Waldorf Music is a German synthesizer company. They are best known for the Microwave wavetable synthesizer and Blofeld virtual analogue synthesizer.
History
Waldorf Electronics GmbH was founded in 1988 by Wolfgang Düren, who at the time was the German distributor of PPG. The Waldorf name refers to the German town Waldorf (near to the former capital of West Germany: Bonn) where the company was founded. Later, the company was headquartered in Schloss Ahrenthal. On 5 February 2004, Waldorf declared insolvency at a German court. Shortly before, the company was turned into an Aktiengesellschaft called Waldorf Music AG, but to no avail. In Summer 2006, a new company Waldorf Music GmbH was officially established, although it is not a legal successor to the original company. Waldorf's headquarter has now moved to Remagen and is led by CEO Joachim Flor.
After the demise of PPG in 1987, Waldorf took over the heritage of wavetable synthesis. Based on an ASIC designed by Wolfgang Palm, the Microwave, and later the WAVE, were built. However, Palm never functioned as an employee of Waldorf. Over the years, Waldorf continuously adapted new technologies. While the Microwave I (released 1989) was based on ASICs and a Motorola MC68000 micro processor, Microwave II (1997) was driven by a DSP. In 2013, NAVE, a synthesizer app for iOS was released. Their Kyra (2019) is the first fully FPGA-powered synthesizer.
While many other synth manufacturers aimed to recreate previously existing hardware in software, Waldorf went the other way and presented the RackAttack, a hardware drum synth in 2002. The synth engine had been published as a VST instrument a year before. Nevertheless, the Streichfett came up in 2014: a synth that recreated the sound of vintage string machines.
Products
1989
Microwave. Rack wavetable synth and developed from the PPG Wave. Built in two different hardware revisions: the first ones had a backlit LCD. The later ones a lit character display. They use a different Curtis CEM analog lowpass filter chips. Later called Microwave I due to the 1997 introduced Microwave II
1990
Midibay MB-15. Rack MIDI patchbay and merger
1991
Microwave Waveslave. 1 HE voice extension for the original Microwave (adding another 8 voices)
1993
WAVE. A wavetable synthesizer. This was a deluxe extrapolation of Microwave technology, with additional features for wavetable creation and resynthesis that even today is not available on any other synthesizer. Available in 4 colours. 61 or 76 keys. 16, 32, or 48 voices and expandable to 120. Retail price in 1994 was $9000.00 with less than 200 made. The WAVE was used by for example Depeche Mode, Hans Zimmer and The Orb. 4-pole. Table top analog filter box. EQ-27. Compact (table top) programmable and MIDI controllable stereo 7 band equalizer.
1994
Microwave I V2.0 ROM upgrade, which added additional wavetables, a facility to algorithmically create custom wavetables, a speech synthesizer, and numerous other improvements. The Waveslave was not compatible with this upgrade, but a trade-in program was offered where the user could upgrade to a full Microwave for a small fee. A limited edition Mean Green Machine was released at the same time as this upgrade, being a Microwave with a new "Nextel" rubberized finish in a green color, a certificate of authenticity, special cone-shaped metal feet, and comical silkscreening (the power switch was labeled Life, and the card slot was labeled Food.) Normal Microwave units from then on featured the Nextel finish in the usual blue color.
1995
Gekko Chords and Gekko Trigger: Very compact passive powered MIDI tools
Hohner Adam
Pulse: Monophonic analog rack synth
1997
Gekko Arpeggiator. Very compact passive powered Midi tool
Microwave II. Motorola DSP driven wavetable rack synth, containing many features of the original Microwave with improved mixing, modulation, effects processing, and multimode filter. Pulse+. Monophonic analog rack synth with additional audio in and MIDI / CV/gate interface
1998
x-pole. Programmable stereo (in/out) analog filter in a 2HE rack module. With full MIDI, CV/Gate and ACM support. Microwave XT. Microwave II with 44 knobs and audio input, in 5HE package with bright orange color. Microwave XT Limited Edition. Microwave XT in charcoal gray/black color scheme, in a limited edition run of 666 units. d-pole. VST filter plug-in Terratec Microwave PC. Synth module for the TerraTec EWS sound cards, featuring a fully functional Microwave II in a drivebay package. Wavetable Oscillator for Creamware Modular