A Deeper Look at the Waldorf Blofeld

The Waldorf Blofeld is a powerful synthesizer module with over 1000 digitized analog sounds in a solid housing with intuitive controls. Resident Synth geek Chris Ckine does a deep dive into the full capability of the Waldorf Blofeld Desktop Synthesizer.

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[chipgremillion]

Had one for 12 years and STILL finding very cool sounds with this very unique synth. Send through a tube comp. and it GLOWS.

[SouthShoreSonics]

One of the first things I did with my first Blofeld keys in 2013 was to delete ALL the presets.
It took 5 years but I ended up with 1024 custom patches.
I added an additional 2 keys and a module.

Preaching to the choir on how awesome the Blofeld is!

My fave is the Blokeys as I am a live player.

For reference have you seen how small the module is when put on the Blokeys!

I call it "mini me" sitting on top of the Blofeld.

[atU]

It says something of the success of the Blofeld that there are many recent videos showing off its features and flexibility despite its age.

[cjlewis]

Got one for 375 and it looked and sounded brand new! so much fun!

[Ryan-xqkl]

one of the coolest synths ever i would use it more if i had more time

[ericjeker]

Just a few things:

- You can buy a custom LED screen that is more readable and easily installable, search for "LED Display Upgrade"
- Waldorf sell encoders so you can easily replace the shaky ones (this seems to happen quite often)
- Softknobs provide an app for controlling your Blofeld from a PC to speed-up the workflow

I love the sound of the Blofeld but the workflow is not its brightest point in my opinion. It's very menu heavy and you can make mistakes very easily. The biggest mistake is to turn the Play encoder and forgetting to save your preset. This will simply erase everything and you have no way to undo. The second is that the menu is not synchronized with the matrix led, so you can turn one of the 4 encoders but instead of changing what's displayed on the menu it will change the currently selected entry in the matrix.

Though nothing that cannot be overcome with a bit of care and practice. Multi-timbrality is really great, like a lot of other Waldorf synths.

[jamesgreene]

Just picked up on a few weeks ago and have been wishing for more Blofeld content. You delivered!

[mattkaz]

It really is a remarkable sound design tool. FOr the price, a must-have.

[jnew]

Great video, great synth, great t-shirt.

[Screaming-Trees]

It's a great sounding $600 synth that comes with an awesome Fatar keyboard. That is always going to be relevant. Waldorf sound is a classic.

[midialchemy]

If you like the sound you should try the Studiologic Sledge 2.0 Black, the expressiveness is something to behold. The auto dual ability to perform and create splits and layers while performing is really cool. It really is underrated, how it uses Waldorf's engine.

[carstenaltena]

Got one and so far have only used the presets 😆

[RealityShiftUK]

love my minilouge xd not selling it but its nice to have synth with a lot more voices!

[daryljohnson]

What setting did you use on the compressor?

[AndyFirebladeMuza]

Just ordered one for a bargain price. Looking forward to receiving it and seeing what it can do.

[teddym]

I actually love it. If I want a pad sound I am going to go to the Blofeld first cause it's always just so easy to find and tweak something to fit. I think this might be one of the cheapest yet most underrated desktop modules ever, and I love how it's nice and small too, fits anywhere. I have mine side by side with my black Pulse 2, another underrated little thing that is great for bass. I actually seem to prefer Waldorf's cheaper stuff to their really overpriced new stuff. But then again, I don't like my Virus TI either, so maybe I am weird. That was my biggest regret purchase and it's never made it into a song.

[christopherfarrell-artist]

How do I connent this beautiful machine so my Mac can record its audio. It doesn't seem to transmit audio via USB, I guess it's too old, my MC-101 and TB-3 records flawlessly via USB. I use garageband for quick and dirty recording and Albleton Live lite ( I am still learning this one ).

[christophschumacher]

Hi, very cool video ❤
I‘m thinking about to buy this beauty, but one question, does it make sense to use it without the SL license?

✌️

[grazstarr]

The sound wasn’t changing at all when you first go through different shapes on oscillator one?

[duketranslucentrd]

Really helpful! It doesn't have a lot of hands on controls for performance, but presumably you can assign a bunch of params to various controls of a midi controller?