Just wanted to start a thread heaping some love on the Blofeld. What a synth! I don’t know why it has this reputation for being “cold” and “digital” it can do the warmest most tender pads I think I’ve ever heard! It’s a thing of beauty. I’ve been sitting here completely mesmerized for the past hour tweaking this thing. Wow.
Just replaced the default knobs with some plastic ones for a bit of a better grip, it’s a lot nicer to program now. The modulation matrix, jebus! It’s pretty damn close to a modular, not much unlike the Elektrons in that respect.
That, plus sampling capabilities (at least on the keyboard version), user wavetables and the ridiculous price for it! This synth is just a win, win, win in so many ways. Love it, love it, love it!
it’s terrific sounding, and very deep, great screen too, turn the brilliance down for a bit of edge to those wavetable scans - fwiw, the desktop unit can have the sample capability ‘unlocked’ if you give waldorf a lot of silver
the logic stuff in the mod matrix area is brilliant for bit gymnastics
same here, apart from wobbly encoders and a lower output (compared to other machines) it makes it for a great piece of gear. once in a while i get tempted to sell the xt … if it wasn’t for all those knobs
sampling is available on the desk version as well…for a bit of money though would have bben nice to just have it there, there’re not so many things you can do with the samples but surely id a good addition to the already good machine
I just picked up a minty black Blokey for the price of the desktop version a few days ago, and I am in love. Still a bit intimidated by the hefty mod matrix, but I’ve been having a ball feeding it into the OT and coming up with rather full arrangements in short periods of time. Don’t even get me started on the drones. Blofeld, you complete me.
Ha! I am happy to see that i am not alone here with my love.
My only complain is that the distortion is sounding horrible to my ears, the bass is not ballsy at all, rather mushy, and the synth response towards the velocity curves (i have a black Blokey) is crappy insensitive or overreacting. I love it for drones, soundscapes and textural sweet angel pads. Matches nicely with Monomachine, Analog four and Moog Sub Phatty.
What plastic knobs are you using? And i thought the metal knobs are glued? How did you lift them?
I’ve read that too. I bought my Blokeys in October, brand new, and have not experienced wobbly encoders at all. Quite the contrary, they’re very “stiff” (a bit too “stiff”, I would say).
i think this wouldn´t be a good idea …
a new OS is on the way … and they did some fixing with the encoders … no p-jumps anymore …
i installed it but was quick going back to the 1.16B … the new OS is still in early alpha-stage … and buggy as hell
it also appears that Waldorf is maybe going to implement some sort of arranger-mode or arrangement in the multimode …
however, as Waldorf is known for it´s delay it will not be very soon
As I recall there is only one guy that does coding for the Blofeld, and if I had to guess the same guy codes the firmware for the Pulse 2 as well, but that is only an assumption.
Oh yes you re right, i totally have forgotten about the new OS update that adresses this issue. But i am not sure if this is purely a software issue, because some have this problem, some don’t. My Blokey is s/h but a black model, so my hopes are high, that it wont have bad encoders.
@Daisuk. How does it look like with the new caps? Could you please share a picture?
blofeld sticks in my mind constantly as a synth that i loved the sound and programming experience of. i think i sold it because i was in a constant state of gas at the time. i still remember the evolving pads that i made with it. even with the XT, i will probably buy it again someday. it is a real deal synth.
would have bben nice to just have it there, there’re not so many things you can do with the samples but surely id a good addition to the already good machine