ok,never mind the effects,show me a video with good basic sounds: 2 oscillars, filter and envelopes, and layers if you want. I've synths for some rough comparisons.
No-one uses bare naked oscs, you pay for filters,envelopes and effects too.. or are they free???Come on,let's hear it in full splendour.
More than a year has passed and, to my knoledge,noone has posted such thing. It's sad to think that there is so little interest in the Q. Not even Q fans want to share anything more than waveforms.
@tachelesreden , So is it necessary to be one of the most experienced experts in order to appreciate the Q's waveforms? I've only 22yrs experience with synths (21 when this youtube discussion began), I'd consider it enough, but most importantly, i'm not deaf yet, I can tell a sweet sound from klang like almost anyone else. Can't you? Come one, someone please make me change idea and show me a youtube video with full potential of Waldorf Q, with filters, magic envelopes and effects.
bah, i think this is just an expensive toy. Why doesn't waldorf make a MICROWAVE III? a serious synth made to make legendary electronic music and not only virtual fucking around, with incredible waveforms, organic and sweet, instead of plain and metallic as a robot from hong kong.
"The designer of this device is a genius and so far ahead of his time! Finding a Q to fool around with may be a bit hard. The company nearly vanished but like a Phoenix , has arisen!." - No doubt about it. Just the waveform are very plain and robotic. I'm not talkin about potential. I'm talking about these very waforms shown in this very video. Please stop getting me wrong. I like waldorf a lot. I keep saying the microwave is pure genius and an ocean of vast and lively, energetic, hot sounds.
"Of course playing this demo thru 20 $ computer monitors prolly explains the lack of impact on some listeners.....
Oh shit. Ho do you know I'm listening this silly bling blong sounds from the Q?" -
Well, for internet and youtube i have a couple of quite realistic yamaha msp5 monitors always attached to a m-audio delta66 pci card which i hope to be more than adequate to evaluate synth waveforms.If I need a Linn hifi in order to appreciate them fully,then you're probably right: I miss something.
i'd love it if were possible to simply load a Cf or SD card full of your own waveforms, let alone our own sample.
The main purpose of a digital synth so powerful is to transform and mangle any sound and build precisely the sound of your dream. The idea of being stuck with internal wavetable is a silly limit inherited from the 80s.
couldn't this be implemented for the asking price of thousands of euros?
If this synth would be 500 euros, then no problem.
That's why all synths in the last 20 years and earlier, have programs, with interesting, wild combinations, and complex sounds. Something meant to be inspiring. Being it or not. Waves are too little thing to discuss on (although basic and important, since they are the source).
@donpirla The wave section is a minimum part of the Q. Get a PPG, FIZMO or XT if you really, REALLY want waveform scanning. I consider the Q's wavetables to be a bonus that supplements an excellent machine.
@TheSynthZone "I consider the Q's wavetables to be a bonus that supplements an excellent machine." - If the wavetables are a bonus, what is the main source of its sounds? does it have a sine, triangle and saw waves oscillators? wow.
Sometimes it's difficult to comment dry sounds, especially if they are short and very simple. Even more difficult is to comment raw sounds, with no layers, with nothing but the pure source. Programs are very important. So, the way you are allowed to build a sound with layers, multiple oscillators, and edit them (indipendently, possibile), makes a lot of difference.
Then you're missing out on some gorgeous sounds. Wavetable synths can produce ethereally beautiful evolving pads and textures. You can't really judge from raw waveform... just look how boring a raw saw wave sounds by itself.
I think this demo is geared towards synth programmers who want to get an idea of what range of wavetables the Q has, not people who want to hear finished patches.
I'm glad I heard this, it all sounds simllar and worse than old analog and cheap current digital It doesnt sound bad, but this would cover about 15% of the patches on a broad new digital board. Anyway, I'm prob wrong, just an impression, but this is al speak and spell to me. Considering how much they cost, je regrette.
