Waldorf

Pushing even further into soft-synth territory, Waldorf has revealed their first full-on virtual instrument: Waldorf Largo. Still no word on Montego, Bermuda, Bahama, Come On Pretty Mama.  

Bill Holland hooks up the Waldorf Blofeld to Ableton Live to get his old school hardware control on. What he comes up with sounds something like a circus of dolphin song and twittering mantids, which is just what you want on a hot club night. I mean, I do, anyway.  

For this demo, Bill Holland hooked up the "highly scientific" Waldorf Blofeld syhth to Ableton and let her rip. Its sleek German design puts all controls in their most logical locations, so you can reserve more brainpower for world domination.  

We revisit Ross Kelly, known in Chicago clubs as DJ Steak, and he shows us the Waldorf Pulse. This modern monophonic synth has some sweet sounds and features -- no wonder it takes ninja-quick hands to operate.  

I remember on My Super Sweet 16, my dad gifted me with a set of keys to a brand new, killer Lambo, which I drove to the Hoobastank concert in my mansion. Similarly, but not nearly as awesomely, the Waldorf Blofeld gets some keys to become the Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard. I guess that's pretty awesome, too, but not as awesome as high fiving Doug Robb . . . twice!  

Mike Huckaby has been djing in over 12 different countries in the last 12 months, has taught reaktor and ableton all over the world, and has received accolades on his recent remix work for artists including Juan Atkins. While serving for a long time as the go-to DJ at the famous Record Time, Mike now mentors Detroit youth in Ableton Live and Reaktor when not performing or producing. This week, Gearwire got a chance to talk shop and find out what Mike has been up to in the studio and out.  

Gearwire's Bill Holland installed a Waldorf Nano soundcard into a CME UF 50 controller keyboard. Here are the shocking results.  

The CME UF 50 is, out of the box, a controller for your software synth or MIDI files. Without audio ins or outs, another device is necessary for the UF 50 to work unless you install your own soundcard into it.  

We continue our tour of Vince Lawrence's studio, and in this segment we talk about monitors and more rack synths. Vince gives some extra praise to his Genelec 1034B monitors, which are pretty rare to see.  

From Waldorf on the Blofeld:

"For many yearss I trrick and tweek all ziss syntesizing maschinery to produce hyooch aural vibrationss. Bat zey are all not capable to produce a sound so powerfull and fäät like I need for ze big explosionss.

Zey are so big and so many zat I cannot take on the journeys, you know? My very german Waldorf syntesizing scientists heff now developed a new sintesizing maschine viz ze power of many, many maschines inside! It is so strong, I cannot believe. My enemies vill be very surprised, yes! Höh höh."

You got all that, right?

 

Prototype 909's bread and butter is the Roland TB-303 and other numbered Roland gear, but that's not all they use. Check this video out for talk on Walkdorf's Pulse, Dave Smith Instruments' Evolver, and of course some other Roland gear.  

Gearwire has a chat with Wolfram Franke, software developer for Waldorf. Joe Wallace's interview covers a range of Waldorf products including the (wonderfully-named) Blofeld synth, Zarenbourg physical modelling e-piano,...  

At press time, the Waldorf Zarenbourg is still a prototype electric piano, with more work to be done before it hits the market. That said, Waldorf was still happy to show it off at this year's Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany....  

Here we get some better looks at the Zarenbourg piano along with some explanation behind its design. It is described as a player's instrument. "Like a guitar for keyboardists." You can just sit down and start playing. Apparently...  

Here we can hear the new Waldorf Zarenbourg in all its modelled glory. That's right, this is a physical modeled Rhodes type piano. It is digital. Why would they design an instrument in such a large case when they could easily...