Blofeld is the most creative synth I have ever play with and I can see its sound palette as a never ending one. Thanks for your videos, it helped me lots before taking the decision and purchasing one some time ago.
Your Blofeld videos are the primary way I am learning how to use my new Blofeld Desktop. The information you provide is clear, easy to understand, practical, and .... I love it! The randomized in the Blofeld is a particularly amazing discovery!! Going to be playing with that a lot!
The BLOFELD is a fascinating synthesizer. My favourite hardware unit up to date. Thank you very much. Some things were still unknown too me. What a monster island full of hidden treasures :)
This is just more in-debth knowledge on a synth than I have ever encountered. Have you found out all of this by yourself, or who was your sensei?? Incredile!!! Chapeau!!!
"My Blofeld stopped behaving like this when I used it in a different house." I saw in your disassembly video that there is no ferrite choke on the PSU input on the PCB inside, this could be a part of the problem. Any other digital synth has a ferrite choke or whatever inductor to make the unit less susceptible to noise coming through the power supply. Noise from power lines inside of the building that you're in can go through the Blofeld PSU, into the PCB, and destabilize the processor. Bad engineering design choice on Waldorf's part just to save a few pennies.
Get the Blofeld MAX MSP editor (stand alone also) - Other than deep editing without having to search the menus - It can send upto 127 CC messages all in One Go ! from the editor into the device. The results can be unimaginable to say the least ...
Excellent. Thanks for explaining some of the finer points in details. I'll have to dig back through you older videos too and get patch making on my Blofeld Keys!
Hey, that's me : ) I've read that some people doubt that there is real Karplus-Strong within the Blofeld. Actually, I've made a guess. Because the original Waldorf MicroWAVE had many so called "algorithmic wavetables" (28-52, 65) including the "Karplus-Strong" ones. This means that these waves are computed in realtime and are NOT saved as cycles (or half cycles) within the memory like normal wavetables. Consequently, wavetable parameters for these "wavetables" are interpreted as algorithm parameters. Source: chrisarndt.de/files/waldorf/mw_wavetables.pdf I guess that the Blofeld is based on the same idea but of cause only Waldorf can answer that question. Also be aware of the fact that even the old PPGs used algorithmically generated waves in order to save memory space. Source: web.archive.org/web/20090213162947/interviews.sonikmatter.com/2001/wolfram_franke.php
Yes, there should be a knob for that on the panel. This voice spreading is far better than using the chorus because "Unison V. on Filter Pan" doesn't mash the sound that much. Plus, it sounds like a Oberheim... well, at least a bit.
With the new OS there is actually just the LFO bug left. But everything else works (in my opinion). And for 200 $ (for a used one) or so you can't do anything wrong...
hey, thank's for that ;-) may be you can show us in one of the next videos, how you edit and import your own wavetables ? I struggle with this her on OS X
Sounds fantastic....I want to love this synth, but it’s so damn hard to use for basic performance. I still have no idea how to split the keyboard (and or) assign zones to different areas. I’m not even sure this is possible! Is there a simple way to take one patch and put it on the lowers half, and another on the upper?
Hi! What you describe is the "multi mode" of the Blofeld (multiple sounds at once). I made a video for that, too: ua-cam.com/video/dylOTZAaGuA/v-deo.html
gabudd - hab das teil auch stehen - freude hält sich sehr in grenzen - auch der pulse2 is kein highlite und beide werden schon bald am willhabenmarktplatz zu finden sein
For some reason my microkorg was corupting its patches randomly and they sound awesome, i still have them. Anyway... this synth WILL be my next, its amazing and unique.
It seems that there is no Midi CC implementation of those parameters yet :( You can only control it via the Blofeld itself. Maybe you should tell your feature request to Waldorf. There are (only) two slots left in the CC implementation table. You can find it in the appendix of the manual: waldorfmusic.com/downloads/Blofeld%20Downloads/Documentation/Manual.pdf
There are a few absolutely crazy patches in this video that you just called "random", I mean exactly what I am looking for. Do you provide any soundpacks? :-)
XD These patches ARE random patches! There is a function in the Blofeld to create patches automaticly with a random generator. In another video I show the menu pages, you can find the function there: ua-cam.com/video/vQgvhTdO3GM/v-deo.html And soundpacks are not planned yet ;-)
*can someone help a brother out?* I'm about to buy the Blofeld Keyboard version. and have a few questions: 1 - How many sounds can be used at the same time to build - let's say - a pad? I see there are only 3 oscilators, but it says it has more...? 2 - Can we draw our own arpegios and split the keyboard to use different arpegios? 3 - Can we split the keyboard to run a sequencer on a few keys, arpegios on others and a lead sound on others yet? 4 - Can we use the Blofeld as a Vector Synth, ie, is there any way to mix, fade in and out layers easily? 6 - is there any good PC program to build the sounds instead of directly from the Blofeld? Thanks a bunch.
