one of my favs!
1.24 is just an update for the latest hardware revision of the Blofeld (latest units built after august 2017). It’s pointless for other units.
Yeah, despite its bugs and quirks, I wouldn’t get rid of it. Nothing else really competes with it in its price range. I hope Waldorf gets it right!
I just downgraded to 1.22 (from 1.24) yesterday and haven’t noticed any problems.
1.24 was supposed to only include support for the new IC chips, and no new bug fixes or features, but there are quite a few posts on the Waldorf forum, about new bugs with 1.24.
I experienced glitchy values and unresponsive knobs too, downgrading resolved it but I understand you don’t want to take the risk. If you have a very new unit with the latest IC chip then you must stay on 1.24 but for older machines, Waldorf state that 1.22 is the same as 1.24 so I took the risk.
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so weird. i keep wanting to rebuy one since there is NO competition in the price range for what it does, let alone what it sounds like. but i hated my experience with waldorf, i had a faulty encoder (skipping around, etc) and after researching tons was never able to fully determine if it is a software issue, or hardware…i wrote the company numerous times to try to get a part number or something,…you know…make sure i got the right one… and never heard back…radio silence. but still, gassing for it again, but then i keep reading about bugs gone wrong…still
Tagging a post here that was from Waldorf a few years back concerning various aspects of program/multi/bank selection and so on
Another nugget i found suggests that if you want to hack a sysex you can forego a proper checksum calc by entering a bogus answer of 127 - obviously you should provide a valid checksum if dabbling in this stuff to prevent transmission errors
I also found a comment from the developers being candid about the sluggishness of the device wrt lots of incoming MIDI so i am a bit relieved to learn my own device hasn’t developed an issue - it really is necessary to throttle the data going to the Blofeld if a parameter is changing quickly (whether by DIN or USB)
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Oh that’s good to hear that it works without problems. Did you just download the Version 1.22 and transferred it like a normal update?
My unit is a little older so that i don’t need version 1.24.
EDIT: I just did the downgrade from 1.24 to 1.22. Worked perfectly. Now the encoders are precise again. If anyone is in the same situation, just perform the downgrade in the exact way like doing a update. I used „spectre“ from the official Waldorf page for this.
I‘m glad and relieved that everything is back to normal/bug-free. Can’t wait to get my SL update!
As far I know, the faulty encoders was only with older units. I generally didn’t had any issues (until yesterday when i updated my unit to V.1.24. Actually, the encoders are on my Blofeld are as precise as the OT Mk2. Maybe order a unit in a shop that doesn’t have a Blofeld on storage, so that the shop needs to order a new one from Waldorf. But don’t buy a old second hand, since there is a chance that you will get a old unit.
It’s insane that nobody came up with something similar. Even the Virus which costs multiple times more can’t import custom wavetables or has so many FM possibilities as the Blofeld. Should mine stop working, i will buy a new one instantly. I really don’t understand why there aren’t any hardware synths with similar spec and possibilities. I would have paid even more if it was necessary!
Hopefully there will come a new digital renaissance, and the amount of digital hardware synths increases. Blofeld is already 10 years old, I wonder what would be possible with the current technology and I don’t talk just about more voices. I want a free routable Blofeld/Nord modular G2, with much more space for samples and wavetables, a few knobs more, granular synthesis and more FM options. I would pay a lot for something like that, but unfortunately the new Quantum has only 8 voices. If they would use digital instead of analog Filters, there would be much more possibilities for a more realistic price…
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I think the analogue hype isn’t over yet. See what Behringer announces (okay let’s wait, what will be realized, but Model-D and Neutrino are real, after all). So will we see “new” digital concepts in the near future? Don’t know.
I think, the most innovative place for electronic music devices are the Eurorack modular world and crowd-funding projects … plug-ins, or apps for iPad.
Maybe we will have a similar story for synths as we had for computers … starting with huge expensive main-frames, changing to workstations, followed by personal computers, ending with small units like phones, tablets etc.
The analogy could be, starting with huge modular all-inclusive synth behemoths, ending with small affordable boxes, which are specialised for this and that task.
Maybe it’s more efficient to buy a Blofeld (wavetables), a GR-1 (granular), a NF-1 (formant), or some modal-filter bank and to forgo the all in one uber-synth?
I’ve updated to 1.24 on my “black” unit. No problems so far. Guess the colour makes it relatively new…?
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Got a “black” unit the other week, brand new, it had those issues out of the box.
You are a lucky person 
. Not all units seem to be infected.
You probably right. It is already the case that a lot of producers use only plugins. I sometimes struggle with the fact that i can have almost anything on a laptop. A few days ago i started to make a Track, in FL studio. There are so many things that can be done easily and much faster on the pc. But i always have the problem to get something done, because of the insane amount of possibilities. I really hope that Hardware synths never die out completely. But who knows, maybe the future brings something between like a Controller keyboard with big screen that can load plugins or even a full DAW. I know that’s already possible by connecting a midi controller to a pc… the Modor NF-1 and the GR-1 are very tempting… I probably have to build my own Eurorack/semi modular combination. Until then i will use Reaktor 
What is needed is a controller with lots of knobs and nice OLED screens above the knobs, like in the big new Akai Mpc X, so that it can display the synth/plugin parameters. Not some plastic crap made by Novation!
Ahh… did you not see what I posted that day???
Installing the latest, newest OS update on any machine is never a good idea unless it has something you really need and you know from people testing it that it works OK…
I read it basically a hour after I updated! XD if I had read it before i would not have done it. But a believe the bugs occur only on the older modules which didn’t need this update!
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I hope you can fix it… So Waldorf are saying that downgrading back to 1.22 is bad?
I recently hooked up a Machinedrum to the Blofeld… and realised that the MD can p-lock ANY MIDI CC on each step…not just 6 fixed CCs but many more can be p-locked …as well as program changes on each step… mind=blown!
I did get the Blofeld stuck (not responding to note off) by sending lots of CCs at the same time… but with careful usage the possibilities are ridiculous!
Before I knew it it was 3 am…
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I did this but with mnm. Mnm and blofeld together is a great digital sound combo. I assume digitone and blofeld will also work well together.
Yes I just performed a „downgrade“. Basically like a normal update but with the file of 1.22. I first had a panic because of the Waldorf statement that you should do only updates and no downgrades. But I guess this statement was done to avoid people sending back units for repair, with bugs that are actually fixed In newer versions. Or maybe the newer units need this update to work properly. The update to 1.24 is only necessary if it’s one of the newer units!
Only reason i even did the update was because I had problems to import some of my new created wavetables. But this problem had nothing to do with the Blofeld, it was just a wrong setting in the Wavetable creator I used. Now everything works perfect again.
But if something works perfectly fine, then it’s sometimes better to avoid updates.
The machine drum is just awesome, I wish I could do that with my OT, but the 6-10 CCs usually are enough, since the Blofeld already is a master of Sound modulation. And there is always the alternative to use another midi track with the same channel to get even more CC controls and LFOs. But the soundlock/program change per step on the MD is absolutely mindblowing!
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Yep.
I checked again and it is true… neither the LFO nor the arp will sync to MIDI clock. . .
I guess for the price we can’t really complain … the arp can just be set to the same tempo as the project and then retriggered every bar or two to maintain sync… and the LFO can be set to retrigger and synced by ear …