Nord Wave alternative ?

[hankdrummer]

hello there

i'd love to have a Nord Wave but it's just too expensive. i had a nord lead and i loved it : just knobs, no annoying submenus. but i'm fed up with sine / square / saw / triangle waves, i want to manipulate samples.

so, any Nord Wave alternative ?

btw i want something hardware

thanks

[e-smile-z]

well the V-synth /xt or the blofeld with the sample upgrade or the keyboard version that already has the sample upgrade installed...

[The_Crooked_Man]

Might want to try a wavetable synth, like a Waldorf Microwave XT. The rack versions are going for around $550 right now and they're pretty unique and about as tweakable as they come

[Oli]

I think the Blofeld with sampling really has much deeper synthesis than the Wave, though with menus and fewer knobs. The Wave is a bit disappointing as a synthesis platform, imo. I think it is fine as an instrument for playing though.

[hankdrummer]

i couldn't find the manual for the sampler part of the blofeld ...

can you tweak the sample start on the fly ? adjust the sample loop ? can you apply some mad lfo to the sample ? etc...

[onion]

Originally Posted by Oli

I think the Blofeld with sampling really has much deeper synthesis than the Wave, though with menus and fewer knobs. The Wave is a bit disappointing as a synthesis platform, imo. I think it is fine as an instrument for playing though.

i'm surprised to hear that. i have a blofeld, and it is pretty deep. didn't upgrade to the sampling yet; is it a full-featured sampler? multi-sample keymapping? chokes/voice groups? looping, loop point adjustment, loop modes? velocity switching?

what's disappointing about the wave as a programmable synth?

[shadowfac]

The upcoming Korg microSampler looks interesting. The synthesis engine will probably not be as interesting as the Blofeld or even the Nord Wave, but it looks like it will be much cheaper and have more knobs than the Blofeld.

[hankdrummer]

saw that vid, but couldn't find any specs of that thing

[ignatius]

i love my waldorf microwave XT and will never part with it. it's truly unique and capable of just about anything once you get to know it. it's got a quite different character than other waldorf synths.

but +1 on the roland Vsynth xt or Gt or whatever it's called. quite capable synthesis in there. true sample mangling ability.

[Digital Network]

Nord Rack 2X but without samples manipulations.

[our_swimmer]

On paper, the Blofeld seems like a good alternative. I haven't used one. A friend owns one, though, and he has this to say:

Originally Posted by my friend

The blofeld is quite nice, but the sample loading scheme waldorf cooked up is terrible. If I had known this was how it was going to work, I probably would have saved my pennies longer and gone for the wave. Right now, you setup keymaps and samples in an external application and then that creates a gigantic MIDI file which you load in just like you would an OS update. It can take a LONG time to load in a full 60 megs. Also, there is *no* file management what so ever. Loading in new samples always erases all the samples that are in there now, so you cant grow it incrementally. Loading different sample sets for different projects is just completely out of the question.

I don't know how important this is to you, but it seems like valuable information for a prospective owner.

[hankdrummer]

thanks for the info

seems like that sample option isn't that great

[kilon]

Originally Posted by our_swimmer

On paper, the Blofeld seems like a good alternative. I haven't used one. A friend owns one, though, and he has this to say:



I don't know how important this is to you, but it seems like valuable information for a prospective owner.

no your friend is wrong , blofeld is not quite nice , blofed is amazing compared to nord wave comparing the specs of the two synth.

Nord wave stands no chance really.

2 part multitibral ? Are we serious ? !!!

The sample option on blofeld , is just that , an option ....

Blofeld even without the sample option is a monstrous VA sharing the same but enhanced well known monstrous Waldorf engine.

That means 16 arpeggiators (one for each timbre)
16 effects plus 1 global
16 timbres
FM going in osc1 , osc2, osc3, filter1 and filter 2
16 slot modulation matrix where anything can be modulated by anything.
25 polyphony
modificators ( mathematical equations on the modulation signal !!!!)
drive curves on any of the 2 filters (distortion units that make the sound harsher or warmer depending on the settings)
Envelops and Lfos aproaching audio range speed, which means that they can be used for FM - AM or any other type of sound synthesis !!!
brilliance (which adds frequencies outside the human audio range , found on many analog synths)
and the list goes on and on....

I own a blofeld , if you love to edit sounds , there is no better VA engine out there that is both powerful and dead easy to use. Not even Virus TI can compare really.

And like blofeld the same engine appears in mircroq, q and q+ .

[Oli]

Originally Posted by onion

i'm surprised to hear that. i have a blofeld, and it is pretty deep. didn't upgrade to the sampling yet; is it a full-featured sampler? multi-sample keymapping? chokes/voice groups? looping, loop point adjustment, loop modes? velocity switching?

what's disappointing about the wave as a programmable synth?

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I was meaning to dig up the details for a more thorough response, but didn't get around to it. Basically, I think the modulation options are quite limited in the Wave. I think there is no unison detune. Sample memory could be better for a modern sample based synth. The LFOs don't sync to MIDI clock. I think there may be only one destination for each LFO?

I think the Blofeld can treat each sample based oscillator (2 of?) the same as any other oscillator. The modulation options in Waldorf's architecture are well featured IMO. I also like some of the Blofeld effects. Heard some saturation curve material recently which was really sweet.

It seems from our_swimmer that the sample handling may not be so convenient in the Blofeld. Sounds somewhat like the behaviour of the uWave series (maybe built on the old code base), where you can dump in your waves over sysex.

I don't own either the Wave or the Blofeld.

I own three Nord synths, but I actually feel that none of these would be so great for an only/first synth. I do think a Blofeld or Virus would probably fit the role better. I think a used Virus TI desktop + control keys would go pretty far to satisfy synth urges. I don't own a Virus either, btw, though have enjoyed playing with them.

There is a bug fix OS update due for the Blofeld at the end of September. Hopefully that will fix some annoyances with the thing.

[EMP3]

Originally Posted by hankdrummer

hello there

i'd love to have a Nord Wave but it's just too expensive.

I agree, it is too expensive. But I just picked up a 2mth old one from ebay, mint/boxed/hardly used (the manual was still in the sealed bag) for just over £900 which in the UK is not far short of half price.

Took me 4 or 5 months of looking for the right one though.

No need to buy new if you are careful.

[soundxplorer]

Originally Posted by kilon

no your friend is wrong , blofeld is not quite nice , blofed is amazing compared to nord wave comparing the specs of the two synth.
Nord wave stands no chance really.
2 part multitibral ? Are we serious ? !!!

Specs don't mean a damn thing to me. I want a panel full of knobs and I want it to sound good.
Multitimbral? I haven't needed anything multitimbral since 1998. I don't sequence with MIDI, I record everything as audio.

[Entrainer]

I'm really curious to see what the
new Elektron has up it's sleeve.
Will it be a phrase sampler, live tool...
or also a synthesis tool for shorter
waveforms?

Another cool synth for looping samples
and applying some crazy synthesis to
is the K2000, K2500.

[EMP3]

Originally Posted by soundxplorer

Specs don't mean a damn thing to me. I want a panel full of knobs and I want it to sound good.
Multitimbral? I haven't needed anything multitimbral since 1998. I don't sequence with MIDI, I record everything as audio.

You are so right.

I've not tried the Blofeld. Looks nice, I'm sure it sounds great, but I took one look at the layout and thought "been there done that".

I've only had the Wave a week or so now but already I know I'll never sell it. It is a unique synth, it is a joy to use.

Specs have nothing to with it.