"it consists on an ultra-short sample cycle repeating itself to create am udible sound,"
Not quite.. its basically like this... choose 2 different waveforms, then create say 128 steps between them, as one morphs to the other.. now you have 128 waveforms that when cycled through will morph from one to the other.. they are not just short repeating cycles - you modulate the position in the wavetable, in different ways and different speeds - creating something much more complex than a short loop..
Wavetables are a sort of fake samples, being really a much shorter, therefore poorer, wave repeating itself super quickly in order to fake a long wave, instead of being a long and intact sample from the start. Wavetable was a compromise before the arrival of samplers, since memory at the time was too limited.
Don't get me wrong,many wavetable synths sounded good.Waldorf Microwave has fuller and fatter sounding wavetables,but Q has thinner,poorer sounding wavetables. Just comparing raw to raw.
but technical talking, if right, can only confirm innocent and genuine first impression, that is: Strict square/sine/saw oscillator: boring... Wavetable (= short sample) oscillator: more choice... full samples: even more choice, therefore more possibility of good sounds, and also more lively and natural sounding sounds (even if synthetic), because the wave of longer sample is simply hugely more complex, so they sound less fake.
At least when raw. Anything will of course sound better with effects.
Still wavetables are better than strict square/sine/saw oscillators because there, the choice of the raw material is reduced to 3, compared to tenths, hundres, thousands... to choose from.
Blames are missing the point. Purpose of this vid is to demonstrate wavetables of Q -not showing analog emulations.
There's plenty of that stuff allready elsewhere. Tip: if you don't know what wavetables are (like PPG's) and dont wanna hear that -do not watch this at all.. :D
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
What a toy. Unbelievable that someone actually looks for this sort of childish sounds. Do they really? I don't mean to be rude, but this instruments sounds silly and surprising to me.
No, wait. Yamaha mini-keyboard synthesizers of the '90es have a fuller, more various and less digital sound. Waldorf alarm clock & clock-microwave oven sounds synthesizer.
This is only a demo of "raw" wavetable sound, no filter and no modulation used. Of course this is not all of Q's power. I recommend you to touch Waldorf in music store.
But thinking again,I'd say that listening to the wavetable alone is also missing the point,when judging a synth:I would never judge a synth solely on its raw sound palette,like i would never judge it solely on the filter o solely on the LFO.What's the point?
Well, as bare wavetables,these do all sound a bit sterile and basic to me, in comparison to.. well.. lots of other digital synths I've listened to.
It so thin and metallic,not suggestive nor spacious.
you're missing the point completely, this is a raw sound, not a complete synth patch.
you should be comparing this sound, to the sound of a plain oscillator on another digital synth... a plain dry oscillator sounds boring and dry on every digital synth... but it has nowhere near the character of a plain dry wavetable oscillator... do you undestand wavetable synthesis?
yes I understand wavetable synthesis, it consists on an ultra-short sample cycle repeating itself to create am udible sound, therefore it will never be as interesting and lively or "phat" as a full complete long sample with all its variations inside its wave, not to mention the possibility of different sounding attack and/or other sections, possible phasing and a lot more already inside the long wave.
@kay396ss Most newbies don't recognize anything but cheapie synths soaked in delay and reverb, programming is way beyond most players at any rate. I hear amazing potential in these waveforms.
Of course playing this demo thru 20 $ computer monitors prolly explains the lack of impact on some listeners.....
The designer of this device is a genius and so far ahead of his time! Finding a Q to fool around with may be a bit hard. The company nearly vanished but like a Phoenix , has arisen!.
@TheSynthZone "Most newbies don't recognize anything but cheapie synths soaked in delay and reverb, programming is way beyond most players at any rate." I program my synths since 1990, but this doesn't mean my brain has to be completely flat. Also, while citing 80's and 90's home synths, those had not effetcts at all, and still do sometimes sound so good, with energy, while all this higher specs synths sometimes fail at this. Like apathy. Don't have to justify anything. Oh shit.
lol at people who come away with such informed conclusions after watching highly compressed you tube videos.
