Hey
So I did something pretty impulsive after seeing an ad for the Waldorf quantum desktop unit, Irridium. I jumped on the website I buy gear from and picked up the Waldorf Kyra. I’ve heard great things about it, and even had a picture of it up on my fridge for motivation to save up for it. But because I am neurotic and self-loathing I’m concerned now that the Irridium is the better device of the two and I have again missed the train and have to settle for less. Mainly I believe this because the Irridium is the one I didn’t buy and of course anything I CAN get hold of MUST be less powerful and of lower quality. If anyone has a minute to validate I would be very grateful. Any stories about Kyra, Quantum, Microwave XT, Q, micro Q, PPG wave, Waldorf et al? I AM really damned excited to program a box again, especially with a more fluent understanding of my Digitakt, which I plan to designate the brains of the operation. This will mean freedom from DAW at least in the short run, and considering the makers of Kyra allege that they equate the starting point of its development to the Access Virus TI, a synth I know like I know my own hand I SHOULD be in pretty good shape. If anybody’s got anything on any of this, I wholeheartedly welcome it, even if it’s completely unrelated. My best vibes go out the folks demonstrating, stuck in quarantine or infected; my heart is full with you, and to you all during this #ucked UP moment in human history. If nothing else we can always live for the music, and therein, hopefully, find some commonality and equity.
They both sound excellent from what I’ve heard, so I doubt you will regret your purchase from that standpoint. The biggest difference I see is that Kyra has 128 voice polyphony, 8-part multi-timbral. Iridium has 16 voices, 2-part multi-timbral. Both offer VA synthesis. Iridium offers wavetable morphing, sampling, 6-operator FM, and physical modeling. There are many other differences I’m sure. But that’s the gist of it. It’s just a matter of what sort of synthesis you need/want, and the voice count. I really doubt there will be a ‘better’ device between the two.
Hey thank you for your fact based analysis, i hadn’t even considered the difference in polyphony. I’m sure there is a work around or three for mimicking FM synthesis and I already have sampling capability covered…yeah this is working, might have put it back in perspective. Talk about first world problems. Thank you…
If you are interested in Waldorf wavetable synthesis, machines like Microwave, PPG, Quantum and last but not least the Blofeld are the best candidates.
From what I know about Kyra I would say, it provides a massive number of voices, has multitimbrality and might be the right choice for someone, who is looking for many layers of standard timbres out of a single box.
Comparing the single synth voices of Kyra and Quantum/Irridium I would say that the Quantum/Irridium provides more features for sound designers and complex voices.
Hey thank you guys for humoring me, it has helped to set my mind at ease. So I’ve driven a few synths by Waldorf, the microwave XT, microQ, and another whose name I can’t remember, and the little Rocket which is super fun. When the Blofeld came out, I was working with a VirusTI at the time and was considering scaling down because there was almost too much horsepower and I found myself sound designing way more than producing tracks. Of course I soon realized that was stupid and just worked harder. The input that I got about Blofeld though was that it was thin and airy and at the time I was looking for tight and thick (not to imply that either is better or worse). That was not the character of my Microwave however, so I began to assume that maybe Waldorf had kind of come and gone, their old stuff great, their new pieces not so much. That was an erroneous assumption, but evoked my anxiety about Kyra nonetheless. Then I saw Marahal’s general workflow video and my concerns have been thoroughly assuaged…
You will enjoy either one. I like my Kyra a lot and maybe in the future might get an iridium.
The voice count and the filters Kyra come with are good. I also like stream to USB
Hey! yeah I’m damn excited now!
The best wavetable synth is the one that you’ll get to know the best and figure out how to use, creatively.
True, pretty much every wavetables synth offers things up with a different spice. It is worth noting that Kyra doesn’t do wavetable scanning/morphing, its sort of a wavetable synth in the same way that a digitakt is. Not a bad thing but also I wouldn’t call it a wavetable synth, it just has the option to play single cycle waveforms as oscillators if wanted, sounds great on a digitakt so it probably sounds even better on a kyra. Kyra and Iridium seem pretty different, with Iridium really focused on different synthesis types and methods and high quality sounds while Krya takes up the classic VA torch of the virus with a huge voice count and high quality sounds.
Davey make sure you are on 96khz audio streaming when using USB streaming. The sound quality is noticeably better even for VA OSC quality.
True this— which is why I almost bought a Virus for the third time in my life. It’s like that car you’ve driven for just the right amount of time making it perfectly comfortable while still capable of superior performance, especially with an experienced touch.
That’s a good differentiation to know about. I hadn’t thought of it quite in these terms, but you’re absolutely right. Two fold in fact, it really is all about the muscle with this synth. Which seems exclusively captivating among the VA species. The stacking and combining and adding and modding and overdoing it come naturally with these machines.
Yeah I’m hoping my CPU can bear it. I would love to get into a new machine but I’m about a thousand bucks shy of the mark so it might be a little while before I can crank it up to 96. I’ve always tended to think that considering most listening happens at 48, that it also makes sense to mix at 48, but why not both? Reference mixes have never proven to be a waste in my experience!
That’s also very cool to think of the digitakt and the Kyra being cut from the same cloth, because I’ve been anticipating doing some full contact stuff in the box with those 2 devices specifically. I’m very much looking forward to that!
That’s the feeling I get about the difference between the devices also. But I’ve always been a fan of misusing devices in pursuit of new outcomes, perhaps I can evoke some elegance in this crude character!
Last but not least, I would be immensely psyched to hear about anyone’s experience with THIS synth or similar and DAW workflow, Ableton in particular. I was having trouble making it go with Push, and I really hope it IS workable. I hate the idea of hardware that is dedicated entirely to software. The Push certainly runs that risk, but I HAVE seen folks get spectacular results using it in combination with external gear. That was another winning feature of working within Virus TI-land, it was consistently cruising altitude regardless of the control surface. The most fun I ever had was in a garage full of Cerwin Vegas programming my first Virus polar with an MPC 2000XL, making it sing along to a floppy disk full of ANCIENT Akai stock MPC sounds!! Good times.
I have had my kyra for a week, took a while to find my way round it, but the streaming into ableton seems to be flawless, and the sounds I have got out of it has blown me away!
VERY cool to hear thank you! I know I’m ready to dive right into an obsession with this synth, but I just can’t seem to get the MIDI arrangements right, if you would be cool with it, I would be real grateful if you might be able to take some screenshots of your AUDIO/MIDI settings? I’m seriously struggling with it. In any case thank you for the feedback - dave
Am just about to go work, but will send over some screen shots this evening, no problem, I have created separate midi and audio tracks in ableton for each track in kyra
That would be righteous thank you, you can email them if that works daveypassage@icloud.com