it doesn't really bother me too much) glitches - eg. a mono patch in a multimode becoming a stuck note; certain patches freezing up.

 

Having said that, its a really powerful and versatile keyboard - if its midi capabilities got tightened up in updates that would be lovely, but I can't really hold my breath for that at this stage.

[evildragon]

Blofeld kicks ass.

[soundwave106]

Blofeld kicks ass.

 

Perhaps.

 

The main thing keeping me from getting a Blofeld (or Largo, for that matter), is that I had a Microwave XT, and ended up selling it. Great synth, but for whatever reason, I just never seemed to be able to use it in my tracks. I also have Terratec Komplexer, it's occasionally gotten used, but it's not a go-to VST like some of my others.

 

I suspect that I would repeat that experience with the Blofeld.

[John_McEnroe]

 

The sample loading is quite different to the wavetable section - you can do exactly like you ask. In fact, you can test it out without the blofeld by downloading the spectre application: http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/downloads?relPath=blofeld/spectre You can create multisamples in this and play them on your pc without owning the blofeld, to give you an indication of results. It seems to take about 42 mins or so to upload the 64mb or whatever of sample data over usb. Apparently you can save start and end looping points in your samples too, using external software - and some of the samples it comes with seem to have this going on - but i havent yet got that working. I love the synth, but bugs or issues which bother me with the keyboard version (which perhaps are things i'm doing wrong, but i don't think so): -Whilst the keyboards multimode recieves on seperate midi channels fine, i can only seem to get it to tranmit on one midi channel at a time - meaning i can't use it as a controller with zones for external modules as easily as i'd like. -There is no visual indication of which octave you have transposed to with the octave up and down buttons, which would make things much easier and safer in live performances -it doesn't transmit midi clock start and stop (or perhaps what i mean is song position pointer information). It would be great if the 'free' button could be assigned to start and stop midi clock both internally and for external midi gear - but it can't (My number one wish!). -Also there are occasional (but rare enough that it doesn't really bother me too much) glitches - eg. a mono patch in a multimode becoming a stuck note; certain patches freezing up. Having said that, its a really powerful and versatile keyboard - if its midi capabilities got tightened up in updates that would be lovely, but I can't really hold my breath for that at this stage.

 

 

 

This is fantastic info thank you very much.

[aeon]

The Blofeld is the evolution of the line of synth genetics that began with the Q. It addresses one of my major issues with the Q in that the filter drive actually works. Obviously the sample-based oscs are good times as well.

 

The Blofeld does not share synth genetics with the MicroWave series, and does not capture their sound, even with the use of its own wavetables.

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[CfNorENa]

The Blofeld is the evolution of the line of synth genetics that began with the Q. It addresses one of my major issues with the Q in that the filter drive actually works. Obviously the sample-based oscs are good times as well. The Blofeld does not share synth genetics with the MicroWave series, and does not capture their sound, even with the use of its own wavetables.

 

Well f*ck me. I was so proud of my "Blofeld = 75% of the MicroWave, Q, and Nord Wave for 1/4 the price" line. I guess I'll have to think of something better.

[evildragon]

Well filters are different. I'd say even better than those in Q/Nord. Since MW had analog ones, that one is category on its own.

[Gribs]

 

This is fantastic info thank you very much.

 

 

Yes that is some nice info. I subscribe to the Waldorf list but have not purchased the sample load unlock for my Blofeld desktop. I was aware of Spectre but I have not explored its multi-sample abilities. That is pretty cool.