German Humour (updated August ’21)
There really is something about the Blofeld that inspires inadvertent snickering. Like an editor being released by “SoftKnobs”, which makes perfect sense but … c’mon. The funny starts with the manual explaining how to use piano keys and just keeps on rolling. Waldorf sound like a fun crew.
The SoftKnobs editor helps explain the design of the Blofeld – two wavetable oscillators plus a third VA mostly for subs, through two filters which are multimodal and act as output channels. Lots of overdrive and burn. Very simple really, and the devil is all in the details.
The difference between Blofeld and Nave for example is that tables are optional to using the Blofeld just as a virtual analogue, pumping traditional waveforms through filters with too much volume to get overtones that way – and it also does this role quite well. The filters are nicely made and tend to do what your fingers were expecting – the box can be very warm when asked.
Wavetables are very interesting and I’ve made a page for them elsewhere. A well made table takes harmonics into both natural and and surreal journeys. Many of the old PPG tables are here, which is nice for making old Depeche Mode songs, but I have had a much better time attempting to squeeze my own odd sounds into monotones – for a wave table is all one pitch. For example a recording of buzzing bee made a great wavetable. Compared to samples, tables invite bowing through them at odd angles.
The sample feature was another 99 euro. You don’t need it, but I really enjoy running Frank Sinatra through a comb filter and damn it, I will pay for my jollies. It has turned out well for me, I’ve been loading up air conditioners and aircraft and old bits of vinyl – the way you get them into memory is clumsy, but once they are there they stay there and its quite a different feel to loading up a sampler – your sound library becomes a limited and familiar source of textures and after a while you use them just like oscillators, to start something. The Roland XV5080 has a similar use but needs a few minutes to get them loaded.
But…
Serum has invaded the territory once held by Waldorf’s Blofeld, Largo and Nave. I don’t think the software has survived, and it’s getting difficult to justify the hardware, given that it really is just software in a box with a few knobs. The moment you are booting up SoftKnobs to edit a sound, you need to ask yourself why not just use Serum orVital? Is there really something that the hardware is adding to the music? It’s not certain.
The instant samples thing is now with Korg’s wavestate.
The Blofeld is a dependable thing like good shoes or a dog. It is going to do what you wanted, and you will think it well done. You tend to take it for granted. Some bad things – plug in the USB cable and it makes a quiet shrill whine. Get an earth-lift box for the outputs. Apparently the twiddly knobs start to become unreliable after some time. I’m lucky to have have a near new machine.
Updated update – SOLD.