Waldorf Microwave Xtk Demo

[@dxmat]

Raw, aliased, acid, gritty, aggressive, unpredictable... I love my XT since 1998.

[@saltykraut]

Something special about this thing. Always wanted one

[@fulge0903]

10:25 nice synthwave bass

[@sK3LeTvM1]

Yeeeehaaaa ! Thank you for this demo. Not so many good XTK demos out there. I'm a 30-voice XTK owner too ;-) Waldorf XTK's (and also Q's) are exotic synths from another planet. [edit 09/2024] Sold my XTK. Because I did not use it.

[@vintagesynths]

Unfortunately it is not mine. Thanks

[@sK3LeTvM1]

@@vintagesynths I feel sorry for you. :-)

[@aliensporebomb]

Tried one in a store when they first came out and I wanted it badly but it was out of my price range. Now they're really expensive - I should have sprang when it first came out. A unique synth that could sound smooth and majestic or harsh and industrial or unlike any synth ever made really. Unique to its own thing. Great demo!

[@vintagesynths]

@@aliensporebomb that’s true. Looks also awesome. Unfortunately not my synth here. It’s from a friend of mine

[@aliensporebomb]

@ Lucky friend. I also like the fact that the industrial design was perfect. Who wouldn’t want a bright orange synthesizer?

[@AllureMusicLab]

Awesome Rüdiger ! Love my Microwave II !

[@vintagesynths]

Thanks very much!

[@Dudderlyful]

Beautiful, really quite a special sound to it

[@Bernd_Bruening]

Very impressive sounds. I didn’t know that the Microwave XT sounds so good.

[@vintagesynths]

In my hands each synth sounds good, LOL

[@Bernd_Bruening]

@@vintagesynthsmagic hands

[@mmrva]

How come your demo sounds way better than I remember my MWII? Amazing pathes, playing and probably signal chain? Respect.

[@vintagesynths]

Thanks. I recorded it with an old apogee symphony interface and bounced a 192 kHz wav file for the KZbin timeline. That’s all.

[@jmcbeady8210]

Sounds so good.👍

[@Age2003]

ugh, I'm spent. I want one.

[@bartomiejdolny7555]

Wow, this synth sounds amazing. Great playing, too. Wonder if M can sound close to this...

[@sK3LeTvM1]

The answer is simple: The XTK is not an an M.

[@synthnerd4539]

Ah, the XT. I had one about 15 years ago - sometimes regret selling it, the Blofeld I got later was never as good.

[@vintagesynths]

Yes, I only borrowed this, but such thicker than an argon 8 I have

[@sK3LeTvM1]

@@vintagesynths Try the Cobalt8. I had both Argon and Cobalt, but sold the Argon...

[@Dudderlyful]

@@vintagesynths I also had the Argon, had a silky sound to it but a bit too clean. Ultimately sold that, same thing with the Blofeld, nice but not quite it for me even being as capable as it is. Haven't really found the wavetable synth for me yet, apart form this of course >.

[@nagchumpalot]

@@Dudderlyful M 😉

[@xfloodcasual8124]

Nice. I upgraded the sonic components in a Microwave XT, I have a small clip on my channel

[@depsilon4]

Just watched some demos of the M - Waldorf cleaned up the aliasing in favor of a smoother sound on the M. But it really sounds like they cut the balls off the sound engine of the MW in the M compared to the original - as you can hear. This MWXT sounds alive compared to the dead M. But the M is not made for the older "Imperfect sound" and has quite a bit of flexibility for a wider range of music. Waldorf is trying to appeal to a wider range instead of a niche eclectic group of artists with the M. I imagine if you could rip the DSP digital signal and outboard it, you could bring the M back to the future bypassing the cheap DA converters in the M.

[@jeansebtremblay]

Hummm no. " Waldorf cleaned up the aliasing in favor of a smoother sound on the M" : That's just not true. You are aware that the M has 2 modes (Microwave 1 and 2) and the developer of the M built the code that emulates the microWave ASIC chip designed by Wolfgang Palm (it run the same DSP and even has the bug that causes distortion if oscillator levels are above a certain threshold ). It has the same aliasing than the XT when using the XT mode (i have both the M and XT so i know) The M has all the digital filters from the XT based on the "original code" from Stephen Stenzel. "I imagine if you could rip the DSP digital signal and outboard it" This is what Vladimir Salnikov did when he build the M. The M does sound better imo since it has an "analog backend" just like the original Microwave. What's missing from the Xt is the modulation Matrix , The FM between the Ocs and the FX.

