Product: Waldorf Q-Rack
Price Paid: N/A used
Submitted
05/21/2001
at
02:34pm
by
www.mp3.com/melon
Ease of Use
:
7
This synth great for hands-on action in the sense that it's fairly easy to create sounds yourself. I got my Q from Germany (I'm Swedish) so I'm not really sure about the manual as my German could be better. However I downloaded the English manual as a PDF file and it does the job.
One thing that bothers me about the Q is the multi mode. With other synths its easy to set up a multi performance where you can switch patches in your PC Sequencer (logic/cubase/cakewalk etc). But with the Waldorf you have to select patches on the actual synth which can be a pain when working on a lot of different tunes.
Features
:
9
16 voices polyphony is enough for me, I mean, I use this synth for mostly basses and leads, so in most of my projects I have atleast 10 voices left :) Should you need more than 16 voices there is a 16 voice expansion available.
The arpeggiator is awesome and I use it alot for controlling other synths in my rig. Built in fx are also great although I mostly used the effects on my Yamaha 03d and my DSP soundcard for fx.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
The sounds are bloody amazing. I've tried all the virtual analogues, and soundwise this is my favourite, wow! You get alot of the analogue warmth and the sound creation possibilities are awesome.
The Waldorf Q-series synth look bloody awesome in their Blue or Yellow designs, but the sound even better than they look!
Reliability
:
7
Never had any problems.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Never dealt with Waldorf customer support as I've never had any problems. Online user groups are available though and they seem quite knowledgeable.
Overall Rating
:
9
The Waldorf Q sounds bloody awesome, and really that's what matters. In my opinion it's the best sounding virtual analogue synthesizer out there. It's not a cheap synth and I certainly wouldn't get it if I could only have one synthesizer in my setup. But if you have a samplebased-synth from Roland or Yamaha and you feel it's time for phatness and sound creation, go Waldorf!
Product: Waldorf Q-Rack
Price Paid: 2500 (DM)
Submitted
04/11/2001
at
07:55am
by
Johan_s
Ease of Use
:
8
When you get into it it's really intuitive, the presets desn't sound that impressive tough... (factory 2000) using just the interface for editing is easy, but the mod matrix is probably more comfortable to program from i.e. sounddiver... the manual is ok...
Features
:
10
Great features! 16 voices (expandable to 32) is probably enough for most users when the synthesizer is used in symbiosis with other gear... the fx section sounds ok but 4*2 fx is just to little... The modulation matrix is a nice thing that allows almost everything get modulated by everything! I like the routing and the two filters... the sequencer will be superb when it's completely bugfixed! and the arpeggiator is the best around?? :)
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
10
Sounds... when this thing is programmed right it just sounds awesome!
Techno music is it's playfield... the fx are good soundning but more fx busses would be appreciated!
Reliability
:
9
actually there is still bugs in it... but I trust it... I have even used it in a gig, tweaking the knows live and everything worked just fine.
Customer Support
:
10
They are really helful, probably the best support in the synthesizer bussines!
Overall Rating
:
10
It's really worth the money, a lot of money for hobbey musicians... but you get loads of features and regular OS updates (3.0 to be released soon...) I use it with a Roland JV-1080 and a soundblaster live card and I'm very pleased with the sound possibilities this setup gives me. I was first going for virus B, but I heard the crystal clear sound of the Q deno mp3s... It really helps me in the process, when I'm stuck and need some new vibes, I move my attention to the knobs of my Q-rack!
