Waldorf Largo Appreciation

[Apostate]

In the meantime, the Waldorf sound has become an obsession for me, I don't even use Serum half as much anymore. Largo and Nave.

After having sold a bunch of plugins and two hardware synths i am currently focusing on my Waldorf synths (both the plugins and the hardware synths like Blofeld and Pulse 2). Additionally also the softsynths from Tone2 (especially Saurus 2 and Electra 2.1), Xils Lab (got most of them except MiniSyn'X) and some single synths like Diva and Wavestation are what i currently call "essential" for me.
If i dig deeper into those in the near future there is hardly time for others while with some of those i already did so many patches that those are lower priority concerning doing new patches at the moment (especially PPG Wave 3.V, Saurus and Rayblaster).

Besides the Waldorf and Palm synths, I've been hitting both my Wavestation demo and my newly acquired Alchemy pretty hard. The latter seems to get more rewarding every time I open it...

It's just...it's hard for me to put away Largo! The layers are so conducive to experimentation. There's always something I can do to my sounds, like use the Modifier combinations, get crazy modulating the separate points of the envelopes...tweaker's paradise, anyone?

[Apostate]

i am currently focusing on the softsynths from Tone2 (especially Saurus 2 and Electra 2.1),

Both are great imo, I'm really liking the Electra Vocoder effects and 2.1 in general. It almost seems as though Electra has been in a semi-beta all these months

Getting better and better imo.

[chk071]

i am currently focusing on the softsynths from Tone2 (especially Saurus 2 and Electra 2.1),

Both are great imo, I'm really liking the Electra Vocoder effects and 2.1 in general. It almost seems as though Electra has been in a semi-beta all these months

Getting better and better imo.

Bit the bullet, and upgraded my freshly acquired copy of ElectraX to Electra2 just. Really love the sound. And i just had to upgrade for the ability to simultaneously edit the layers. The Virus hypersaw and JP-8k supersaw is a great bonus too.

[Apostate]

i am currently focusing on the softsynths from Tone2 (especially Saurus 2 and Electra 2.1),

Both are great imo, I'm really liking the Electra Vocoder effects and 2.1 in general. It almost seems as though Electra has been in a semi-beta all these months

Getting better and better imo.

Bit the bullet, and upgraded my freshly acquired copy of ElectraX to Electra2 just. Really love the sound. And i just had to upgrade for the ability to simultaneously edit the layers. The Virus hypersaw and JP-8k supersaw is a great bonus too.

You are very easy to agree with, on all counts I just put in a couple of hours on 2.1, great updates. It's almost like Markus took heed of that outdated review in Computer Music magazine

[chk071]

There wasn't much they criticized though, was there? I only read something about inconsistent high freqencies or something. Guess they patched that in the meantime.

[Apostate]

There wasn't much they criticized though, was there? I only read something about inconsistent high freqencies or something. Guess they patched that in the meantime.

They gave four stars to Electra, and four starts to Largo if I remember correctly.

Check out some of the five star reviews they gave to...oh heck it's too much fun finding out for oneself, trust me on this.

I like CM overall as a magazine (I've had a subscription for a couple years now), but sometimes the reviews leave me bewildered.

I used to take more stock in their reviews, foolishly putting off even demo'ing Codex because of their flawed rating (three and a half out of five). Glad I started a topic here and found out how cool that synth actually is, at least imo.

[chk071]

True that hehe. Guess it also has to do with the audience. Both Largo and Electra2 belonging a bit more in the "nerdy" drawer than, say, Sylenth1.

[Apostate]

True that hehe. Guess it also has to do with the audience. Both Largo and Electra2 belonging a bit more in the "nerdy" drawer than, say, Sylenth1.

I think so, it says a lot for that magazine when they rate Ana the same as Largo and Electra.

Double plus a firm

[Ingonator]

For Largo users (and others...) interestd in a comparison of the synth engines of Largo and Blofeld i just created two screenshot taken fom the "MonstrumFeld" Blofeld editor which IMO has the best and most simple to use GUI of the available Blofeld editors.
For this i used i patch i just created using features specific to Blofeld and not included in Largo like e.g. PPG filter mode, user wavetables and samples (a custom Prophet VS wavetable and a sample based on a real Virus TI hypersaw that i did before selling the TI recently).

