Review: Waldorf Music Blofeld
Sep 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander
VIRTUAL ANALOG/WAVETABLE SYNTH PLOTS WORLD DOMINATION
Naturally, you can modulate any of the modulators themselves, including the Modifiers, LFOs and every stage of the four envelopes. But what's really cool is that Blofeld lets you specify that these sources act upon themselves, for what essentially results in recursive modulation. It definitely can get heady, but it's a tweaker's paradise that truly sets Blofeld apart from the crowd.
PINKY-FINGER JAMS
The freely programmable, MIDI-syncable arpeggiator at the end of the parameter list is a monster! Featuring clock divisions from 96th notes to 64 bars with variable swing/shuffle and a range as high as 10 octaves, it can arpeggiate up, down or alternate up and down. It sorts notes “as played” or reversed, from lowest to highest key or velocity (and vice versa) and with variable note length. In Multi mode, you get one arpeggiator per part.
The fun really begins at the step-data level, which is displayed graphically. Pattern lengths range from 1 to 16 independently programmable steps. Four more screens let you adjust individual note accents, turn step glides on or off, nudge timing ahead or behind and finely expand or compress individual note lengths for tight staccato or full legato play. The 15 storable user patterns range in tempo from 40 to 300 bpm. A front-panel Mode control quickly turns the arpeggiator on/off and switches to One Shot or Hold modes, which are handy for firing off chorded sequences in time with a drummer or drum machine.
LET'S SHAG, BABY, YEAH!
Factory programs are spread over eight banks (A through H). Plowing through all 1,024 presets takes some time, but 11 filter categories help narrow the search. I recognized many patches from the Micro Q, but with a distinctly cleaner and smoother sound from the Blofeld, particularly in its filters and wavetable scanning. The VA programs sound absolutely gorgeous: superfat sub wobbles and kick basses, juicy analog brass and strings for every occasion, greasy R&B/hip-hop leads, blistering Chemical Brothers synths with raunchy filter distortion and teeth-chattering resonance, lush Oberheim/Prophet-style pads and tons of explosive electro drums.
On the flipside of the sound spectrum, you find chunky hybrid organs, classics like B3 and Farfisa, Wurlitzer/Rhodes/DX-7-style pianos, tons of mystical sweeps and classic PPG fodder including mallet, vocal and glassy bell-like sounds. The smooth transitioning through each of the wavetable's 128 indexed waves, which you can modulate into extremely complex harmonic and seamlessly evolving textures, impressed me the most.
Blofeld's well-designed GUI has more than 100 menus to surf; the context-sensitive paging and soft-knob system manages to make the edit facilities a piece of cake to navigate. The deepest you ever have to scroll is seven pages and, even then, the most frequently used parameters are typically found in the first two or three layers.
PROJECT “GLOBAL WARMING”
One can't help but wonder if Blofeld's underlying scheme is to melt a bit of Access' Virus TI Snow (which will be reviewed in next month's issue). After all, the features and design appear similar. It's quite possible these similarities are purely coincidental, but either way, it's worth comparing the specs on both units.
Both synths sport VA and spectral/wavetable synthesis. Snow also features a dedicated suboscillator, formant voicing and granular synthesis, which Blofeld does not. Both units have dual multimode filters with competing filter types (Snow's exclusive Moog cascade filter versus Blofeld's PPG model). The Snow's modulation matrix is 1-to-3, but it has only six slots. Their LFOs are very similar, but Blofeld's four multimode envelopes will take you quite a bit further than Snow's two ADSTR envelopes. The synths' effects are also comparable, though Snow has independent delay and reverb per patch, plus a global vocoder. Snow also has full multiperformance layering capabilities, analog inputs, audio streaming and full computer VSTi integration over USB.
Still, at two-thirds the asking price of the $1,550 Snow, it's clear that Waldorf has done its homework in figuring out the best places to cut costs and release a sub-$1,000 unit representing incredible value. Blofeld is a perfect companion for live musicians or laptop producers.
Listen to exclusive audio examples from Blofeld at Remixmag.com.
WALDORF MUSIC
(DIST. BY MV PRO AUDIO)
BLOFELD > $999
Pros: Classic Waldorf/PPG sound. Combines virtual analog and wavetable synthesis. Fat-sounding filters. Excellent modulation facilities. Deeply programmable arpeggiator. Incredible value.
Cons: No auxiliary stereo outputs. No audio inputs for processing. MIDI Out/Thru only via USB. No audio streaming or VSTi computer integration at this time.
Contact: www.waldorfmusic.de; www.mvproaudio.com
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