Synth Advice Required

[Adoom]

Howdy again folks, once more I require some judgement possessed of experience beyond my own.

I'm planning on breaking into the synth game, and for my price point, and my needs (which rule out soft synth/MIDI apparatus, currently) the Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard looks like the right one for me. I've been looking at it for a while, and recommended it a while back based on my burgeoning possession of the sleek little beast.

However, my lack of knowledge in the area has left me with a few questions before I pull the trigger.

I am to understand I can load my own samples onto it?

My main sonic needs are for piano sounds, Rhodes sounds, Mellotron sounds and the like, as well as for low synths and pads that are somewhat organic sounding, or variations and combinations thereof. And otherwise, the plug-the-thing-in-and-play/ability to edit sounds on-the-fly aspects of the thing are vital to me.

Is it possible to (fairly easily) get some nice sounding samples onto the Blofeld, and furthermore, to perhaps throw some (onboard) effects onto them? For example, if I wanted to get a bit tremoloey with a Rhodes.

Also, can I delete existing patches on it? (I'm generally rather loathe to have extra stuff in the way/margins for error). And having a Jordan Rudess style anything on any of my instruments may sadden me.

As for the synth itself, I hear a lot of good things about how editable it is. Is this accurate?

Otherwise, the only question I have is might anybody have a preferred resource where they can learn about the ins and outs of synthage. What all of these (more or less brand new to me) terms mean, what people look for, reviews and all that? The sites I've found are less explanatory than I'd like.



Love for you all.

[kbit]

I was going to post a thread that was literally exactly like this.
I want those same kinds of sounds and features.

[mal paso]

Vintagesynth.com is a great site

[Adoom]

Some serendipity there brother. There is some tasty knowledge surely bound for us.

Thanks for the heads up mal paso, that's one of the sites I've found already. I'm more looking for something in something a little more in-depth and explanatory. Perhaps more contemporary also.

[mal paso]

I joined Vintage Synth about two months ago when I purchased my first synth(Akai Miniak, nothing fancy) and have received a great deal of insight and wisdom by the users there. At first I was worried about the Vintage aspect as well, but these are very forward looking dudes(software,samplers,digital synth,etc.)

Try posting what you're looking for there, you might be surprised by the help you get.

[01010111]

+1 for vintage synth explorer, it's a great way to get a grasp of what features and sound quality you should expect for what price.

As to learning the ins and outs of synthing, the best way to learn is to actually play around with a synthesizer and look stuff up on Wikipedia when you run into some kind of knowledge barrier. If you have an iPod/iPhone/iPad you should just download mobilesynth. It's a simple synth that's easy to use and see exactly what's going on. Plus it's free.

I haven't tried loading my own samples onto the blofeld, and you can load quite a lot of them onto it. I think it would treat the samples the same way it treats the wavetable synthesis, but I don't really know for certain. And as to the flexibility if you're new to synthing I doubt you'll run into the barriers that exist in the blofeld. So far I've only run into a problem with it not being flexible enough once, but that was mostly because I wanted to see how flexible it was, so...yeah all its different modulating options are pretty astounding.

For your needs I'd look for something that was more of a keyboard that was designed to get you those classic piano/organ/clavinet style tones that you could also use as a midi controller and then just get some cheap synth module that you can program your own pads with.

It might be possible to load great sounding samples onto the blofeld, I have no idea. I was going to go record machines and nature sounds to load on for my samples, and I don't care terribly whether or not they sound terrific because I'm just going to mess them up with all the modulation options. I the sound quality of the samples are good enough it could be exactly what you need, though. If I get time I'll try and get to that sometime this week.

[Adoom]

Thanks dude! That's real helpful! I've been messing around with one on the iPhone for the past while,and it's tricky enough to get to grips with, but a great tool for some tips & cheats.

Are you able to delete factory presets, or at the very least, save over them?

I was thinking of doing that with the MIDI thing, but I need more of an all in one package that serves as it's own module as well. No matter what way I try to work it out, it just adds to cost, complexity, and gear I have to lug around/set up.

As it stands, I'm playing guitar > very minimal effects > (a not yet purchased, but will be to get rid of the half stack I'm currently using)some kind of Sansamp esque DI box into a line switcher, which will also be taking the synth, into an AKAI Headrush > powered speaker/PA. On top of this I've to worry about the stereo amp setup for my violin, (one for loops, one for me), my (less minimal) effects board for that, and a separate effects board for the loops I make with the fiddle.

So as you can imagine, I'm a little overwhelmed at the prospect of more stuff. The Blofeld appeals so as its so compact, and in it's price range, I've yet to find such an all inclusive package.

I do plan on getting in depth with everything I can though, I just wonder is that matric system as easy to use as everyone says.

I've been looking into Vintage synth also.Great site. Providing some excellent reading.

Jesus. I used to think guitar was an expensive hobby. Then I picked up violin. Now, I'm looking into these. Next, perhaps I'll start to use yachts and cranes as percussion instruments.

[01010111]

Yeah saving over the factory presets is easy enough, not so easy you'd do it on accident though. But I couldn't find a way to easily create a kind of blank setting, so I spent an hour undoing everything on one setting and saving that setting to multiple slots. Now if I want to clear out a setting all I do is save my blank setting over some other setting.

The only thing that made the blofeld win out over other similarly priced synths was the fact that it's built well and has multitimbrality. If it wasn't for those features I would've just gotten the ultranova, but those touch sensitive knobs made me nervous. One thing that's dead easy to program on a synth are organ sounds, piano sounds are harder because the dynamics are harder to mimic, and even if you can load good sounding samples onto the blofeld you'll still have to deal with that.

And using a lot of gear has its drawbacks. That's why I bought an all in one unit as opposed to getting a midi controller and software synths. Another thing to note about the blofeld is that, while it's fairly easy to program, don't expect to do more than mild tweaking in a band setting; it just takes too long to get a good setting if you're adjusting too many parameters and bandmates can be impatient.