Waldorf Blofeld

OVERVIEW

You don’t need to know about past Waldorf synths to appreciate Blofeld. But to put it in context, the concept is a fusion of the fat, three-oscillator analog modeling of the Micro Q (reviewed May ’01) with the complex harmonics of wavetable synths like the MicroWave II (reviewed Jan. ’98) and XT. Don’t look at those review dates and think “old technology,” though, as Blofeld’s audio quality is top-notch, and the range of sounds you can get out of it is almost limitless.

If you’re new to synthesizers, let me qualify that: Blofeld is not for straight imitations of pianos or violins or saxes; it’s for “synthy” stuff that’s supposed to sound electronic. That covers a lot of territory — greasy analog basses and chords that recall P-Funk, swoopy prog rock leads, the digital edge in some work by art-rockers such Peter Gabriel, fodder for sci-fi soundtracks, or the detuned, overdriven ear assaults you might hear at a warehouse rave. Blofeld does this all . . . exceedingly well.

Though Blofeld is 16-part multitimbral, it doesn’t have a multi mode with split or layered sounds. It has a mode called “multi,” but this just lets you assign different programs to each of 16 MIDI channels. This is a non-issue in studios, where the main DAW program is usually the key zone nanny, but for playing splits or layers live with no computer, you’ll need a MIDI keyboard that can do ’em on the transmitting end.

SYNTH ENGINE

Blofeld’s first two oscillators will either do modeled analog waves or play digital wavetables (see “Jargon Jockey” at right). Oscillator 3 is VA-only, and can be the hard sync master for either or both of the others. Sixty-eight wavetables each contain 64 digital waveforms, include all those from the MicroWave XT and vintage PPG Wave synth — the MicroWave stuff has been upgraded to 16 bits of resolution. 

 It’s easy to create hybrid patches where some oscillators make an analog sound and others take a ride on the harmonic rollercoaster of a wavetable. Blofeld doesn’t do wave-sequencing internally, but in wavetable mode, an oscillator’s pulse width setting is really the wave “pointer.” So, either automate pulse width in your sequencer, or modulate it by way of an LFO or controllers (mod wheel, velocity, key tracking, and aftertouch are four of many options), and you’ll get all the harmonic motion you want. Sweeping through wavetables, either by turning a knob or automatic means, is smooth, with no audible glitches. It would be bitchin’ to trigger wave changes from the arpeggiator, but alas, not at this time. An unrelated plus is that within a sound program, you can define a separate pitchbend range for each oscillator.

Big, big props to Blofeld’s filters. You get two, each with every “pass” mode, 12dB and 24dB slopes, a comb mode, and an extra lowpass model of the PPG Wave’s distinctive-sounding filter. You can pan each filter’s output in stereo, and upstream of that, decide how much of each oscillator’s signal goes to each filter.

As Deadheads say, this isn’t even the cool part yet. These. Filters. Sound. Like. Analog. At sane settings, they’re warm and musical, and cutoff and resonance both sweep smoothly. Crank that resonance, and bats will fly towards Ozzy Osbourne to get away from you. Many VA synths can simulate overdriving an analog filter, but Blofeld adds 13 “drive curves” to control how this ramps up. Try the “tube” curve with moderate drive mapped to aftertouch — a little press, and even the shyest lead steps in front of the mix with just enough attitude. Of course, you can take this over the top, into the realm of the angriest sounds you’d ever hear out of Nine Inch Nails.

FM options are among the most thorough I’ve seen in a VA-type synth. The 11 source choices include each oscillator and each envelope (Blofeld has four, two of which are freely assignable). Try FM’ing any waveform with a moving wavetable as a source — trippy.

