KVR Audio

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Sat May 07, 2022 6:33 am

Last night I listened to the Waldorf Kyra, it's still a superb machine, the twins of the Virus ti2.

But how it sounds.

A duplicate of the Virus, but a nice big sound.

I almost bought it at the time.

Unfortunately Waldorf never followed up on this machine and that's a shame, it had potential.

A lot of stability issues and bugs according to the opinions and the quality of the encoders over time is not the most certain.

https://youtu.be/WytsbF3Bomo

https://youtu.be/7rFf46aO47c

https://youtu.be/_vNP-YGaQIk

https://youtu.be/1RETtniQCKs

OllieBoi · Post by **OllieBoi** » Sat May 07, 2022 8:07 am

Trancer wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 6:33 am Last night I listened to the Waldorf Kyra, it's still a superb machine, the twins of the Virus ti2.

But how it sounds.

A duplicate of the Virus, but a nice big sound.

I almost bought it at the time.

Unfortunately Waldorf never followed up on this machine and that's a shame, it had potential.

A lot of stability issues and bugs according to the opinions and the quality of the encoders over time is not the most certain.

That's the story of almost every Waldorf synth since the Q: Riddled with bugs upon release and questions about the reliability of the encoders. The good news is that unlike some hardware synth manufacturers, Waldorf does manage to eventually fix most of the bugs. And the worries about the longevity of the encoders are usually overblown (like they were with the Blofeld and Pulse 2).

As an aside, I bought my MicroWave II XT in 2012 and stupidly sold it in 2017 thinking I could replace it with plugins. But while I had it, the XT worked flawlessly. The encoders were great. (All synths should use encoders rather than pots, IMO.)

Anyway, I bet the Kyra would make a fine synth. It sure sounds good. I'd say better than Dune 3 or Spire which I own.

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Sat May 07, 2022 10:10 am

Thanks for your return.

Waldorf really makes great machines.

Most certainly durable over time, but it is true that what we see on the facade of the Kyra, it seems interesting fragile.

Very clearly superior to vst, even if the two you name are a killer, I also have them.

Too bad that the Kyra would duplicate the Virus Ti2 and also a shame that no more development at all from Waldorf.

Despite this he sends the sacred sound. A very nice machine.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Sat May 07, 2022 10:59 am

Trancer wrote: ↑Sat May 07, 2022 6:33 am Last night I listened to the Waldorf Kyra, it's still a superb machine, the twins of the Virus ti2.

But how it sounds.

A duplicate of the Virus, but a nice big sound.

Frankly, I think the Virus sounds much, MUCH bigger.

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Sat May 07, 2022 11:06 am

Thanks for your return.

I know the Virus Ti2 well, it sounds very fat and has a huge presence.

The Kyra still has a very good sound and a very nice sound palette too.

The Virus will always be one of a kind and irreplaceable, but the Kyra is a beautiful twin

Benutzername · Post by **Benutzername** » Wed May 11, 2022 2:39 pm

Support might be an issue. Like others have said: Don't expect to get anything beyond what you've got when you bought the synth.

The Iridium Keyboard got some nice new features that are also very useful for the desktop version. Also a few of the bugs were fixed. I've asked the support and the forum if we desktop users also get the update but that's the same as throwing words into a black hole. No feedback at all.

Quantum owners are still waiting for the promised V3 firmware. It went into a closed beta two years ago but nothing happened since then.

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Wed May 11, 2022 2:49 pm

Thank you for your answers.

To my greatest regret, Waldord is not very diligent in making updates, and that's a shame.

The Kyra could bring so much more, fix some bugs and also for the iridium.

Superb machines, but barely created they are already abandoned, a real waste.

Waldord is a company that I like, but here really disappointing.

Fantastic machines with immense potentials and discarded as early created.

I had seen on a YouTube video a comment about a hypothetical update planned four months ago.

I highly doubt it, a three-year-old machine that has never had a major update will never have one and that is really unfortunate.

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Wed May 11, 2022 6:40 pm

Well, to be fair, Access hasn’t updated the Virus in years, either (2017, I believe). And they still sell it as Mac-compatible, even though it’s been completely incompatible since Catalina.

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Sat May 14, 2022 5:33 am

Absolutely, no more updates.

I have a Virus Ti2 and despite no more updates, it is fully functional and works perfectly well with Windows 10.

The Kyra, unfortunately, lacks an update to fix certain bugs and above all to be able to correctly exploit its full potential.

Unfortunately, Waldorf has this annoying tendency not to do what is necessary to make its machines functional and to make them evolve,

But despite everything, I really like this Kyra, but duplicate with my Virus Ti2.

Even if the sounds are not all quite the same.

Boy Wonder · Post by **Boy Wonder** » Sat May 14, 2022 8:50 pm

If I had the money, the Kyra would be the machine I'd probably get as it appears to have the main things I'm looking for - multitimbrality, arpeggiator, lots of knobs, lots of waveforms, tabletop, virtual analog, etc. etc.

Trancer · Post by **Trancer** » Sat May 14, 2022 10:12 pm

Thank you for your reply.

She must be a good machine.

I hesitated to take it as a ti2 virus for fear of a duplicate.

If you have to take one, the first choice is the Virus Ti2 without hesitation.

hhuang9611 · Post by **hhuang9611** » Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:34 pm

Kyra is now only $1300-1400 if buying from Thomann and ship to USA…

Quite tempting! And I’m not sure why this isn’t emphasized more, but the ability to get all the audio over usb should be a huge sell point. Would save a lot of space and some hassle, especially for people like me who just start considering using hardwares and have no mixers, cables etc. I imagine with kyra, I can just plugin into one usb cable, and I’m ready to go.

I know access virus ti is also supposed to be able to send sound over usb and even have a plugin to use it as fancy software synth… but I’m on a m1 Mac and I don’t think they have any plan to update the software. Plus, Kyra has more voices, meaning I don’t have to record and move on to the next track, which would be a pain if I later want to change some stuff, I have to reload patches

Constructed Identity · Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:10 pm

When I studied marketing I learned you are not supposed to give the customer too many choices. People get decision frozen.
Companies usually de-emphasize older products when they are trying to sell newer ones and in this case with Waldorf they are trying to sell the Iridium so they need to let the Kyra fade into oblivion.
I wouldn't be surprised if this sale is to get rid of the last of their stock.

hhuang9611 · Post by **hhuang9611** » Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:21 pm

Yeah… that would make sense. I also do feel like Kyra is somehow overshadowed by Quantum/Iridium for no reason. Sure, Kyra may have some flaws, but it’s really a different beast. I don’t think I can hook up iridium and expect it to output a lush hypersaw lead, a juicy bass, and a massive pad all at the same time right into my DAW while I can edit the midi as much as I want.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:26 pm

hhuang9611 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:21 pm Yeah… that would make sense. I also do feel like Kyra is somehow overshadowed by Quantum/Iridium for no reason.

If you ask me, the reason is that those are the much better sounding synths. "Uninspiring" is the word that came to my mind when listening to many sound demos of Kyra.

Of course, that's pretty subjective. But, considering you never really read much about the synth, I don't think I'm that far off.