Hi. When using the wt/samp mod on your samples I don't understand how you're getting all the different drum sounds to play. Is each sample made up of lots of drum sounds together sequentially in the one sample? If so did you make this yourself? And if so how exactly? Thanks so much.
Hi, the mod destination "wt/samp" causes a change of the wavetable (or sample) program within the oscillator. So it chages from Sample 1 to Sample 2 to Sample 3 and so on. ADDITIONALLY to this, you can also create multi-samples with different samples for different keys. This works with the software "Waldorf Spectre". Of course you need the sampling option for this (included in Blofeld keyboard, additional installation on Blofeld desktop).
Whoa what’s up with the samples,I bought the sample pack and it didn’t include all the samples you scrolled thru.A14 on mine is hihat open,I don’t have the crumar one or the mellotron samples I saw.whats up?is mine an older version of the sample pack?i bought a disc of reverb and downloaded it.i have the desk top version.
Spectre is free. It can take your WAV files. But there are also patch libs which you can buy which already have samples included. You should ask Waldorf for more information ;)
Wavetables need some higher computation effort than normal waveforms. So the Blofeld can only provide maximum two oscillators with wavetables. Consequently, OSC3 does not offer wavetables.
Thank you sir for your quick answer, i wanted also make shure the my Blofeld run correctly. I read and follow with a lot of interest your lessons.Thank one more for your patience and gentleness.
No, normally I use the "1-2-3-4-5" or "19/20" wavetables for speech things. Sometimes, I use my own samples. These samples were made from a recorded speech, cut into pieces, rearranged (some parts backwards, some repeated) and send through some free vocoder like VST plugin. The final wav files were loaded as multi samples into the Blofeld.
This is without a doubt the worst sounding synthesizer of all time.. Even the earliest sound canvas sounds better, the ancient EMU proteus modules and cheap Casio keyboards do sound more professional. It has nothing to do with your playing. The synth is just bad and it has a lot of bugs and glitches. I hate the little bugger. I am glad I got rid of it. What a waste of money this was.
![[patch] EBM Bass/Lead Sound (Blofeld)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ows18zK6ZuI/mqdefault.jpg)
![[patch] EBM Bass/Lead Sound (Blofeld)](/img/tr.png)
![[tutorial] Blofeld Beginners 2: Multi Mode](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dylOTZAaGuA/mqdefault.jpg)
![[tutorial] Pushing Blofeld toward microWAVE](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hLp9CNcH_AU/mqdefault.jpg)
Blofeld is the most creative synth I have ever play with and I can see its sound palette as a never ending one. Thanks for your videos, it helped me lots before taking the decision and purchasing one some time ago.
Your Blofeld videos are the primary way I am learning how to use my new Blofeld Desktop. The information you provide is clear, easy to understand, practical, and .... I love it! The randomized in the Blofeld is a particularly amazing discovery!! Going to be playing with that a lot!
Top notch info here - I've played with a Blofeld for years but some of this was a revelation. Huge thanks.
The BLOFELD is a fascinating synthesizer. My favourite hardware unit up to date. Thank you very much. Some things were still unknown too me. What a monster island full of hidden treasures :)
You are the Blofeld guru!
This is just more in-debth knowledge on a synth than I have ever encountered. Have you found out all of this by yourself, or who was your sensei?? Incredile!!! Chapeau!!!
"My Blofeld stopped behaving like this when I used it in a different house."
I saw in your disassembly video that there is no ferrite choke on the PSU input on the PCB inside, this could be a part of the problem. Any other digital synth has a ferrite choke or whatever inductor to make the unit less susceptible to noise coming through the power supply. Noise from power lines inside of the building that you're in can go through the Blofeld PSU, into the PCB, and destabilize the processor.
Bad engineering design choice on Waldorf's part just to save a few pennies.
"The cheepest design" was the concept behind the Blofeld back then in 2006 to push the "new" Waldorf company. So... Mission completed :-D
You don't own one, so why the f-ck are you whining about it? You have no more productive way to spend your time?