[@depsilon4]

@@jeansebtremblay I do know about the claims of the same code and emulation modes of the M. This is still a great synth with old and new design decisions baked in to effectively give you 2 synths in one and provides a great value for your money. The new hardware has a few extra layers of code and sw due to the old DSPs not being made anymore, so Waldorf had to use another supplier for the compute engine and adapt their code to run on it. Nothing in this VA synth is actually analog until it exits the DAC, wether USB or your own DAC through your Computer or the analog outputs, An optical and clock accurate output would be desirable so the user could choose a more accurate converter. However, the older XT used 18bit DACs at 44khz on the analog side, where the M is using 32bit DACs at 96khz. This does natively affect the sound output as the algorithms used in between the DACs are significantly different and employ different filter math to create a sound that is going to be a compromise of cost vs user preference. There is no escaping this. You bring up a good point about the mod matrix, depending on the patch, the more complex sounds could also be dropping and rounding bits more frequently in the old DSP where the new more powerful DSP platform does not need to do this, accounting for the glitch grit we hear more on the original XT. The other advantage Waldorf has by using the new platform is more DSP programmers are available and they can leverage the same base compute DSP hardware across a full generation of products. There are enough differences here to hear a difference, but honestly after the age of 40, people can't hear the high frequency glitch harmonics of the old XT anymore anyway. I think with the M, you are getting closer to the sound of what the original designer intended. I have a similar situation with the Roland D50, you can hear a difference in the old one vs the V-Synth platform running the same D50 code on their FPGA VariOS platform, but I actually prefer the newer/stable and cleaner D50 sound on my VariOS.

[@jeansebtremblay]

@@depsilon4 Both synth are great for sure, i prefer the old waldorf too :) The M has digital Oscs of course but everything after the Oscs is analog : Filters + VCA. from Vladimir : "M in a classic MW1 Oscillator mode has a 240 kHz (vs. original 250 kHz) sampling frequency and no interpolation as ASIA had none. M in a 'modern' MW2 Oscillator mode has a 40 kHz (same on MW2) sampling rate."

[@jeansebtremblay]

So they use almost the same generation method (algo) and after the Oscs everything is analog (unlike the Iridium for ex)

[@depsilon4]

@@jeansebtremblay That's really cool they put analog VCA and Filters on each voice, I guess that is similar to the Q+ with AFB after the DSP does the OSC work through the DAC, which is actually 24bit 192khz, not 32/96 like I thought on the M. Do you have the 8 voice expansion for the M? I wonder how close the filters can sound like a Moog, but maybe they are only 4th order filters, not sure about that. The DSP appears to actually be a general purpose ARM 7 cortex variety, tons more code where the old Motorola DSP was all programmed in ASM. That chip even has HDMI out if you wanted to recompile the drivers in the M OS. Kinda makes me wonder if they could have spent 30% and made the whole audio path analog, but probably too much variation between each M they would have built. Hopefully you have patches that take advantage of the VCAs and Filters.

[@MadelnMachines]

Do you have a Walfdorf M to compare it to? I had a microwave 1 but decided I couldn't be bothered to program it with a vst editor or the front panel.

[@thomasbraune2923]

Sehr cool, Rüdiger 👍

[@vintagesynths]

Vielen Dank, Thomas

[@Sonikbytes]

I am able to successfully run the beta dsp Xenia emulator with this beast's firmware. I suspect it will be identical to an original XTk in sound!

[@Zalanes]

I have Xenia and an XT rack. Xenia “out of the box” is a little quieter, which gives the impression of being less full sounding. However, crank up its level, and to my ears there’s no discernible difference.

[@Sonikbytes]

@Zalanes theoretically should sound identical unless you have a crapy sound chip converters in the computer. I tested my virus ti against ostirus and sounded practically the same aside some latency differences

[@Zalanes]

@@Sonikbytes I’m confident that my setup is far from crappy. I have had my MWXT from when it was first released, and am thoroughly familiar with its sound. As I said, the difference was in level. The hardware XT outputs pretty hot, once level matched no discernible difference.

[@Sonikbytes]

@@Zalanes I 'm not questioning your setup. It was meant that if that was indeed the case then it could be argued so regarding the differences between the two. I have owned XT and MW1 in the early 2000 and regret selling but the emulations now are stellar.

[@Zalanes]

@@Sonikbytes Absolutely agree, the emulations are amazing. It’s particularly great to have Xenia as I have lived for ages in fear of anything happening to my XT. BTW, like your music 👍😀

[@jfracine_composition]

2:00 nice thick pad !

[@vintagesynths]

Yes, sounds very analogue warm and lush

[@MaryJohnson-p6x]

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