Waldorf M

The Lounge Other Gear
818

My M just came in!
Any hot tips for a first time Waldorf user?

2 Likes
819

Donā€™t force yourself to use all the stages of the wave and free envelops, you can get a lot done with a little there if needed you can go more complex but I usually add that if I feel the need to add complexity after building out the base of a patch.

When you start up an initialized patch it is in mono for some reason, shift + mode brings you to the page to turn it to poly.

Some wavetables do a great job of simulating different sorts of filter resonance, especially if you tie the wavetable modulation to the filter envelop. Using a mix of this the filter and the real filter resonance can be quite rewarding.

It takes a minute to get used to the mod source, mod control, mod amount, but it works wellā€¦ I find that even though in mod matrixs you can set up similar things being forced to think about the mod control tends to lead me to use that sort of feature more. The interface is quite enjoyable once you get used to it, and it definitely leads you down a different paths than the modern conventional matrix style methods.

5 Likes
820

Donā€™t turn the main volume knob past 12oclock. If you do then it is really easy to get clipping at the output when you play more than 4 voices, especially when you are driving the filter. I guess the M is just really hot is what I have been told.

2 Likes
821

Thank you for such an intricate and well thought out response.

822

Try to shape the sound as much as you can with the wavetables. And use the filter only to ā€œcontrolā€ the higher harmonics if you need to. Instead of using the filter to really shape the sound as we usually do on standard subtractive synthesis.

Sync on LFO 1 makes the lfo behave as one lfo for all voices. They are polyphonic. Set Delay to 1 on LFO 1 if you want it to retrigger with each keypress. Set decay on that lfo to 127. I think there still is a bug when using the delay parameter.

The manual wasnt very clear on these parameters when i got mine, so took a little while to get my head around these parameters.

6 Likes
823

Here, the unit patch is polyphonic.

Congrats on your new M! I love mine, still in discovery.

The latest firmware, 1.08, brings great digital filters in the Mix page. Also transitions which are short samples. Itā€™s quirky but sounds amazing, depending on what you put in. I hunted the traditional samples in the gear space thread.

2 Likes
824

i found this inspiring

7 Likes
825

One of the many reasons this synth amazes me is that it really shines at the freqs I usually find very annoying and attack immediately when EQ:ing in the DAW.

It has such a nice presence and character.

8 Likes
826

big time. i love using the wave envelope with loop points for accentuating a specific texture in a section of a wave, then making it sort of undulate and throb dynamically

but the fact that it also has enough presence to sculpt snappier staccato-like sounds without sound weak or lacking ā€œpunchā€ makes it kind of perfect for what i need in a synth. not overpowering, but strong enough and tons of character. i think i agree about the frequencies. normally i wouldnt even f with certain higher frequencies, or even digital aliasing types of artifacts. but the chemistry of all of these components together causes some kind of intense magic

i cannot wait to get my hands on my next one here shortly. i miss the feel of it even. the normalled modulations, the build quality, turning those wave/vvcf freq knobs. itā€™s like asmr to me

6 Likes
827

Great tip, thanks!

1 Like
828

Anyone here using 1.08? I posted this on Gearspace but no answer in over a week, I wonder if Iā€™m tripping:

Hereā€™s an observation:

  • Start with an INIT patch
  • Turn OSC2 volume down, so you only hear OSC1
  • Turn ON Transitions in the OSC settings page

The sound of OSC1 changes. Again, OSC2 is not heard, its volume is down.

Is that expected?

3 Likes
829

I hear it, a pretty subtle nasal shift to the harmonics or something.

1 Like
830

I find multimode buggy so i dont use it at all. Its unfortunate because there are not a lot of multi timbral synth on the market but the M is still very good.

2 Likes
831

Hi there,

I dont find any new firmware ( 1.0.8) can someone share it please ?

thanks a lot

1 Like
832

If I remember correctly it is only available on the German version of the waldorf site for some reason. I am still on 1.07, but this is what I have heard.

2 Likes
833

FW108_DSP108.zip (669.9 KB)

I had to log into my German account to download it. I do not like the new website.

1 Like
834

Ah, thanks for confirming! Iā€™m not crazy.

It can be quite drastic, depending on the wavetablenand wave position.

Not that itā€™s ā€œbadā€ like I canā€™t do a sound but still, I wonder whether itā€™s a bug or not.

2 Likes
835

Yeah hard to know if it is a bug or perhaps something to do with how transitions have to be implemented changes how oscillator 1 is runningā€¦ it doesnā€™t really bother me but yeah maybe I will try to poke vlad over on gearspace and hear what he thinks.

836

thanks a lot guys,

sorry again, but how to install other PPG Waveterm Transitions on SD card ? do i have to make a special file ?

Thanks a lot guys :slight_smile:

837

Hi @sovietpop, I think youā€™re from Canada and so do I (Quebec). Can I ask where did you buy your M and what were the extra costs? Thanks!

1 Like