Get the Blofeld MAX MSP editor (stand alone also) - Other than deep editing without having to search the menus - It can send upto 127 CC messages all in One Go ! from the editor into the device. The results can be unimaginable to say the least ...
phenominal video, this really helped me! YAY! GREAT SYNTH TUTORIALS!
Proper synth nerding
This was so good! Thank you! One of the random patches sounded like running water in a bathtub haha!
beautiful presentation
Excellent. Thanks for explaining some of the finer points in details. I'll have to dig back through you older videos too and get patch making on my Blofeld Keys!
Hey, that's me : )
I've read that some people doubt that there is real Karplus-Strong within the Blofeld. Actually, I've made a guess. Because the original Waldorf MicroWAVE had many so called "algorithmic wavetables" (28-52, 65) including the "Karplus-Strong" ones. This means that these waves are computed in realtime and are NOT saved as cycles (or half cycles) within the memory like normal wavetables. Consequently, wavetable parameters for these "wavetables" are interpreted as algorithm parameters.
Source: chrisarndt.de/files/waldorf/mw_wavetables.pdf
I guess that the Blofeld is based on the same idea but of cause only Waldorf can answer that question. Also be aware of the fact that even the old PPGs used algorithmically generated waves in order to save memory space.
Source: web.archive.org/web/20090213162947/interviews.sonikmatter.com/2001/wolfram_franke.php
I asked Waldorf about the KS wavetables and they replied that Blofeld has no such algorithm implemented
@@charonme Thanks for asking!
You always do the best tutorials thanks, looking forward to you next ones ☺👍
This is golden
unison v, wow!
Yes, there should be a knob for that on the panel. This voice spreading is far better than using the chorus because "Unison V. on Filter Pan" doesn't mash the sound that much. Plus, it sounds like a Oberheim... well, at least a bit.
Great video thanks, do you know if when in "channel 1-16" mode, pitch bend is applied to each channel independently?
You can configure it just as you need. Watch my tutorial here: ua-cam.com/video/dylOTZAaGuA/v-deo.html
As always, super informative. Thank you. I do feel that the music is a little on the loud side.
Just amazing! Thank you.
Thank you!
Excellent Video, some of these things I didn't know and can't wait to try. Danke my friend :D
Bitte schön! :)
The Blofeld has more inside than it's appearence suggests.
Great level of detail and explanations, thanks! many people complain about the bugs in this synth, that stop me from buying one.
With the new OS there is actually just the LFO bug left. But everything else works (in my opinion). And for 200 $ (for a used one) or so you can't do anything wrong...
hey, thank's for that ;-)
may be you can show us in one of the next videos, how you edit and import your own wavetables ?
I struggle with this her on OS X
Sounds fantastic....I want to love this synth, but it’s so damn hard to use for basic performance. I still have no idea how to split the keyboard (and or) assign zones to different areas. I’m not even sure this is possible! Is there a simple way to take one patch and put it on the lowers half, and another on the upper?
Hi! What you describe is the "multi mode" of the Blofeld (multiple sounds at once). I made a video for that, too: ua-cam.com/video/dylOTZAaGuA/v-deo.html
Thank you!
You can take up to 16 sounds and allocate them freely - even one note per sound - like here ua-cam.com/video/VlTBRLDYiTU/v-deo.html
Very cool, thank you!
Dude...outstanding ''review'' seriously!
very useful video thx !
Wow that arpeggiated background music is incredibly cool. Is it the Blofeld?
+Thomas Kolb Thanks! Yes, it's some wavetable improvisation on the Blofeld.
Yeah, thanks for this!
gabudd - hab das teil auch stehen - freude hält sich sehr in grenzen - auch der pulse2 is kein highlite und beide werden schon bald am willhabenmarktplatz zu finden sein
Excellent. Subscribed!
For some reason my microkorg was corupting its patches randomly and they sound awesome, i still have them.
Anyway... this synth WILL be my next, its amazing and unique.
It’s worth it. It’s very close to being my favorite synth of all time.
Is the blofeld system not stable ?
Why are some mentions about the crashes and bugs ?
thanks!
Waldorf still charging for the SL license?
great, thanks!
Now I have to buy a Blofeld... ;)
Are samples or user wavetables better for creating pads as the stock wavetables?
Thank you for that.
I have a question : do you know the MIDI CC of Unisono and Unisono Detune ?
Thank you.
It seems that there is no Midi CC implementation of those parameters yet :( You can only control it via the Blofeld itself. Maybe you should tell your feature request to Waldorf. There are (only) two slots left in the CC implementation table. You can find it in the appendix of the manual: waldorfmusic.com/downloads/Blofeld%20Downloads/Documentation/Manual.pdf
Thank you.
