I don’t know what Waldorf is going to do with the Quantum, so this is just a technical point, but can’t two synths have a different number of voices and still be said to be “fully compatible”.?
I think of the Korg Prologue 8 and 16 for instance. I’d call them “fully compatible”. I guess it depends on what the “fully” part of this means. Just a trivial point, which has nothing to do with whether Waldorf turns the Quantum into a 16 voice synth.
I would say though that Waldorf will really torpedo sales of the Quantum, if they don’t make It perform at least as well as and preferably better than the Iridium.
Just part of the “business” side of synth making and selling.
For example, they pretty much torpedoed me: I was prepared to make the payment today on an in-stock Quantum, but now I’m back to the Iridium. It’s not just the Quantum’s lack of CV, but that, for all its extra knobs—which I’d have been happy to pay extra for—those knobs aren’t enough to keep up with expansions in the firmware. Even its three sets of LFO knobs will leave you setting immediacy aside to mess with the touchscreen for the three other LFOs. The Iridium is actually easier than that, having added a hardware LFO selector button. If the firmware ever goes beyond six LFOs, though, that selector will become obsolete. Quantum does still have the dedicated effects controls though.
it would be nice from Waldorf to make a definitive statement when they think shipping to the sellers is possible … on the Thomann-site they change expected shipping every week … sometimes 1-2 weeks, then 4-5 weeks, then 3-4 weeks …
The only statement I heard (from Rolf in an interview) is that they are producing as many as possible and sending them to retailers.
I’m pretty confident this delay is COVID + some minor production changes. The first batch sold out, and smaller retailers likely didn’t get any of those. Now we are seeing a few units at those smaller retailers. It makes sense as they have been waiting longer to get any units. At least that is my guess at what is going on.
It helps to know that they are indeed being made. I really feel for you guys waiting, and hope you get good news soon.
On Gearslutz, there’s been some dissatisfaction with the Iridium’s use of samples. The concern is that the Iridium relies so much on samples for its characteristic sounds that it’s significantly less of a synth than you think and too much like a mediocre ROMpler. I’m interested in what Iridium owners think about this aspect of using the Iridium, but in a considered manner that doesn’t go down a GS-like rabbit hole.
I’d probably ask those voicing these concerns to look more into the Kernels engine, and to then maybe try and name one VST that offers everything that’s covered in that engine alone.
More-over, it isn’t the Iridium that’s relying so much on samples for its users’ characteristic sounds; it is the Iridium that allows the user to rely so much on samples for their characteristic sounds.
This confuses me. Mostly because I’ve been too lazy to load samples, so I’ve completely avoided using samples whatsoever. I’ve done Moogy basses to Plaits-type karplus strong to QPAS-like split filter stereo trickery… There’s so much to uncover here with a little creativity that isn’t just granular and samples.
I’m reminded of the Prophet X, which does cool stuff with samples even if its multisamples have their own inherent utility. I get the idea that the Prophet X is much more involved with its closely curated samples than the Iridium. I’m not much on samples in a polysynth, but I’d have gone for an X by now if it had some hope of ever getting MPE.
I just re-read the notion that the Quantum / Iridium is potentially too dependent on samples, and it made me LOL. As if this thing doesn’t have enough raw synthesis power, good grief! I mean I’m still exploring and discovering, and it’s already the deepest synth I’ve experienced to date. The Kernals mode in particular is in a class of its own.
As an outsider here… (Iridium is in my want category, circled many times, but I don’t have one and won’t for some time)… one of the things that surprises me most about this wild GS theory is that I would like to hear more demos that make use of the sample/granular engine.
Loopop spends a little time on it, but does not delve much into how it might be used creatively for synthesis (because there are so many other methods/engines to cover!) and most of the other demos I have seen pass over it pretty quickly. I want to know more about how I might mess my samples up, beyond just granularizing them. All that said, even without that engine, this would be a burst-at-the-seams feature-packed synthesizer with lots and lots of creative options, and I would still be very keen to get my hands on one.
And Tim Shoebridge has produced and sells detailed sets of multisamples specifically for the Iridium/Quantum, yet I still ask: why? In his promos, he plays through the samples to demonstrate their quality, but it would be a lot more inspiring to hear someone do something more Iridium-y, not just play back samples.
ADDED: I also want to ask: how are these multisamples tailored for the Iridium in ways a generic set of samples would not be?
I explored the sample side of particle mode a bit tonight, and its well done but also pretty basic. The craziest I could get with it was looping small sections (approaching single cycle waves). I also used a fast LFO on OSC1 pitch and got some interesting timbres. I wish you could layer samples, as it currently plays 1 at a time using round robin, random, etc.
Overall the sample mangling is a bit tame IMO, but it’s the first time I’ve really sat down to explore it. Note I’m not talking about granular, just the sample playback and what you can do to mess with it. For example playing it backwards, looping small sections, etc.
Yeah, I’ve been on board for the live granular from the start. My only regret with the Iridium is not having the Quantum’s aux outs for the thing I’m live granularizing, but that’s been discussed.
Personally, I’m cool with something straightforward and fast that you use in combination with other Iridium techniques. I mean, the Prophet X’s treatment of samples is also rather basic, that device being about the things you can do modulating samples, samples as modulation sources, etc. With the Iridium’s fw still under development, I hope there’s even more to look forward to with its sample mangling features.
Yeah, I spent a little time with the manual after posting my previous comment and came away with an impression a lot like what you describe. Which is fine. It looks like a fair amount of energy was put into the granular side of the engine.
I went ahead and patched a software send to run the mic’s on the piano into the iridium’s live granular engine – I’ll probably tweak the patch a bit more before going through the trouble of figuring out how to frame both for a video.
