Samples are organised in “programs”. A program can be a single sample spread on the 127 midi notes or a multisample, each sample being spread on its own note range, like a traditional sampler.
You can transfer any number of programs you want, but all at once
Transfer is slow, maybe half an hour for the whole 64mb. But once it’s in the box, it’s instant, no loading time when you turn on the Blofeld
Can the samples be manipulated like the other oscillators or are some things impossible, like using fm on a sample?
Samples (“programs”) can’t be used on oscillator 3. Anything else, you can do.
The knobs aren’t normally glued. they’re probably too tight on the shaft. You can try inserting 2 plastic cards under the knob (on opposite sides) and use them both as levers to push the knob straight upwards. Native Instruments was selling a kit for the Maschine Mk2 with replacement faceplate and knobs, and it included a plastic tool for pulling out the knobs, handy!
Oh yes! That sounds better as i imagined! Thank you very much, i will definitely going to order it. The reason why i wasn’t sure about, were a few negative posts on the gearslutz forum
EDIT: I just gave up my order and I did ordered a small amp. The Roland Micro Cube, can be used with batteries and has multiple inputs. This makes it perfect for summer, to go out in nature and play beautiful pad sounds!
Anyone here who tried to power his Blofeld with on of these Batterie power banks?
I bought the blofeld more or less on a whim, as I liked the Attack software from Waldorf. I’m very glad I did. It finds its way into almost all of my recent work. I thought, at first, that it would be redundant because I have an Alesis ion, but they both do things differently and end up filling different spots in my instrumentation.
I’ve never looked into the SL license bfore, but I’m considering it now. I do kind of regret not getting the keyboard version, but space is tight right now.
I found a homepage that shows all the different wavetables from the Blofeld. Actually it’s the Waldorf Microwave 2 and XT but the Blofeld uses the same plus a few new ones.
This can be useful!
Edit: I just created my own wavetables and imported them into the Blofeld! Was much easier then I thought, even the sysex transfer worked without any problems!
If someone is interested, how it’s done, then check out this article:
I did use the “Waldorf Blofeld Wavetable Creator”. It provides very useful tools, like morphing between waveforms. Now my Blofeld has a supersaw and 9 other new tables I just created. Some of them are extra smooth sinwaves morphing into “super” sine waves for FM fun!
I’m absolutely in love with my Blofeld!
The Blofeld is a powerhorse.
This video is part of a very inspirational and educating series of sound design tutorials.
I wonder why the Blofeld is so underrated - everyone is going crazy about the new Roland Synths while the Blofeld is offering so much more with the same form factor. I will definitly get one soon as long as they are available for 300€ or less on the second hand market.
The Blofeld is only the Blofeld … not a re-issued SH-101, TR-808, TB-303, you name them all. Marketing at Roland has done a great job.
There has always been much hype about old-school analogue machines. Analogue was nearly dead for some time, gear was rare and expensive, but used by our heros. The digital simulations of analogue legends benefit from the heritage, even, if it would be only in their name. But TBH their sound is convincing and they don’t cost a fortune … okay … if we don’t get them all
Which modern composer is known for to work with a modern synth like the Blofeld. If you read Jupiter 8, or CS-80 or the like, everybody says Wow, listen to this great sound … but even if on the list, Blofeld may be overseen totally.
There are other underated synths out there … and I think for somebody knowing what he or she is doing, it’s an advantage to check them out.
Boutiques have a few strengths of their own: very easy UI and convincing sound if you’re after the legacy stuff. And don’t forget the nostalgia factor. The Blofeld is a sound designer’s synth, while the Boutiques are more immediate, simple, limited. But yes, for the price of a boutique I’ll take a Blofeld or a Pulse 2 any day…
I just bought a used blofeld for real cheap (260€) a few weeks ago to be the new best friend of my digitakt. I’m still learning both machines but so far it has been a lot of fun. I just wanted to leave a ‘thank you!’ to all people praising the blofeld on this forum! I wouldn’t have bought one without you, and I wouldn’t want to be without that thing now
I like the love this synth is getting here. I mean it’s 10 years ‘old’. Although I found it hard to mix it into my setup, the basic sounds are somehow timeless.
Just think how short the Rolands stay in the market.
I guess it has lot to do with a few people who never used one, but post negative comments about the Blofeld, because they don’t like a specific YouTube demo or don’t like the look. And the fact that names like 909,808,Juno etc have already a legacy status. I did buy a Roland boutique SH01a. One reason was just the fact that the original was used in a lot of „oldies“ i like. I tried out the plugin that was based on the ACB technology and did like it even more as the hardware (because of the second envelope and the knob that allows to fade between positive and negative Filter ENV modulation). I really love the Sh01a for fast creations of basslines, the portability. Personally I think the boutiques are very expensive compared to a Blofeld. IMHO they Blofeld can be programmed to sound much better even in the bass area, as my Sh01a! I would even go so far and say that the sounds of the SH01A, Ju-06, jx-3 and jp-8 can be emulated with the Blofeld. I have a Pulse 2 and the bass can blow away anything, but it’s sometimes almost to heavy in the mix. It would be probably more popular if the interface was a little more traditional. But I would love to see Roland or any other company, doing something complete new that’s similar to the Blofeld. I hope the next elektron device will be a full blown wavetable synth with the option to load custom wavetables.
I just created a few new WT for the Blofeld, it’s more fun and less complicated as I expected!
Sure, the “it looks like the vintage synth I always wanted to have” factor is important.