You can use sysex to access unison and unison detune.
i have to press and hold the buttons to change screens on my blofeld ¿any one knows why and how to change it to be like before?
There are a few absolutely crazy patches in this video that you just called "random", I mean exactly what I am looking for. Do you provide any soundpacks? :-)
XD These patches ARE random patches! There is a function in the Blofeld to create patches automaticly with a random generator. In another video I show the menu pages, you can find the function there: ua-cam.com/video/vQgvhTdO3GM/v-deo.html And soundpacks are not planned yet ;-)
H pleasei can you do a tutorial on how to program the background patch used on the first half of the video it sounds mint thanks ☺👍
*can someone help a brother out?*
I'm about to buy the Blofeld Keyboard version. and have a few questions:
1 - How many sounds can be used at the same time to build - let's say - a pad? I see there are only 3 oscilators, but it says it has more...?
2 - Can we draw our own arpegios and split the keyboard to use different arpegios?
3 - Can we split the keyboard to run a sequencer on a few keys, arpegios on others and a lead sound on others yet?
4 - Can we use the Blofeld as a Vector Synth, ie, is there any way to mix, fade in and out layers easily?
6 - is there any good PC program to build the sounds instead of directly from the Blofeld?
Thanks a bunch.
This will answer most of your questions: ua-cam.com/video/ksgD6YBWNl8/v-deo.html
Hi. When using the wt/samp mod on your samples I don't understand how you're getting all the different drum sounds to play. Is each sample made up of lots of drum sounds together sequentially in the one sample? If so did you make this yourself? And if so how exactly? Thanks so much.
Hi, the mod destination "wt/samp" causes a change of the wavetable (or sample) program within the oscillator. So it chages from Sample 1 to Sample 2 to Sample 3 and so on. ADDITIONALLY to this, you can also create multi-samples with different samples for different keys. This works with the software "Waldorf Spectre". Of course you need the sampling option for this (included in Blofeld keyboard, additional installation on Blofeld desktop).
@@SynthesizerVideo thank you for replying. I shall go and try the multi sample thing now!
Whoa what’s up with the samples,I bought the sample pack and it didn’t include all the samples you scrolled thru.A14 on mine is hihat open,I don’t have the crumar one or the mellotron samples I saw.whats up?is mine an older version of the sample pack?i bought a disc of reverb and downloaded it.i have the desk top version.
I loaded my own samples. You can change the sample sets with the "Spectre" software from Waldorf.
Synthesizer Video Service do I have to buy them?
Spectre is free. It can take your WAV files. But there are also patch libs which you can buy which already have samples included. You should ask Waldorf for more information ;)
This is very helpfull ! thank you :)
Hey!It is me again :D Is there a way to sync all oscillators phase?
thank's!
I am absolute beginner with my Blofed Desktop, my question is: I don't understand why on oscillator 3 there is no wavetable.
Wavetables need some higher computation effort than normal waveforms. So the Blofeld can only provide maximum two oscillators with wavetables. Consequently, OSC3 does not offer wavetables.
Thank you sir for your quick answer, i wanted also make shure the my Blofeld run correctly. I read and follow with a lot of interest your lessons.Thank one more for your patience and gentleness.
8:00 "MOOOOM, MY SYNTHESIZER IS TRYING TO SPEAK TO ME"
yo this was really helpful! where did you get those speech samples?
Thanks for your comment! I made these speech samples myself ;)
No, normally I use the "1-2-3-4-5" or "19/20" wavetables for speech things. Sometimes, I use my own samples. These samples were made from a recorded speech, cut into pieces, rearranged (some parts backwards, some repeated) and send through some free vocoder like VST plugin. The final wav files were loaded as multi samples into the Blofeld.
you really need to EQ that boom outta your voice but otherwise sick video
07:32
INbuild
THat one made me giggle
Pitch black magic
Wait....so the thing can't midi sync??
Arp sync yes - LFO sync no.
I can't hear you because of that silly noise.
This is without a doubt the worst sounding synthesizer of all time.. Even the earliest sound canvas sounds better, the ancient EMU proteus modules and cheap Casio keyboards do sound more professional. It has nothing to do with your playing. The synth is just bad and it has a lot of bugs and glitches. I hate the little bugger. I am glad I got rid of it. What a waste of money this was.
Phranque Peasant must have had a real dud for a unit
Lol I love this comment because it will make people not wanna buy it . But really...this thing is a gem
Insanity I say