Anybody have anything to do with a Waldorf Micro Q?

[werp]

I'd be delighted to read your thoughts about this tiny beast

[Shy]

Don't even bother. It's like a toyish approximation of Q, with terrible sound quality in comparison, and I don't mean due to patch differences.

[werp]

thanks for that, I'll focus on other things.

[ftech]

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb01/a ... aldorf.asp

I haven't used mine for a while, but I do like its 'digital grit'.

[pocvecem]

MicroQ can do about 90% of the sound of a Q. Biggest differences are no filter morphing, no step sequencer, no digital outputs and less encoders of course.

MicroQ has its own sound with a rather digital character. It's not my first choice for fluffy soft analog pads. It can do very good other pad sounds though and has very snappy envelopes.
It can produce basses, leads and fx with filter fm, fast lfo and wavetables.
Almost all parameters are controlable by midi and it has a stereo analog input for the vocoder and filters.
I hate the multimode programming in the MicroQ so i use it only for single sounds.

Perhaps the blofeld could be a better alternative to the MicroQ. Blofeld has a slightly better sound, all wavetables from the Microwave, a PPG filter emulation, more filter overdrive options and usb midi. But blofeld has no audio inputs and no vocoder.

Be aware that both MicroQ and Blofeld only have 25 voices with simplest one osci sounds. With more complex programming (e.g. wavetables, vocoder, comb filters) there are 10 - 12 voices or even less.

You can also get a (sometimes cheaper) light version (12 voices) of the MicroQ. On Waldorf homepage you can download the latest firmware upgrade for free now to get the full 25 voices.

Cheers,
Gerald

[VariKusBrainZ]

Mine stopped working properly a couple of years after I got it and id hardly used it. It was a known problem that requires a hardware replacement by Waldorf.
Id just sent my NL3 back for a replacement CPU board so never bothered getting it the micorq fixed.
Those 2 synths put me off buying digital hardware because of their malfunctions, though they sound amazing

[EvilDragon]

Any hardware can have malfunctions.

[kimik]

the filter sounds really bad when you start increasing resonance, haven't sold many synths, but this one just didn't do anything software couldn't do better.

[droolmaster0]

The problem is that while in the guise of objectivity, that 90% is totally subjective....

The Q is really one of my favorite synths. I really did not like the micro Q. Perhaps the compromised interface affected my judgement, but I really didn't think that it sounded nearly as good.

I'd keep my eyes out for a used Q. Sometimes they show up at a good price.

MicroQ can do about 90% of the sound of a Q. Biggest differences are no filter morphing, no step sequencer, no digital outputs and less encoders of course.

MicroQ has its own sound with a rather digital character. It's not my first choice for fluffy soft analog pads. It can do very good other pad sounds though and has very snappy envelopes.
It can produce basses, leads and fx with filter fm, fast lfo and wavetables.
Almost all parameters are controlable by midi and it has a stereo analog input for the vocoder and filters.
I hate the multimode programming in the MicroQ so i use it only for single sounds.

Perhaps the blofeld could be a better alternative to the MicroQ. Blofeld has a slightly better sound, all wavetables from the Microwave, a PPG filter emulation, more filter overdrive options and usb midi. But blofeld has no audio inputs and no vocoder.

Be aware that both MicroQ and Blofeld only have 25 voices with simplest one osci sounds. With more complex programming (e.g. wavetables, vocoder, comb filters) there are 10 - 12 voices or even less.

You can also get a (sometimes cheaper) light version (12 voices) of the MicroQ. On Waldorf homepage you can download the latest firmware upgrade for free now to get the full 25 voices.

Cheers,
Gerald

[mkdr]

the filter sounds really bad when you start increasing resonance

Wow.. The Q filter sounds bad? What planet are you from?


Though i do agree that Largo sounds so identical to the Q(with few eq tweaks) that there's no need to keep the HW anymore. But no other softsynth can honestly replace it..

[twolegstoneworks]

+1 for the digital grit.

I use the sounds from mQ dry. No internal effects used. VST effects are much superior, but IMO the filter is quite good actually. Very different from what other synths have. And variety is what I look for. I dont need 10 synths with the same emulation of a Moog filter.

[kimik]

the filter sounds really bad when you start increasing resonance

Wow.. The Q filter sounds bad? What planet are you from?


Though i do agree that Largo sounds so identical to the Q(with few eq tweaks) that there's no need to keep the HW anymore. But no other softsynth can honestly replace it..

not Q, microQ

-k

[EvilDragon]

It's the same filter code in both Q and mQ.

[Shy]

It's the same filter code in both Q and mQ.

It's not, and the filters are totally different in many ways, sound-wise and feature-wise. Read Waldorf's FAQ for example.

[csl]

I find the Micro Q to be best for gritty pads and odd wavetable-scanning sound effects. I haven't been able to achieve this in the software domain with Waldorf's own Largo, which I'd hoped would be the same, only with better sound quality. It seems the Micro Q's aliasing and poor sound quality is part of its character.

Just wish there was a decent editor available for it. The Java mQEdit is best, but that's not saying a great deal.