Waldorf Blofeld Synthesizer

"You only ever post about things you hate." - Gemma

All right, then, here's something I like.


After I bought my Moog Little Phatty, I promised myself, and my girlfriend, that I didn't want/need anymore synthesizers. But at that point, back in August, I hadn't heard of the soon-to-be-released Waldorf Blofeld.

It's tiny, it's relatively inexpensive, and it's loaded with all kinds of fun stuff. All the Waldorf Q waveforms, all the Microwave wavetables, all kinds of routing and modulating possibilities including a step sequencer and an appregiator that is capable of having glide on or off depending on what step it is on... I FUCKIN' NEED THAT!!!

Plus, it sounds like this and this. Extreme Drive Curves!!! I NEED that!!!

Of course, all may not be what it is cracked up to be.

Here's a post from "Totty" at the Virus TI Forum:

"First off I haven't had much time to work with it, but yes it does sound good -
The oscs are sharper than the TI but I need to have a closer go on the wavetables. Obviously it may sound very much like a Micro Q, but having never used one I can't say. Very snappy envs, probably more than the TI and the LFOs do go into orbit! Very nice.

I know it's a cliche, but it is built like a tank! Very solid and sits very well next to my Polar.

It seems a little buggy to me as parameters were self editing!!

However the CD with the manual on it won't load on my mac or pc (scratched disc straight out of the box) and the quick start manual is good tinder for the fire this time of year.

Also there is a load of crap behind the screen (dust / dirt) which I am not happy with so I am gonna send it back. Beware if getting in the UK, you get a 2 prong plug and no adaptor. Luckily my left over adaptor from my Virus C came in handy!"

Yuck! Then a few days later, there was this post at Matrixsynth, accompanied by this YouTube video showing off some buggy behavior by the Blofeld:



Oh noes!!!

So the Waldorf Blofeld might be a buggy piece of shit. I already survived through an Ensoniq Fizmo, so I'm not really inclined to rush out and place an order for this thing until either:

a) Once enough people have them, it turns out only the first few shipped were flawed and everything is fine. (unlikely)

or

b) Waldorf releases an update that fixes these bugs and the early adopters say that all the bugs they encountered before the patch are fixed after the patch. (This process could take a few years.)

As far as I know, the Blofelds aren't shipping in the U.S. yet, so hopefully some Europeans are just getting screwed with a bad first run, but I'm going to have to wait this one out before I even think about picking one up.

Update: Breaking News!!!!

It appears the YouTube video linked above demonstrating some of the Blofeld's bugs has been removed, and the YouTube user's account has been "closed." WTF is going on there?!

I should point out that the YouTube user, Porcu68, had actually posted a handful of YouTube vids demonstrating the Blofeld, and all but the "Bugs" one were actually quite complimentary. Wonder if it's someone who got a hold of a pre-release Blofeld and signed an NDA or what...