Tuesday 10 February 2015

Waldorf Pulse 2: A Bit Of Random - A Lot Of Fun

Right now I am completely loving working with the Waldorf - the harpsichord sound it can make is beyond belief. 

A regular old fashioned ring modulated synth-harpsichord is all very well; but the pulse width modulated effect which is possible with the Waldorf is something else again. The raw sounds from the little synth is a bit rough and a bit electronic but when passed through a touch of harmonic excitation and reverb in Sonic Field the result is stunning. Now, I might be blowing my own trumpet, but I can honestly say everyone who has listened to this live has praised the sound:


To be completely honest, I was a bit lucky. I just tried adding a bit of spring reverberation (using a spring impulse response) and I think that was the final trick to make the sound come to life. The reverb' you can here is a mixture of a few room/hall impulse responses reverbs mixed with a bit of spring.

But, the true secret is the way the signal path of a true analogue synth works. The sounds are all coupled and constantly changing. An electronic audio circuit 'wants' to make audio because the values of the components are set up that way. The circuits in an analogue synth' then interact with one another in music ways. This is distinctly different from pure digital synthesis where nice sounding audio is something one has to force from the algorithms. I am enjoying the mix where the analogue makes amazing feed stuff for digital post processing.

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