Waldorf Pulse

FREGLE - you really need to check your head and your information. The Pulse is very much an analog instrument. There doesn't have to be tons of wires and chips in a huge case in order for it to be truly analog. Have you ever opened up an ARP Odyssey's case? How 'bout a Sequential Pro-1? There isn't a lot contained inside those cases either - most monophonics don't have a whole lot of circuitry.
If you really need to have a more reliable opinion on the Pulse - check with a service tech - or open your machine up - you'll be able to tell right away.

since ravi clearly thinks i was wrong about the pulse being virtual analogue, i'll say it like this: analogue -> wires and electronic circuits do everything, virtual analogue -> DSP's model analogue behaviour. if it was analogue like my juno60 it would be 6 times bigger, 10 times heavier and 10 times more expensive. there would also be CV in's and out's.. clear now ravi?

Easy knob control, only slowed by page access but no big deal, easy to use.

Arpeggiator, midi, easy control-good features for a mono synth.

Two comparisons, one alongside today's offerings, the other re: classic analog. Along with the Nord, the best of the current mainstream analogs or VAs - more aggressive than the Nord, fairly cold vs. the warmth of the Nord, more cutting and bright. Thus, the ideal would probably be one of each as they complement one another well. Aggressive, cutting and bright Germanic sounds not dissimilar to a PPG or a Pro One in some respects sans some of the warmth, has that industrial sound down.

Re: analogs, as with much or all of today's offerings, you have more control over the parameters while losing some of the punch and much of the warmth of the classic analogs. More noticable upon direct comparison, heard in the context of today's music it prevails against all others on the market.

Made in Germany; something like being made in Japan.

Best of the current mainstream offerings of the last 5 years at least. Has some shortcomings but overall dominates; if you can't get some excellent sounds that scream play me, spend some time learning to program..

Having been apparently designed with a very specific market, the Pulse's presets are mainly in the Eurodance-and-all-its-incarnations area. There is, however, one arpeggiated preset that sounds EXACTLY like the intro to "Tell me when" by the Human League. But since Oakey took this one, I suggest you programme your own.

The editing matrix is alright, but two minor adjustments would've made the synth infinitely nicer to programme: dedicated buttons for each row (like found on the Yamaha A3000 sampler, which also uses an editing matrix) instead of one button to step through them, and endless rotaries (like found...well, on the Yamaha A3000). I have owned quite a few synths over the years, and the only one which I found harder to programme in terms of predictability is the Yamaha DX7s. I'm talking apples and oranges here, I know, but it's still true. With most synths, I can pretty much create a patch in my head first, dial it into the synth and the results will be pretty close. With Pulse, it just wasn't happening for some reason.

The manual was decent, I suppose, but I don't remember it too well, actually. You'll hardly ever need it, except maybe for functions like oscillator/filter tuning or performing data dumps.

The Pulse is a monophonic synth with good MIDI capabilities (velocity, aftertouch, clock synch, SYSEX, etc.), though these depend on the OS version somewhat. Versions 2.01 and above allow for the triangle LFO wave to be synchronised with MIDI clock, and also allow for more Pulses to be gouped together and play polyphonically. I never tried it myself (I was a few Pulses short), but it sounds cool enough. What isn't that cool is that in case you have an older version of the operating system, the only way to update is to get a new ROM chip.

No, I'm not high, I just didn't particularly care for the Pulse's sound. Sure, it can go really deep and its envelopes are fast, but there was no warmth and no phattness either, and as far as I'm concern, these are more important for making music than being able to go two octaves lower than any other synth.

Next, all that bottom end can disappear if the oscillators aren't detuned just right - which usually translates to "not too much". Since the oscillators' cycles are always exact (i.e. no drift), they will always interact in the same way and sometimes, there is noticeable bottom end drop-out when these cycles clash. Very annoying when you're programming a bass patch and you have to make compromises to overcome the synth's shortcomings.

