Since whenever I learned about subtractive synthesis and started building my own synths and widgets with Synthedit, I've always been silently shaking my head at people getting obsessed with hardware synthesizers. I mean... Sure, having hardware dedicated to the specific task of generating sound is a useful thing to have, and sure, most proper synths tend to have their quirks that make them memorable, but I really don't care if the bassline I hear is a genuine 303, or an analog reproduction, or a digitally calculated emulation. And, I never had any issues with my sounds not being "fat enough" or sounding "too tinny" for my taste. And I've been using softsynths for years now.
Most of the issues I do have are of technical nature. Operating systems that I need to upgrade or switch to, soundcard drivers that fail, are inexistent, or incompatible, daw-updates that break software which was previously running fine... Well, I had a hard time software-wise. So, I thought I'd buy me a music box.
Of course, not just any cheap sampler keyboard from $supermarket. And while I was quite fond of the first best "true" virtual-analog box (Microkorg) for a while, I've found something better. Something right smack in the middle of the Microkorg and grown-up synths, albeit price-wise to the Korg and feature-wise to the grown-ups... Something with a proper keyboard, with style and history, and with a name that noone can make sense of, yet still makes some people smile:
The Waldorf Blofeld
And I even had enough money for the keyboard version. Which I instantly fell in love with. The keys are "semi-weighted", meaning they have enough mass to feel like proper piano/keyboard keys, yet still trigger with the speed of standard synth keys. They even have aftertouch, a feature that I only recently got to value when I swapped my freshly bought Korg Nanopad for an MPD18. The blofeld's case seems to be carved out of a block of thick and chunky metal, weighting in at 8kg in total, so I wouldn't advise dropping it on tiled floors. (And that's not because I think the synth would suffer...) The controls surely looks a bit "stripped", but all you need is there. Buttons for selecting different feature pages, 4 endless, smoothly rotating encoders for the main parameters (e.g. Cutoff, Resonance, Type and Envelope Amount for the filters), 2 encoders for options on whatever page is shown in the display, one stepping encoder for selection of presets, parameter pages, or whatever else they've bound it to. Plus all the other extras you'd expect: octave buttons, volume knob, even a "spare" button that can be assigned to different functions. And I'm pretty sure I can wire my other midi controllers to it, to make up for any missing knobs or buttons.
Sound-wise, I instantly fell in love with it. You get the analogue "basics" in a virtual, yet refined and actually-not-so-basic form, you get Waldorf's famous wavetables (a concept so cool that even I still have to grasp it ;) and an extensive set of effects. Filters, distortion, flanger, phaser, chorus, delay, and reverb are the one that I can name off the top of my head, and I'm sure there's more.
Actually, I think I was just scratching the surface of what this synth is capable. Literally. 'Cause after less than 2 hours of preset browsing and feature testing, the encoders stopped responding, the switches refused to switch, and I was stuck in one and the same patch. "Okay", I thought, "Basically, it's just a computer. Maybe it needs a restart." So, I switched it off, waited a couple of seconds, and switched it back on. And nothing. A white screen, no LEDs, no Sound, no nothing. And no Blofeld. I've brought it back to the vendor, they'll send it back to Waldorf on Monday, and I'll be waiting impatiently for a response here. I just want this thing so badly. Look, I'm so bored without the Blofeld that I actually started blogging about this... :]
Update: After a month of painful longing, I've got it back. It's still as beautiful as I first imagined, I'm still in love with it, and it's got even more bugs to discover. Right now the preset selection knob jumps around occassionally. But hey, at least the new mainboard is booting properly, and I can finally tweak and upload samples and play and tweak and play and... ah, it's still such a beauty... :]