is blofeld a good hardware synth

[jon bag boi]

im
looking
to buy one either that or a roland gaia

[Distorted Horizon]

Yes. Though it's menu diving so you may want to use a vst editor.

[kvotchin]

^ Not my kind of thing. If I wanted to navigate a digital synth, I would do it via a (much!) larger screen, or two.

Can you create some nice sounds with it? Of course, it’s a synth.

I guess, my first question would be, have you considered an iPad in its place, or simply a PC/Mac, for that matter.

[chk071]

The OP is banned, so, not sure now much sense a reply still makes. The Blofeld is a great synth though. As has been pointed out, it has only few controls, and a small screen though, but, it's very affordable because of that.

Personally, I didn't see enough difference to keep the Blofeld and Largo. I vastly preferred the operation of the GUI on a computer screen. YMMV.

[imrae]

I've used the Blofeld a lot for live performance. It's a lot of multitimbral synth capability in a small, solid box. The modulation matrix is superbly powerful, as is the programmable arpeggiator. While there are a limited number of knobs and buttons, the visual feedback on the screen is really helpful for envelopes, filters etc.

Downsides: encoder problems (I cleaned the inside of mine and re-greased them which seemed to help), dodgy tempo sync, multi-mode pan knobs don't seem to work. Preset levels a bit inconsistent, filter drive adds a lot of gain (and output a bit quiet without it). Distortion and reverb effects aren't too nice.

Overall 4/5, the best small affordable multitimbral deep synth that I know of. If you don't need to use it without a computer, might as well go with Largo.

[masterhiggins]

What the hell is it around here lately where some people are getting permabanned at the drop of the hat?

Anyway, I thought the encoder problem was resolved in a firmware upgrade.

[chk071]

Overall 4/5, the best small affordable multitimbral deep synth that I know of.

Yeah, I'd double that. I looked around for quite some time for a affordable, but capable synth, and, the Blofeld was my choice a few years ago. Not his fault that I sent it back after a week or so. It's just that I'm more of a software guy...

[chk071]

What the hell is it around here lately where some people are getting permabanned at the drop of the hat?

I'd assume that it's mostly "comebackers". I've probably seen hundreds of those over the years here.

[imrae]

Anyway, I thought the encoder problem was resolved in a firmware upgrade.

Every time a firmware upgrade came out, people claimed it fixed their encoders yet it didn't fix mine. Adding capacitors maybe helped some of them. Cleaning them did the trick for me. I suspect that there's more than one way the encoder issues can manifest, and different fixes work for different scenarios.

[chk071]

As far as Youtube said (there are a few people who disassembled the thing, and "fixed" the encoders), it's a hardware problem. I'd assume that what they did with the software "fixes" is that they simply adjusted the encoder's sensitivity. There are a few vids on Youtube where people removed the obviously excessively applied fat on the encoders, cleaned them, put on only a small amount of fat, and, for them they worked fine after that. Can't confirm that, as I never did that, of course.

[whyterabbyt]

FWIW, and utterly OT, when its a mechanical lubricant, its usually called 'grease' rather than 'fat'. In English it better defines it as a lubricant rather than, erm, a part of animal flesh.

Im sure this seems utterly pedantic, but the notion of 'fat' on a PCB was really kinda gross... Blech.

(Also, please do not use real gristle on a Gristleizer. Cheers.)

[whyterabbyt]

damn, double post.

[chk071]

FWIW, and utterly OT, when its a mechanical lubricant, its usually called 'grease' rather than 'fat'. In English it better defines it as a lubricant rather than, erm, a part of animal flesh.

Fair enough.