In the higher octaves, this isn't noticeable, and since the synth's modulation matrix is flexible and allows for routing almost anything to velocity and aftertouch, the Pulse would actually make a fine lead synth.

The Pulse gives the impression of being a rather well-built synth, possibly with the exceptions of the knobs which may become somewhat wiggly through extensive use. I don't know how my machine was treated by the previous owner, but this is something you should check out when buying one. I don't know how much of a hazard the lack of power switch actually is, but it is slightly unsettling, I guess.

I never dealt with Waldorf directly, and now that they've gone bust, I wonder if I ever will. Their website was informative enough, providing downloads of manuals and patches for the synth.

Even though it made its mark on many of my songs as I used it extensively for a while, I sold my Pulse since I felt that it didn't add enough to my music - I feel that various other synths that I own, both analogue and VA's, do a better job. Most people like it a lot, however, so it's definitely worth checking out if you're looking for an analogue monophonic synth; it has a certain character that you may well find attractive.

The second-hand prices are very good, in my opinion, it's not overpriced like vintage gear, and it's still better than most. I got it for a fair price and didn't lose much money in the sale.

The last reviewer is wrong about one major thing: THE PUSLE IS NOT A VIRTUAL ANALOG OR DIGITAL IN ANY WAY! THE PULSE IS ALL ANALOG.

So if the last review thinks he hears and loves those digital oscillators, you can wonder about what people's reviews about sound mean at all.

i don't like editing this baby by itself... with a good controller-eyboard with some assignable knobs and sliders she comes to life, but even then all the possibilities quite often make your head spin... it was my first synth and it was a baaaad choice for first synth... it laid on the closet for a year or so and then i dusted it off and it didn't seem so esoteric anymore, so.. maybe i'm underrating it now...

it's only mono, and it has no sequencer, not enough knobs, no headphone-socket (!!) the text is not fluorescent so i have to use a light on stage... well, waldorf is not known for the 'bonus' features... what it does have more than enough is synth-features, if you are looking for an allround subtractive monosynth, this is your synth... u probably won't need much more than this (allthough i often catch myself wanting more pulses in my rack :) )

now this is why you buy a waldorf... they make the best sounding virtual-analogue machines in the business and this is no exception. It definitely sounds digital, but who cares, digital has a character of it's own. the oscs sound very rich for digital oscs and the waveforms are all very nice sounding, in fact, the waldorf may even sound too 'nice' if u understand what i mean... it's not really good if u wanna go acid-style or make a screaming lead. For strings and thumpy digital basses and spacey swooshes and blips it ROCKS, i mean really blows away all my other synths in those departments... but not to go aggressive or dark or distorted, not without other gear anyway.

i could kill 20 people with it and still use it to support my house afterwards... only the knobs would be long gone by then...

not needed yet

i like it a lot and use it a lot, if i had more money i'd buy a second one because i can use two in the kind of music i create (psytrance, acid, techno, DnB,...), but it's is certainly not my favorite synth, it sounds too average for that... not that that's bad, i need average sounds a lot too, and she can conjure up an incredibly broad range of digital subtractive synth-sounds, with enough power and body to hold it's own, but she just doesn't have character like truly great gear has it... my EA-1 is not as broad as this but it kicks ass on stage and as an acid-synth, it has a LOT of character too, and my juno-60, well... i don't need to add anything to that name :) but that really doesn't mean this is a bad synth, it's very very usefull...

Rotary knobs would have been easier... Now this is not a perfomance synth. The editing is easy, but slow, whitch make it less intresting and sounds do not tend to be as good as with older analogue synths with 1 knob per 1 option.

Monophonic which is just enough for manu purposes... What do you expect... It han analogue filter.. And it's cheap. Modulation matric in really cool, when creating pads and otser wobbling effects.

Goof for monophonic.

This sounds good if you compare it to digital synth, but you analogue lovers DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH! Oscillators are digitally controlled, which makes sound guite boring... Filter saturates nicely, but digitally conrolled oscillators make me really sad whit this baby... Because modulation mtrix really rocks!