You can set up 16 relationships in the modulation section. It’d be a space hog to list all the sources and targets, so I’ll just say the only reason Blofeld doesn’t qualify as a modular synth is that it doesn’t need patch cords. An added spice is the four modifiers. Each can put two modulation sources in a blender and get a third behavior out, which you can then use to control something audible. Instead of “whip” or “frappé,” the blender uses math and logical functions. For a simple example, let’s say modifier 1 is controlling filter cutoff, looking at a mod wheel and key velocity as sources, and set to AND. That’d let you set a baseline brightness with the wheel, but always get brighter by playing harder — there’s no such thing as the wheel being up so far that velocity would have no effect. Maybe only advanced sound designers will dig into modifiers, but at Blofeld’s price, it’s remarkable to have this kind of surgical precision for creating expressive, responsive sounds.

ARPEGGIATOR

On the surface, Blofeld’s arpeggiator has all the expected retro stuff: up, down, up-then-down, and down-then-up directions, plus hold and one-shot modes. (One-shot is great for playing with drummers. You can hit a chord to fire off a phrase on a downbeat, then hit your next chord on the next downbeat, and you’ll sound synced up.) Get deeper, and it feels more like an old-school step sequencer. Technically, it’s still an arpeggiator, not a sequencer, because it plays only the notes or chords you play on a keyboard. Fifteen preset patterns are on hand, plus one user pattern, which you edit on a step screen (see Figure 1 on page 48). Yes, you can set weird lengths of less than 16 steps, and yes, it syncs to MIDI tempo.

Get this: The arpeggiator is per part. Theoretically, you can have 16 different percolations at once, though you’ll likely run out of polyphony before that. The clock value (i.e., the note length of one step) ranges from 64 bars to a 96th-note, and by using different values on different parts, I concocted some counterpoints that sounded like Tangerine Dream spent the day in my studio. Two wants: First, this is where Blofeld could really use a software editor, as setting up patterns using the knobs and LCD is more fiddly than other sound editing tasks. Second, though the display has a pointer to show which step you’re editing, I’d also like to see a cursor that moves through steps as the arpeggio plays.

IN USE

Blofeld is both smaller and heavier than it seems in pictures. The size meant that it perched comfortably atop the blank panel real estate on some keyboards — to the left on a Yamaha Motif ES7, and to the right on a Nord Wave, for example — without blocking access to any nearby controls. The weight meant that it didn’t jiggle when I played hard on those keyboards on X-type stands.

I noticed that the audio jacks aren’t secured to the exterior metal with screws or ring nuts; they’re just mounted on the internal circuit board. Push sideways on the barrel of a plugged-in audio cable, and you’ll see the jack assembly move a bit. It’s not a huge deal, but you should pay attention to cable strain and proximity to party people if you take Blofeld out live.

Given my earlier comment about not being able to arpeggiate my way through wavetables, I was happy to figure out something similar using an LFO. In “clocked” mode, Blofeld’s LFOs think in note values like the arpeggiator, and can sync to the internal clock or to MIDI tempo from a host. In the “PPG Bells” patch, I set the first LFO’s shape to “random,” oscillator 1’s wavetable to “UpperWaves” (the original PPG set), and made the LFO change the waveform. With the LFO’s clock value set to eighth-note triplets, the result was beautiful — unpredictable harmonic shifting with predictable rhythm: “Deedle-uh, doodle-ah, diddle-eh, doddle-ee.” That may sound basic or even dorky to an advanced synth user, but I mention it as an example of what you can do with one oscillator and one modulation source — a fraction of the capability of a single program, let alone several of them in a multi-part composition or gig setup.

I’ve said almost nothing so far about the factory sounds, because there are just so darned many — 1,000 and change. There’s enough traditional fare: Moogy basses and leads, squirty Oberheim brass, pads that could be a Jupiter-8, and given the PPG Wave heritage, lots of shimmering, evolving digitalia. Overall, though, it seems like Waldorf’s sound designers followed a progressive ethic, showing off Blofeld’s ability to manifest sounds you might not have imagined, if sometimes leaning towards house, techno, and trance. A bit more Detroit than Motown, if you catch my drift.