If you honestly think a Yamaha PSR sounds better than a Waldorf Q then take up fishing as music isnt for you. Or we can put that to the test instead of all this talk. You make the best tune you can with a PSR only and I will do the same with the Q and we will let you tube viewers decide.
@kolakube123 oh yes, definitley better. Raw sounds from toy keyboards are better. At least, they are made to sound good out of the box. Again, I'm NOT talking about complete sounds. I'm talking about what i'm hearing in the video.Come on,use your hears.If you think these waveform are any good indication of how good a synthesiser sounds, then you'd better take up rail transport modelling. I'd love to here complete sounds, and not only simple waveform, and then discuss if they are good or shit.
@kolakube123 are you so sure you'd win? we're talking about raw waveforms. so, you'd use these metallic thin waveforms alone, vs some surprisingly rich and powerful sounds sampled from toy keyboards.
@kolakube123 why do you find it ludicrous? did you compare them? i've had a PSR-37 for 10 years and many of it's sounds are really sweet. It's got nothing on board. no effect, filter, envelope, modulation at all, so you can consider those as raw sounds, just like the waveform from the waldorf. comparing a neked sound from the PSR-37 and these naked sounds from this waldorf, I can see a lot of difference.
there are alot of toy keyboards out there with extremely inspiring and musical sounds.
Its funny/lame how you people judge sound by YouTube video clip.. what is it anyway? how do you call an audio file lower quality then mp3? yea,.... Youtube.
True, actually, yeah, I'm moving towards a point of using Logic, and FLstudio (yeah, I know, a mac and a PC) to sequence things. I just like the internal sequencer for live stuff.
ok,never mind the effects,show me a video with good basic sounds: 2 oscillars, filter and envelopes, and layers if you want. I've synths for some rough comparisons.
No-one uses bare naked oscs, you pay for filters,envelopes and effects too.. or are they free???Come on,let's hear it in full splendour.
More than a year has passed and, to my knoledge,noone has posted such thing. It's sad to think that there is so little interest in the Q. Not even Q fans want to share anything more than waveforms.
donpirla 3 weeks ago
@tachelesreden , So is it necessary to be one of the most experienced experts in order to appreciate the Q's waveforms? I've only 22yrs experience with synths (21 when this youtube discussion began), I'd consider it enough, but most importantly, i'm not deaf yet, I can tell a sweet sound from klang like almost anyone else. Can't you? Come one, someone please make me change idea and show me a youtube video with full potential of Waldorf Q, with filters, magic envelopes and effects.
donpirla 3 weeks ago
CAN Micro Q get the same sound from 1:55 seconds to 4:00 ??????????? thanks!
KennaOkoye 2 months ago
Love this vid! thanks man
KennaOkoye 2 months ago
bah, i think this is just an expensive toy. Why doesn't waldorf make a MICROWAVE III? a serious synth made to make legendary electronic music and not only virtual fucking around, with incredible waveforms, organic and sweet, instead of plain and metallic as a robot from hong kong.
donpirla 8 months ago
"The designer of this device is a genius and so far ahead of his time! Finding a Q to fool around with may be a bit hard. The company nearly vanished but like a Phoenix , has arisen!." - No doubt about it. Just the waveform are very plain and robotic. I'm not talkin about potential. I'm talking about these very waforms shown in this very video. Please stop getting me wrong. I like waldorf a lot. I keep saying the microwave is pure genius and an ocean of vast and lively, energetic, hot sounds.
donpirla 8 months ago
"Of course playing this demo thru 20 $ computer monitors prolly explains the lack of impact on some listeners.....
Oh shit. Ho do you know I'm listening this silly bling blong sounds from the Q?" -
Well, for internet and youtube i have a couple of quite realistic yamaha msp5 monitors always attached to a m-audio delta66 pci card which i hope to be more than adequate to evaluate synth waveforms.If I need a Linn hifi in order to appreciate them fully,then you're probably right: I miss something.
donpirla 8 months ago
i'd love it if were possible to simply load a Cf or SD card full of your own waveforms, let alone our own sample.
