Waldorf Quantum - 8-voice hybrid synth

[Ingonator]

Thanks for the report Ingo, sounds like you had a great time

Yesterday after finally having the chance to play with Waldorf Quantum for a while i guess i had a huge smile on my face for some hours...

Anyway in the past i also had such moments with my other Waldorf synths (both hard- and software). While i got a bunch of other wavetable synths from other developers (mostly software but also an Ultranova) those from Waldorf are still somehow special IMO, no matter if they are hardware or software. My Pulse 2 and Streichfett are no wavetable synths but are great on their own.

FWIW at the moment i am playing with my Blofeld desktop in combination with the Monstrumfeld plugin/editor.

[cryophonik]

Christopjh Kemper, founder and developer of Access Music and the Virus synth and now heavily involved with guitar amps, yesterday was also at the Waldorf booth a few times.

Please tell me that you asked him about future plans for the Virus and that he gave you many details.

[chk071]

Thanks for the report Ingo, sounds like you had a great time

Yesterday after finally having the chance to play with Waldorf Quantum for a while i guess i had a huge smile on my face for some hours...

Anyway in the past i also had such moments with my other Waldorf synths (both hard- and software). While i got a bunch of other wavetable synths from other developers (mostly software but also an Ultranova) those from Waldorf are still somehow special IMO, no matter if they are hardware or software. My Pulse 2 and Streichfett are no wavetable synths but are great on their own.

FWIW at the moment i am playing with my Blofeld desktop in combination with the Monstrumfeld plugin/editor.

As i already mentioned it earlier in this thread (and i would guess you are allowed to say that at least): How is the bass compared to the Blofeld, e.g.? The presets shown all seem to be a bit on the "tame" side of things regarding that. Every Waldorf synth (maybe apart from Nave, which isn't that beefy) is pretty mighty in the low registers, so i wonder if Quantum is the same.

[Ingonator]

Christopjh Kemper, founder and developer of Access Music and the Virus synth and now heavily involved with guitar amps, yesterday was also at the Waldorf booth a few times.

Please tell me that you asked him about future plans for the Virus and that he gave you many details.

Maybe after having a look at the Quantum he decided to never do a synth again...

On a serious note he did not deny that there is a chance for a new synth in the future (also after seeing the Quantum..) but at the moment he seems to be fully focused on the guitar amps (e.g. the "Kemper Profiler").

The last Virus TI OS update for Windows is back from end of 2014 so no new version since i sold my TI back in 2015. The last major OS version (OS 5) was released in beginning of 2014.
There were also updates after 2014 but only for OSX.

[Ingonator]

Thanks for the report Ingo, sounds like you had a great time

Yesterday after finally having the chance to play with Waldorf Quantum for a while i guess i had a huge smile on my face for some hours...

Anyway in the past i also had such moments with my other Waldorf synths (both hard- and software). While i got a bunch of other wavetable synths from other developers (mostly software but also an Ultranova) those from Waldorf are still somehow special IMO, no matter if they are hardware or software. My Pulse 2 and Streichfett are no wavetable synths but are great on their own.

FWIW at the moment i am playing with my Blofeld desktop in combination with the Monstrumfeld plugin/editor.

As i already mentioned it earlier in this thread (and i would guess you are allowed to say that at least): How is the bass compared to the Blofeld, e.g.? The presets shown all seem to be a bit on the "tame" side of things regarding that. Every Waldorf synth (maybe apart from Nave, which isn't that beefy) is pretty mighty in the low registers, so i wonder if Quantum is the same.

Well as alraedy mentioned the officia soudn design had not even started and teer are only few presets to show for demonstrations. Those are mostly done to show specific features like the Granular, speech syntheis, the Arpeggiator etc.

Personally i did not check all the presets taht are included so far (which might not be inlcuded in teh final factory content...) btut mostly started tweaking myself based on an Init patch where the focus was more with "typical digital" sounds like pads and polysynths but not really with Basses.
Anyway with the analog filter i checked at higher resonance and it seems to sound quite nice there wich is also true for teh overall sound of the filter.
Besides the "normal" analog LPF modes there are also modes with additional saturation.
Overall i am more or less sure Quantum will be quite good in the bass range. In the cases where i played in low octaves or even transposed to a lower octave it did not seem to sound bad there.
If i will be able to check Quantum again anytime soon i could also check how the bass range sounds. Yesterday the time i was able to use it was limited and there was a bigger amount of features to check.

Concerning Nave i do not think it is really that "weak" in the Bass. Also depends on if and how you use the Drive and/or the built-in EQ. Not to forget it also depends on which waveform and/or wavetable you use.
Wit the Drive besides te amount and mode also the location (e.g. Pre Filter or Post filter) matters. With the "PostEQ" location you could even place te Drive after the EQ.

[chk071]

Thanks Ingo. I wouldn't call Nave "weak" either regarding the bass, it's just that Largo, or Komplexer too, or any other of the old Waldorf synth can be pretty brutal when it comes to bass, and i found that Nave is a bit lacking there (and also generally in terms of sound "detail", may be testament to the low CPU approach for the iOS app development). Also Nave seems a bit more neutral in character (i just demo'd it again a few days ago), so i hope that Quantum is a "real Waldorf synth" again, should mean that it has plenty of that Waldorf character. Being a "flagship" synth, and at that price, i'm sure it will though.

