Blofeld love

When the Blofeld keybed came out, I bought it as I needed a keybed.
I bought the module afterwards.
The module is quite tiny compared to the keybed.
But the Blofeld keybed is quite small compared to the Sledge.

Everything is relative.

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Starts out Waldorf Blofeld ARP E018 ā€œSVS Dual 23ā€

Next is Dual Dreadbox Abyss mono synthi

Followed by Korg Modwave ARP ā€œFR Gauntlet 23ā€

Got a Blofeld right at the start of the pandemic.
I’ve heard some bad things before, but I’ve been a Waldorf fanboy since installing the Waldorf Edition on my Cakewalk system a couple decades ago.
I had been GASing for a Microwave and Blofeld kind of solved my Ebay addiction.
It may not match up feature for feature but it scratches that wavetable itch.
People that say it lacks on bass, are you deaf?
Try the patch called Acrylic Bass. turn up your monitors. Watch the woofer cone.
Things I don’t like, the effects are terrible.
The LFO and Arp do not usably sync to midi clock.
The digital filters sound pretty good.
Overall I really like using it along with my Elektron boxes though I’ve never had much success getting multitimbral stuff to work.

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I’ve used the Blofeld as an expander with the Digitakt. Multitimbral works nicely, set one midi channel to one track on the Blofeld and you can control stuff via Midi CC. Works great for playing live where I didn’t want to use the Blofeld UI as I was too scared it would mess up things.

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The effects have character which may or may not be what you want.

The thing is effects are also the easiest to offload to something else like a multieffects pedal.

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Blofeld with Dt is really cool.
Dt midi seq and compression are good addition to blofeld.

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I never understood why people hate on the Blofeld effects so much. They may not be the best but I really like the reverb for example.

Do people really dislike them that much, or is it just the same opinion regurgitated?

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Sounds great, but I sold mine after a few months. Just way too much menu diving for me.

I had the desktop, but even on the full size I could never understand why there’s so much blank space, where they could have put knobs/sliders.

probably that I have many other reverbs and modulation effects that much better?
I suppose it is nice that they are there for people who have no effects at all. But I put it in a similar place as the Machinedrum reverb vs the Octatrack reverb.
The Machinedrum sounds like an Alesis microverb or some other cheap early 90s thing. The Octatrack sounds more like you are dropping sounds into a physical space.
The Blofeld is like this. The reverb just never gets better for me no matter what parameter I wiggle.
TBH if I didn’t have an H9 or SR3030 I might lean on the Blofelds native reverb more.
Personally I really wish they would make a Blofeld MKII with updated effects, more voice capability, couple more knobs and a bigger screen. Maybe sub outs?

I purchased a Blofeld prepared to fully love it but didn’t really like anything about it. Only synth I ever returned to the store in under 30 days.

Was a bit confused as all samples I have heard of it were pretty good.

That’s really funny to me that you would say that, as i find the OT effects underwhelming, and the reverbs especially abysmal.

I guess tastes are just different, eh? As in, i can’t really tell you what exactly i don’t like about the OT reverbs, same as you didn’t point to anything specific you don’t like about the Blofeld.

I would be totally up for a MKII, especially with updated voice structure

Hey folks. New Blofeld user here. I have noticed a phasing issue with the stereo outputs of Blofeld. When no panning is implemented within the patch (e.g. Init), there is actually a stereo image. If I sum the stereo outputs to mono, part of high-frequency sound will be cancelled out. This is more noticeable in higher register of course because the higher notes contain more high frequency. I have made sure the issue is real with stereo imaging plugins (Hooray! I am not insane!)

I am not sure if I have got a faulty unit. Anyone can replicate this issue with your Blofeld? Thanks a lot.

I really want the blofeld but keep buying other boxes instead but I’ll get there eventually!

Here is some really good atari pulse width synthesis on the blofeld and if you look in the comments I asked for the files and they are provided there !

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Waldorf: we are having a weekend sale!
Also Waldorf: if you have problems with your password, we will get back to you on Monday.

:smiling_imp:

I guess I didn’t really need License SL after all.

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Sale is running for another few days.

even at 30eu (for non-EUers) it feels like a bit of an insult to have to pay to unlock latent functionality…

are there any good video examples more interesting use-cases for the SL? obviously as a pure sampler it’s pretty limited and already covered by any basic sampler you already own. also probably something you’re going to want to load up with samples once or very rarely given the process.

i know of being able to use them as FM mod sources - though i wonder if that’s something that sounds interesting and in theory rather than in practise? it’s funny, the person way up thread who just loaded a bunch of mellotron sounds almost makes something like that sound appealing… 30eu for a simple mellotron module suddenly seems like a bargain.

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The Blofeld is a little bit different, stereo-wise. Although not the same ā€˜problem’, this post may give you some clues.

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Thanks a lot! I have just done a quick test. If I use a Y cable to split the stereo output, the problem is still there. The headphone output is okay (but with louder background noise).

I mean, it’s a limited sampler, but it is a way to say, have steel drums or a kalimba or choirs in your live set. if you were just going to go Digitakt and Blofeld for example.

I found some ancient old software that let you edit loop points really well and this resource for loads of 80s/90s workstation samples and it kinda does add an extra dimension.

https://freewavesamples.com/

(but FMing with field recordings and stuff is also pretty cool!)

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