The main purpose of a digital synth so powerful is to transform and mangle any sound and build precisely the sound of your dream. The idea of being stuck with internal wavetable is a silly limit inherited from the 80s.
couldn't this be implemented for the asking price of thousands of euros?
If this synth would be 500 euros, then no problem.
why akai cheapest samplers allow such?
donpirla 9 months ago
is it so difficult, with today's technology, to have the great sounds of the old analog roland, yamaha and korg synths if the past?
maybe we are not even close at that yet.
donpirla 9 months ago
did you buy it for your children ????? funny man...
neuromante7 11 months ago
Is it a joke?
Where r the sounds? Did you bought it just to use as an organist or just for some sequences?
Why did you put this on youtube?
Try it again...Sam
Musicon58 1 year ago
sounds great...
djomercohen 1 year ago
325??? are they that cheap???!!
Synthesized13 1 year ago
That's why all synths in the last 20 years and earlier, have programs, with interesting, wild combinations, and complex sounds. Something meant to be inspiring. Being it or not. Waves are too little thing to discuss on (although basic and important, since they are the source).
donpirla 1 year ago
@donpirla The wave section is a minimum part of the Q. Get a PPG, FIZMO or XT if you really, REALLY want waveform scanning. I consider the Q's wavetables to be a bonus that supplements an excellent machine.
TheSynthZone 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@TheSynthZone "I consider the Q's wavetables to be a bonus that supplements an excellent machine." - If the wavetables are a bonus, what is the main source of its sounds? does it have a sine, triangle and saw waves oscillators? wow.
donpirla 8 months ago
Sometimes it's difficult to comment dry sounds, especially if they are short and very simple. Even more difficult is to comment raw sounds, with no layers, with nothing but the pure source. Programs are very important. So, the way you are allowed to build a sound with layers, multiple oscillators, and edit them (indipendently, possibile), makes a lot of difference.
donpirla 1 year ago
sounds and looks like a very good synthesizer
do you have more synths?
djomercohen 1 year ago
Thanks for posting this.
I love the Waldorf sound and definitely wavetables have their advantages.
Check out my own compilations on the Blofeld, that has some wavetable capabilities as well.
IttaiTal
ittaital 2 years ago
Actually I am aware of that, but not at what that means. Its got a sound to it, just subjectively to me, it doesnt sound worth the expense.
TheRealCritique 2 years ago
Then you're missing out on some gorgeous sounds. Wavetable synths can produce ethereally beautiful evolving pads and textures. You can't really judge from raw waveform... just look how boring a raw saw wave sounds by itself.
I think this demo is geared towards synth programmers who want to get an idea of what range of wavetables the Q has, not people who want to hear finished patches.
raid0422 2 years ago
I'm glad I heard this, it all sounds simllar and worse than old analog and cheap current digital It doesnt sound bad, but this would cover about 15% of the patches on a broad new digital board. Anyway, I'm prob wrong, just an impression, but this is al speak and spell to me. Considering how much they cost, je regrette.
TheRealCritique 2 years ago
"it all sounds simllar and worse than old analog"
You're aware that these are wavetables, right?
raid0422 2 years ago
@raid0422 Lol
javiceres 1 year ago
"it consists on an ultra-short sample cycle repeating itself to create am udible sound,"
Not quite.. its basically like this... choose 2 different waveforms, then create say 128 steps between them, as one morphs to the other.. now you have 128 waveforms that when cycled through will morph from one to the other.. they are not just short repeating cycles - you modulate the position in the wavetable, in different ways and different speeds - creating something much more complex than a short loop..
cartesiaLive 2 years ago
Wavetables are a sort of fake samples, being really a much shorter, therefore poorer, wave repeating itself super quickly in order to fake a long wave, instead of being a long and intact sample from the start. Wavetable was a compromise before the arrival of samplers, since memory at the time was too limited.