If you get into creating your own sounds (it’d be a shame if you didn’t), know that while the four navigation buttons and four quick-edit knobs on the right of the panel call up the most-wanted settings for realtime tweaking, they don’t provide access to every edit page in Blofeld. In fact, there are tons more pages “in between” the most visible ones — each button just takes you to page 1 of its own section. The quickest way to find an “in between” page is to hit the button that brings up the closest page to it, then scroll forward or backward with the main knob — that’s how I found poly/mono, noise, and glide settings, for example.

Because you access such a deep synth engine from a graphical LCD and a handful of knobs, Blofeld does have a non-trivial, but reasonable, learning curve. Though the printed quick start guide and full PDF manual have some rough translation into English, they make a decent effort to tell you how to do things, not just what things do. I did find a mistake, though: Page 20 of the PDF says to “press Shift + Store” as the final step in saving an edited sound. Only, there’s nothing labeled “Store” on the Blofeld. By trial and error, I learned that they meant the Oscillator/Utility button. Distributor MV Pro Audio says Waldorf will correct this in future manuals.

CONCLUSIONS

Blofeld is one shagadelic synth, cramming enough sound-creation mojo to fill Dr. Evil’s underground lair into a box that’d fit in Mini-Me’s fanny pack. To a degree, it’s similar to Dave Smith’s Poly Evolver line in how it combines analog and digital sounds, though there are big enough differences in design goals and price points — for starters, the Evolvers’ analog sections are real, not virtual — that they’re not competitors any more than a piano and an organ are.

Sure, I can think of missing features that would add hardware cost, such as inputs for processing external audio through Blofeld’s synth engine. I can also think of some that wouldn’t add cost: A software editor and the ability to control Blofeld as a plug-in are top of my wish list for future updates.

That said, if you’re looking for one piece of hardware to handle all your “synthy” sound needs, there’s really nothing anywhere near this price that gives you what Blofeld does. You’ve got the fat factor of three-oscillator virtual analog. You’ve got the sonic movement factor of wavetables. You’ve got a modulation matrix you’ll keep exploring for the next year, and enough polyphony to sequence a few parts, or play a single part live without any voice-stealing. You’ve got a broad spectrum of factory presets, from gig-ready to highly esoteric. It’s like some cutting-edge soft synth, only with the stability and grab-and-go ease of hardware. I agree with the company’s claim: Waldorf is back, and better than ever.

CLAIM CHECK

Michael Marans, president of Waldorf’s North American distributor MV Pro Audio, says, “The name ‘Waldorf’ conjures up images of breakthrough technology, gorgeous hardware, and above all, unique sound. So more than a few musicians were truly saddened when the company went under a while back. Blofeld, the first synth from the resurrected Waldorf, had to achieve several goals to live up to the expectations of a rabid fan base. First, it had to sound like a Waldorf. So including wavetables and virtual analog oscillators from previous instruments was a no-brainer, and having the engineers who designed those synths on the team didn’t exactly hurt. Next, it had to look like a Waldorf, a task that fell into the capable hands of Axel Hartmann, Waldorf’s longtime designer. Finally, it had to be über-competitive, not just against other companies’ products, but against previous Waldorf instruments. The new Waldorf had to prove not just that they were back, but that they were better than ever. That’s why Blofeld is so feature-packed and sits at a price way below anything Waldorf has offered before.”

JARGON JOCKEY

Wavetable: A group of sampled waveforms that you can step through in real time. Use a time-based control source such as a sequencer or LFO, and it’s like an invisible hand is turning the waveform knob. Since the waves themselves are sampled, they can have complex harmonics you can’t get from analog oscillators. Since they can change, patches can include subtle or drastic timbral shifts you can’t get with the usual filtering and modulation. Blofeld’s ancestor, the PPG Wave, was the first commercial synth to feature wavetables.

Waldorf, www.waldorfmusic.de 
U.S. dist. by MV Pro Audio, www.mvproaudio.com