

It's also capable of producing punchy drums sounds, of which there are plenty onboard, ready for tweaking. The Blofeld is well suited not just to pads, leads and basses but also to warped and twisted sound effects. The attention to detail here is just dizzying and the results are stunning. The number of sound shaping options is just incredible for a synth that's this cheap and compact.įinally in the Osc section, there's a Unison mode (which can have up to six voices and de-tune and dual modes) poly/mono modes, glide with several modes and super-fast or super-slow glide rates, ring modulation and variable colour noise. Watch those speakers jump!Įach oscillator can have its own FM modulation source and amount as well. Oscillator sync between Oscs 2 and 3 is also available.Īny of the three oscillators can frequency modulate another, enabling you to create everything from subtle wavering to sonic mayhem. Each oscillator can have its own PWM source and amount - they sound suitably phat and analogue-like and we're very impressed by their solid, heavy and wide frequency range. Moving on to the Virtual Analogue synthesis/Osc section, the supplied waves include sawtooth, triangle, sine and variable pulse wave. It also incorporates the 'Upper wavetable' from the venerable PPG Wave - this can be looked upon as a 'best of' wavetable, incorporating all the extreme wave types from smooth to nasty. You'll be pleased to learn that the Blofeld features wavetables from the Microwave XTK and XT and also from the Q and Micro Q models. They definitely sound amazing and inspiring on the Blofeld.

On top of this, wavetables are great for continuously evolving sounds (particularly pads) and can also be useful for bell-like textures and much more. Using various modulation options, wavetable synthesis allows for very ethereal, rich and textured sounds. The length of the tables can also be limited. The Blofeld has 128 waves per wavetable - and 66 wavetables in total. Each wavetable is designed to have a different sonic character, while the Brilliance control can enhance harmonics within the wavetables (and the sawtooth and pulse oscillator models). The wavetable synthesis combines lots of different waveforms of varying timbre and harmonic content that are put together to form a continuous cycle of sound that stops and starts with a key press or release. Be warned though: this is a very deep synth indeed.
#Waldorf blofeld init patch series
There's one global effect, too.įeature-wise, Blofeld is like the best of the Q and Microwave series rolled into one but with a number of great new additions. Two independent effect units are available in the normal 'Play Sound' mode and there's one available per part in Multi mode. There are 1,024 program slots (all user-writeable) and it has a 16-part multitimbral mode. Blofeld is a 3-oscillator, 25-voice desktop synthesizer that incorporates Virtual Analogue and Wavetable synthesis.