Don't get me wrong,many wavetable synths sounded good.Waldorf Microwave has fuller and fatter sounding wavetables,but Q has thinner,poorer sounding wavetables. Just comparing raw to raw.
donpirla 2 years ago
but technical talking, if right, can only confirm innocent and genuine first impression, that is: Strict square/sine/saw oscillator: boring... Wavetable (= short sample) oscillator: more choice... full samples: even more choice, therefore more possibility of good sounds, and also more lively and natural sounding sounds (even if synthetic), because the wave of longer sample is simply hugely more complex, so they sound less fake.
donpirla 2 years ago
At least when raw. Anything will of course sound better with effects.
Still wavetables are better than strict square/sine/saw oscillators because there, the choice of the raw material is reduced to 3, compared to tenths, hundres, thousands... to choose from.
donpirla 2 years ago
The waldorf Q is a phat synth
musicman2047 2 years ago
Blames are missing the point. Purpose of this vid is to demonstrate wavetables of Q -not showing analog emulations.
There's plenty of that stuff allready elsewhere. Tip: if you don't know what wavetables are (like PPG's) and dont wanna hear that -do not watch this at all.. :D
dr3tri 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
What a toy. Unbelievable that someone actually looks for this sort of childish sounds. Do they really? I don't mean to be rude, but this instruments sounds silly and surprising to me.
No, wait. Yamaha mini-keyboard synthesizers of the '90es have a fuller, more various and less digital sound. Waldorf alarm clock & clock-microwave oven sounds synthesizer.
donpirla 2 years ago
This is only a demo of "raw" wavetable sound, no filter and no modulation used. Of course this is not all of Q's power. I recommend you to touch Waldorf in music store.
kay396ss 2 years ago
Sorry,I haven't thought of that.
But thinking again,I'd say that listening to the wavetable alone is also missing the point,when judging a synth:I would never judge a synth solely on its raw sound palette,like i would never judge it solely on the filter o solely on the LFO.What's the point?
Well, as bare wavetables,these do all sound a bit sterile and basic to me, in comparison to.. well.. lots of other digital synths I've listened to.
It so thin and metallic,not suggestive nor spacious.
donpirla 2 years ago
you're missing the point completely, this is a raw sound, not a complete synth patch.
you should be comparing this sound, to the sound of a plain oscillator on another digital synth... a plain dry oscillator sounds boring and dry on every digital synth... but it has nowhere near the character of a plain dry wavetable oscillator... do you undestand wavetable synthesis?
cartesiaLive 2 years ago
yes I understand wavetable synthesis, it consists on an ultra-short sample cycle repeating itself to create am udible sound, therefore it will never be as interesting and lively or "phat" as a full complete long sample with all its variations inside its wave, not to mention the possibility of different sounding attack and/or other sections, possible phasing and a lot more already inside the long wave.
donpirla 2 years ago
@kay396ss Most newbies don't recognize anything but cheapie synths soaked in delay and reverb, programming is way beyond most players at any rate. I hear amazing potential in these waveforms.
Of course playing this demo thru 20 $ computer monitors prolly explains the lack of impact on some listeners.....
The designer of this device is a genius and so far ahead of his time! Finding a Q to fool around with may be a bit hard. The company nearly vanished but like a Phoenix , has arisen!.
TheSynthZone 8 months ago
@TheSynthZone "Most newbies don't recognize anything but cheapie synths soaked in delay and reverb, programming is way beyond most players at any rate." I program my synths since 1990, but this doesn't mean my brain has to be completely flat. Also, while citing 80's and 90's home synths, those had not effetcts at all, and still do sometimes sound so good, with energy, while all this higher specs synths sometimes fail at this. Like apathy. Don't have to justify anything. Oh shit.
donpirla 8 months ago
@donpirla You kidding?
javiceres 1 year ago
@javiceres mmm, maybe. I take it easy.
donpirla 1 year ago
@donpirla
lol at people who come away with such informed conclusions after watching highly compressed you tube videos.