No problems....

No problems...

- Monster when comapred to digital synths... But quite poor when compared to real VCO analogue sounds...

- Slow interface

+ Modulation matrix

Very easy to use!
The manual is very good. There are a few features you probably wouldn't figure out without manual - but those features aren't really necessary at all.

monophone.
no effects.
no sequencer.
the only noteworthy feature is the arpeggiator, which is nice but not outstanding. I don't use it at all..
It's a pure analoge synthesizer - so the lack of features doesn't really matter.
The possibilities for sound modifications are pretty good!

The sound is absolutly amazing!
3 Oscillators! 2 LFOs! 2 ADSR! A lot of modification possibilities!
Deep basses and squeaking noises.
You can make a scraping acid-line as well as mind blowing psychedelic sounds! I love it!

no problems.

never needed customer support

I can't live without my Pulse anymore. :-)
200 Euros definitly were a snip.

This is the first Analog synth I have ever worked with. I owned an Ensoniq TS-10+ previously, and thesedays i use a Fatar controller and the Emagic ES1, ES2 & EXS24 synth (& Sampler). I thought it would take me a few weeks to learn how to program my own sounds, but the Pulse surprised me by it's very easy interface and synthising Matrix. In minutes from the second it arrived in my hands, i had already saved a few presets that i made myself and BLEW MY MIN AWAY!

It's an Analog Monopoly synth. True Analog circuits. 3 osciollators, analog filter, 2 LFO's, Arpeggioter and much more...
If the 3 osc. are mixed in high volume, they have an Analog Overdrive which Saturate the sound and creat beautiful harmonies....GREAT!
Has midi capabilities (send, recive, sync, SYSex, dump and more...)

Real Analog sound. Tarrific! Great! Mind Blowing!!!
I use it for Rock music. I'm a song writer/producer and my music is a bit influanced by: "Radiohead" "Porcupine tree" "Muze" and meny more...
There is no onboard effects, which works great for me...I have a guitar pedal board (all analog) and i'll connect the Pulse to the pedal chain to use some of the effects i have (distortion, Delay, wha etc...)
It reacts to touch and aftertouch (which is nice for an analog synth.) and allows to trigger events with all of the synth controlls (for example: "cutoff triggerd by LFO 1"...)

By Unit has a connection probleme which i intend to fix myself...(only a loose cable...).
concidering the fact that it's 7 years old, i'm not complaining..

I saw waldorf's website, and they allow download for anything realated to the unit (documents, schematics, sound patches, OS and more...) which makes them very helpful for me...

A Great Analog synth for Bass and Leads!
i was planning to buy a MicroMoog, but that's over now!
the only downside is that i'm so inlove with it now, and i will be bummed by the fact that my analog Pads will remain VA...(until i'll get another money craze and buy me an Alesis Andromeda!!!)

Bought mine on first release so has original software, not xperienced too many probs with it. Presets are good starting blocks for showcasing some of this machines wonderful capabilities. Editing is a breeze, although the matrix option can be a little tedious at times, see kenton or similar for help. The manual is well written gernglisch, a damn sight better than most I've encountered.

Not much too say different here.
More modulation than you can shake a stick at and
midi cc's for everything and it transmits arpeggiator. Cool!

fat, warm, seering and down right fuct up

Gigged often, no probs, although my red knob looks like its had some hard twiddling I can tell you!!!!

Not needed in five or six years, so dont know.

Would replace in a flash if stolen/lost/fuct. This and my TB are the choices for kikassbass. But the versitilty of the pulse for leads, fx and pretty much anything else mean its always there after the kik in priority.
An 8 year vet for making music own 808,909,303,106,syntechnoteebee(303m with much cvgate),ex800,dx100,e6400ultra.
If you have #150-200 to spend, buy this and you won't ever look back or regret it.(see many single unit monosynths in a 303 vein)