Is it possible to import wavatables that are available on the internet into the Blofeld editor? For example I have a folder with all virus TI and massive wavetables that I use with Serum. Could that work with Blofeld?
Not sure if they will work directly, they are probably a different format. I use the Audio Term software for creating Blofeld wavetables, it can convert wavetables to different synth formats if necessary. It can also convert samples into wavetables. Really good once you get your head around the early 90’s type interface!
edit: Can’t remember now but I think I had to use WINEBOTTLER to get this running on OSX, its worth it though!
It might be possible, but I really can’t guarantee it. The thing is that the Wavetables On the Blofeld are 64 waveforms. Serum supports different numbers per Wtable. You can import the Blofeld tables and probably use them in serum. The editor can load „wav“ files. It might be possible to create a wav file out of our tables and import those. Just try it out
This has me keen to have a go at a wavetable creator for the Blofeld, I have made a wavetable creator before for a custom synth I made in Max when the first version of the iPhone came out (there was a custom controller called fantastik iirc) - it was a nice hands on way to scan through wavetables - but as I recall it, the way I had it configured I only entered the waypoint waves and Max did all the morphing between shapes - I’m wondering (if anyone cares to comment) whether the wave tables created by these various apps are all the same size or different (proportional to the number of waypoints) … if it’s the latter then the Blofeld does the interpolation based on the wave position in the stack of 64, if the interpolation needs to be calculated and baked into the wavetable then I may not try this - may instead opt to wine-bottle the PC app, but where’s the fun in that and besides the fun is in making the workflow suit your preferences
so if anyone can shed light on the file sizes it’d be helpful/appreciated
another related question to anyone using an editor which is changing parameter values by sysex (NOT CC) - do you find that the Blofeld is not keeping up with rapid changes in easily edited values where you can mouse the whole range quickly (as opposed to a drop down menu) - I’ve just noticed in my editor that the Blofeld was sluggish and I’ve never noticed this on any synth before - I had to script something to thin out the data but keep the responsiveness, but it had me wondering if the MIDI side was struggling in the unit (os 1.23) especially as i’d never noticed this … the sysex strings for individual parameters aren’t that long, and comparable with an NRPN string on a DSI or Elektron and they never choke
so any anecdotal feedback on the Blofeld’s ‘coping’ with rapid sysex programming (not sound dumps) would be interesting too
The Blofeld is too deep for its own good - it really needs an editor to view the patching as a whole, even if you get along with the interface - but I’ve had so much fun with the oscillator section (compared to most other analogs / VAs) that I want to get back into it again - it’s amazing for sound design, individual patches can be whole pieces
no doubt, except possibly the original Pulse+ … mighty
Personally, I don’t find the editing on the blofeld bad at all. I think it is pretty fast. I do use the for performance and sequencing the blofeld. Very occasionally I will supplement an LFO from Octatrack, but usually that is only when I don’t want to change the patch on the blofeld. That said, the two are a killer combo. Really really fun.
Hi, i‘m nur 100% sure if I understand you correctly since English isn’t my native language.
The wavetables have all the exact same size, independent of the complexity. I guess that the interpolation is done by the wavetable editors engine. But if i remember correctly, i read in the manual that the Blofeld calculates the intersection between every step: the Wavetables consists of 64 steps and the Blofeld has 128 „steps“ (0-127), so if you go from wave 1 to wave 2 there is a pseudo step between, in order to make the transition smoother. If a complete wavetable is finished in the editor, it can be saved as sysex file. Those can be uploaded with a sysex manager. The name and the position for the table is written into the sysex file of the wavetable. What’s kind of strangethat the size of a WT set is really small, but i don’t believe that Blo is fast enough to do the whole interpolation in real time, but maybe it would be possible that the Blofeld calculates everything after the import and saves then a complete caluculated version of the set, but personally i believe this is completely done by the wavetable editor.
I have the patchbase editor for the iPad, it supports a lot of different synths (even Volca FM and a lot of classic we’ll know synths). But i program my patches direct on the hardware, if you use it often, you know exactly what’s the quickest way to change and set things up. I use it as memory training
But usually editing via sysex can be slow. When i use a Volca fm and the app, the data are send over a midi interface(slow Transfer Speed) . If everything is set up perfect, it is faster but not fast enough to modulate a patch in real-time without delay.
For which synth did you write your Wavetable editor? I don’t know Max. Is it some kind of software devolpment kit that can be integrated/wrapped as plugin for Ableton?
When I create a wavetable with the editor, i usually create a waveform for the first step, and for the steps 16, 32,48 and 64. I then use a integrated morphing algorithm that calculates all the steps between. The only problem is that the editor can’t play the waveforms as audio, so I have to upload them into the Blofeld to listen how the sound.
I used the „WALDORF BLOFELD WAVETABLE CREATOR“ app. The editor „Audioterm“ application can play the audio that results from the wavetable, but I have to read the manual first since it’s a little more complex. Both apps can theoretically load short „wav“ files to resynthesize/extract the waveforms and make a table out of it, but i haven’t tried this out (maybe tomorrow).
But what’s strange that even a complex Wavetable consists of only a few rows of hexadecimal code, but all the Wavetables have the same size. But it looks like everything is done by the editor itself…
and I did ordered a small amp. The Roland Micro Cube, can be used with batteries and has multiple inputs. This makes it perfect for summer, to go out in nature and play beautiful pad sounds!
for performance and sequencing the blofeld. Very occasionally I will supplement an LFO from Octatrack, but usually that is only when I don’t want to change the patch on the blofeld. That said, the two are a killer combo. Really really fun.