If you honestly think a Yamaha PSR sounds better than a Waldorf Q then take up fishing as music isnt for you. Or we can put that to the test instead of all this talk. You make the best tune you can with a PSR only and I will do the same with the Q and we will let you tube viewers decide.
kolakube123 9 months ago
@kolakube123 oh yes, definitley better. Raw sounds from toy keyboards are better. At least, they are made to sound good out of the box. Again, I'm NOT talking about complete sounds. I'm talking about what i'm hearing in the video.Come on,use your hears.If you think these waveform are any good indication of how good a synthesiser sounds, then you'd better take up rail transport modelling. I'd love to here complete sounds, and not only simple waveform, and then discuss if they are good or shit.
donpirla 9 months ago
@kolakube123 are you so sure you'd win? we're talking about raw waveforms. so, you'd use these metallic thin waveforms alone, vs some surprisingly rich and powerful sounds sampled from toy keyboards.
donpirla 9 months ago
@donpirla
Thats not how I read what you said. To me your comment states a Yamaha PSR vs a Waldorf Q. What to me is ludicrous.
kolakube123 9 months ago 2
@kolakube123 why do you find it ludicrous? did you compare them? i've had a PSR-37 for 10 years and many of it's sounds are really sweet. It's got nothing on board. no effect, filter, envelope, modulation at all, so you can consider those as raw sounds, just like the waveform from the waldorf. comparing a neked sound from the PSR-37 and these naked sounds from this waldorf, I can see a lot of difference.
there are alot of toy keyboards out there with extremely inspiring and musical sounds.
donpirla 9 months ago
@donpirla
Yes, the Waldorf Q is a very shitty sounding and cheap synth.
And I guess you are one of the most experienced synthesizer experts, right?
tachelesreden 4 weeks ago
Its funny/lame how you people judge sound by YouTube video clip.. what is it anyway? how do you call an audio file lower quality then mp3? yea,.... Youtube.
statusmusic 2 years ago
very digital sounding synth. i prefer v-synth instead.
lavakava 3 years ago
the q is quite capable of very analog sounding stuff---
the direction of this patch is very digital for sure--
and so I am quite perplexed with this "gotta be analog" mentality---
there is NO better way to show off the strength of an analog sound than to combine it with digital
oh and Im reading other comments there:
the best analog for money now is the new one from Dave Smith Instruments
the mopho
liverawkstar 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
GIVE IT TO ME!!!!!!
oftheshellofftheshel 3 years ago
Hello, I've posted this video on switchedonsynthesizer.blogspot . com
Thanks
Thalassa77 3 years ago
Still the best synth for the money imop.... thanks for the demo ;)
funmonsterUK 3 years ago
I just bought one for $325. Will I be happy? Cause I like what im hearing!
Neyowolf 3 years ago
of course, you'll be happy!!
kay396ss 3 years ago
What ?!!! $325
Didn't you misspell your computer keyboard when type this price ?
sergiomcfly 3 years ago
No I really got it for that
Neyowolf 3 years ago
@Neyowolf from where?
djomercohen 1 year ago
Actually..the ALESIS ION costs about $500, and has 16 filters...so I would say the ION is the best value for the money of any VA out there.
Reeno
MARANTZamp 3 years ago
Well, the ION is great, but if you get a Micron, you also get an extended sequencer and effects section. Although, you lose the nice interface
Biopharmer 2 years ago
The ION may have a seqencer, but that's not important to me at all..I use logic as a sequencer...
The effects are not important to me at all. I like to add effects at mixdown only.
I use synths as a sound pallette only..so DRY is always best, because I need to hear the raw sounds without FX.
Furthermore, the ION has 49 keys and lots of knobs...the micron has none of that..so it's much less fun to program.
Reeno
MARANTZamp 2 years ago
True, actually, yeah, I'm moving towards a point of using Logic, and FLstudio (yeah, I know, a mac and a PC) to sequence things. I just like the internal sequencer for live stuff.
Biopharmer 2 years ago