[Ingonator]

In the Blofeld my favorite combination is the PPG filter mode (not included in Largo yet) and the Tube Drive mode. The big difference of the PPG mode compared to the "normal" 24dB LPF is the Resonance behavior.
Quantum has the real analog LPF instead (while it also has a digital LPF in the digital filter modes) where IMO the Resonance sounds very nice too.
Using the Drive could make a big difference and same is true in Nave. Additionally Nave also has a built-in EQ (Largo has one too and FWIW Quantum will have one too in the effects section).

Anyway several people still prefer the sound of the old Q or Microwaves over the Blofeld and the sound indeed is not identical. I had both a Q and a Microwave XT betwen around 2004 and 2006 (finally got Largo and Blofeld in 2009/2010 after using a Virus TI for a while). The Q+ with the additional analog filter is again another story while i never used one myself.
Feature wise the Q even if it was very powerful could not fully compete with the Blofeld especially if we talk about the amount of wavetables. The Q only had the Alt1 and Alt2 tables (both with 128 waves) that are also found in the Blofeld, Largo and Nave (and if i remember correctly also in the Quantum while all Nave wavetables seem to be included there). As a pure VA synth the Q or Q+ might be better than the Blofeld but as alraedy mentioend for wavetable synthesis with only 2 wavetables it is quite limited.

The Microwave XT had it's own quite unique sound and some interesting features like e.g. special filter modes and a MSEG but it did also quite a lot of features found in the Blofeld (and also compared to Quantum...). AFAIK both major Microwave versions opposing to Blofeld, Q and Quantum were pure Wavetable synths so they had no dedicated VA waveforms and no dedicated PWM except a PWM wavetable that was alraedy found in the good old PPG Wave 2.3.
FWIW the Tone2 Icarus softsynth is a pure wavetable synth too and i got PWM there now from resynthesis of a sample of the PWM in my Novation Bass Station 2. Also got raw waveforms from multiple analog hardware synths and analog softsynths.

The new Quantum while besides new features it combines a lot of features from previous Waldorf synths (hard- and software) will not inlcude every feature found in those previous synths and sound wise might more have it's own sound than fully replicating that of the previous synths (while parts of Quantum might sound close to those). Aynway obviously the engine in Quantum is somehow close to Nave while it is not fully similar in terms of features and sound.
Anyway theer seem to be plans to be able to import Nave patches but if this will work is not sure yet and if those patch do sound similar is another story (while those might also use the digital filter modes in Quantum).
Current synth developments at least partly seem to be based on the engine of Nave which is also true for the "nw1" Eurorack wavetable module.

Uqntum will be the first Walödorf synth tat has 3 full featured Oscs with all 4 synthesis algorithms in them (Wavetable, VA waveforms, Particle, Resonator) where e.g. Blofeld, Largo, Q and Nave in Osc 3 only offered standard VA waveforms and the Microwave + Wave + PPG Wave synths had 2 pure wavetable Oscs without additional dedicated VA waveforms (except the standard waveforms found in wavetables).

[Wormhelmet]

Beautiful design on it. Would like to see more voices, but those analog filters I guess are the good tradeoff for it. A little out of my price range though.

[chk071]

I wonder if they maybe implement unison on oscillator level, wouldn't be so tragic to only have 8 choices then.

[tehlord]

I'll never understand why a company with such a potentially groundbreaking synth as this turns up to a trade show with such a tragic set of presets to show it off.

All they needed to do is have one talented guy sit down for a day beforehand to program in a handful of patches to really show it off.

[pdxindy]

I'll never understand why a company with such a potentially groundbreaking synth as this turns up to a trade show with such a tragic set of presets to show it off.

All they needed to do is have one talented guy sit down for a day beforehand to program in a handful of patches to really show it off.

Unless they were frantically working to get the prototype ready into the wee hours the previous night...

[cryophonik]

I'll never understand why a company with such a potentially groundbreaking synth as this turns up to a trade show with suc a tragic set of presets to show it off.

All they needed to do is have one talented guy sit down for a day beforehand to program in a handful of patches to really show it off.

Hmmm, I wonder who you had in mind for that gig?

[tehlord]

I'll never understand why a company with such a potentially groundbreaking synth as this turns up to a trade show with suc a tragic set of presets to show it off.

All they needed to do is have one talented guy sit down for a day beforehand to program in a handful of patches to really show it off.

Hmmm, I wonder who you had in mind for that gig?

Well sure I COULD do it, but they appear to have a very specific set of criteria for their sound designers.

But seriously, a talented designer could have say down with it for a couple of hours and come up with at least 2-3 really interesting patches, assuming the OS is actually ready to go.

[EvilDragon]

assuming the OS is actually ready to go.

But it's not, it's still a WIP, and that's the main reason why the presets aren't tip-top. The main thing was to show that it exists on Messe.

[tehlord]

assuming the OS is actually ready to go.

But it's not, it's still a WIP, and that's the main reason why the presets aren't tip-top. The main thing was to show that it exists on Messe.

If it's that crippled right now then save it for the next show. They haven't actually shown anything but a UI and laggy touch screen.

I'm still already thinking about buying one ( ) but that's not the point.