Here are two screensots (the second one includes the mod matrix):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/532 ... 20IW_1.png


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/532 ... 20IW_2.png


In this editor parameters/knobs currently switched off or not used are greyed out. In other editors For example sometimes also the second Decay and Sustain stages are dispayed even if a simple ADSR envelope is used. In this editor those are greyed out for the ADSRs.

The names of the custom wavetables and Samples are "generic" ones. Actually those are the first part of the names in the hardware while the display in the hardware also shows a specific name for the wavetable (e.g. the name of the Sysex file of the custom wavetable if it was done with Audio Term).

The Prophet VS wavetable for the Blofeld is available here:
http://synth.stromeko.net/Downloads.html


One major downside of the Blofeld could be that if using Unison the polyphony could be drastically reduced while this is not really a problem with Largo (at least since the latest 64-bit updates...).
In the future maybe an upgraded Blofeld or a successor with a different name will be available with more DSP power and polyphony.
Anyway with no Unison or a limited amount of Unison voices (maximum is 6 like in Largo) the Blofeld still seems to work nicely, also with the multimode.

[deastman]

I've always had my eye on Largo but have never bought it. I already have an original Q keyboard and a Blofeld, so I have no shortage of that Waldorf sound. The lack of the PPG filter is also a bummer. But yes, it looks like a great synth. NI Massive is also built around an architecture which is strikingly similar to the Q.

[chk071]

It puzzles me actually that Massive is mainly abused as such a dubstep or EDM preset slut. It rocks for wavetables and slowly moving, creepy or spacey stuff. Especially the easy modulation architecture makes it really quick and fun to program. Not overly impressed by the sound though (especially the filters lack a bit), at least compared to newer stuff it shows that it already has a couple of years on its back. Quite a CPU hog too considering its age.

[Apostate]

It puzzles me actually that Massive is mainly abused as such a dubstep or EDM preset slut. It rocks for wavetables and slowly moving, creepy or spacey stuff. Especially the easy modulation architecture makes it really quick and fun to program. Not overly impressed by the sound though (especially the filters lack a bit), at least compared to newer stuff it shows that it already has a couple of years on its back. Quite a CPU hog too considering its age.

Massive is definitely no Sylenth Of course, I mean in the sense of Massive being a fine "wave synth", and probably much more tweaker-friendly. I've gotten plenty of sounds out of Massive that have nothing to do with EDM, it's a great and more than reasonably eclectic beast in my humble opinion.

[aMUSEd]

It puzzles me actually that Massive is mainly abused as such a dubstep or EDM preset slut.

Not really, sure there are a lot of throwaway banks but most of them are variations on the same few sound and therefore ignorable; leaving them to one side there are a lot of banks that really stretch Massive's capabilities and always has been. I think in terms of sound design some of the best banks available for any synth are now out for Massive (up there with some of the best Alchemy and Zebra banks).

[KingTuck]

i am currently focusing on the softsynths from Tone2 (especially Saurus 2 and Electra 2.1),

Both are great imo, I'm really liking the Electra Vocoder effects and 2.1 in general. It almost seems as though Electra has been in a semi-beta all these months

Getting better and better imo.

Bit the bullet, and upgraded my freshly acquired copy of ElectraX to Electra2 just. Really love the sound. And i just had to upgrade for the ability to simultaneously edit the layers. The Virus hypersaw and JP-8k supersaw is a great bonus too.

You are very easy to agree with, on all counts I just put in a couple of hours on 2.1, great updates. It's almost like Markus took heed of that outdated review in Computer Music magazine

I believe Markus indeed did use that review as guidance for some changes. Most notably the more linear frequency response in 2.1.

Electra 2.1 is indeed awesome as can be. It's one of the best workhorse synths available.

[Everglide]

If you guys like Largo and bass get Plughugger's Large Bass Expander - one of my favourite Largo banks and some of the best bass patches I've heard

http://www.kvraudio.com/news/plughugger ... argo_12436

Plughugger's Large Bass Expander can be found here:
http://damagedbits.com

Not seeing it. Can you double-check?

That's weird, have they pulled it, it was one of their best soundsets?

Here's the link but don't buy the sound bank until someone from Damagedbits honours my order
me.http://damagedbits.com/index.php/compon ... plughugger