yes i know, i used the Blofeld as my main synth sound source for many years when i was working mostly in the box. when i transitioned to the elektron realm i was stunned by how stubborn and jealous it could be!
Nord Modular Rack…2 ins 4 outs…plenty of possibilities…4 channel multi timbral…i have a keyboard vers. …never selling this…sometimes it collects dust, but another time it shines bright again…mine is from now on pretty busy these days…and yes the editor is still working like a charm with wine.
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I’m not looking for something too complex as I’m busy enough dealing with the OT and other Elektron boxes.
I’m now going for the Modal Craftsynth 2.0 instead. It’s cheap and can sell for decent price if not happy.
I’ve had my Blofeld desktop around 2 years & love it. I agree with @SoundRider, it’s very versatile & underrated. It can make a wide range of sounds & it gives you a lot of options to shape the sound. Plus it sounds great!
A lot of people have issues with the matrix, but I actually enjoy using it & I’m someone that loves knobs. I really don’t feel like there’s a lot of menu diving… there are 4 sections - Oscillators, Filters, Modulation & Effects. You can get to each section quickly by pressing the button next to it & you have up to 6 knobs to adjust the parameters on each page. I think the matrix is pretty smart. Plus everything is spelt out on top of the device making it easy to know where everything is.
The effects overload the CPU easily, so my only advice is to turn the effects off if it starts to sound bad. I learned that the effects on the Blofeld use a lot of it’s power & some use more power than others. When creating just 1 sound, the effects work fine, but when I use it in multi-mode I have to turn the effects off. Personally I’m ok with this, I have other effects units that I really like. For example I love the way the Blofeld sounds thru Analog Heat & Red Panda Particle 
EDIT: I see you’re getting the Modal Craftsynth instead. Have fun! It might be worth keeping the Blofeld in the back of your mind tho, it’s pretty cool 
I am selling my G1 keyboard because I’m less inclined to deal with the software issues, but I have a G2 engine that I love and will probably never sell unless I have to. They do fetch a pretty penny though…
have you had the midi issues i mentioned above? i’ve never gotten properly synced response out of this beast
Never had issues with midi, but I use it very simply -
MPC 2500 or MPC 1000 midi out to Blofeld.
Midi keyboard midi out to MPC.
Or I midi out midi keyboard straight into Blofeld & just sample myself playing.
& I only use midi to play notes.
Do you know for sure if it was an issue with the Blofeld midi? Just curious… since I never mapped cc’s or anything, I’m not sure how great the Blofeld midi implementation is.
I’d want to get the Blofeld but afraid of how reliable it would be in a live context. For studio it should work well though alongside my RYTM and Analog Keys.
Totally get it. Like I state above I use it simply with midi. It’s reliable when used to just enter notes, but playing live with Octatrack 'm sure you’ll want to map out parameters
Maybe you should reconsider the micromonsta. It’s kind of similar to the blofeld (not multitimbral) but has way better hands on control…
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it’s definitely fine for basic chromatic sequencing and even OT arp as long as you don’t change things up to much. but i couldn’t get the blofeld Lfo/arp to listen to clock no matter what device i used, and i would get crashes and note freezes when sending Cc
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That sucks, especially since you HAVE to use something else to control the Blofeld. You would think it’s midi implementation would be better
I don’t plan to do much other than OT arp sending note data to Blofeld or other synth. I’d do the rest hands-on on the Blofeld.
I’ll look into Micromonsta. Tbh I’ve never considered it before as I found the name extremely off-putting lol. I’m kinda OCD like that and sold both my Mopho desktop and eventually Mopho keys bc I hated the name and the energy drink looking font / label. I liked the yellow color though.
My Micromonsta is always connected to my OT. Pretty vetsatile, but easy structured synth.
The UI is pretty similar to Mutable Instruments Shruthi, but Micromonsta has Encoders which make editing much easier.
Sounds really good and you can load your own wavetables.
Some people seem to have issues with encoders not responding well, my Micromonsta had it also when it got shipped (sometimes I had to spin an encoder like mad to get even small changes of a parameter), but a few heavy tweaking sessions eventually made those issues disappear.
Working perfectly for a year now.
Also responds well to midi cc from OT.
I have no such problems with mine, curious…It seems that it heavily depens on what device feeds it midi. I’ll try to investigate. I’m running multi mode with 5 patches runing, but they are all controlled by keyboard splits and perfectly timed and lfo synced…
midi comes from ak keyboard merged with sipario for p changes and ot for clock and madness…
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That’s good to hear. Never heard of Sipario till now. Looks quite deep. Why do you need such an advanced (and expensive) MIDI interface?
For a long time I was struggling with pchanges in a complex system. Each synth has its own way of dealing with patches changes. Most flexible system I came up with was involving a home made patch in the nord G2, in which I was routing and dispatching midi flow in real time using all the knobs and button. Icing on the cake was that the multiple screens actually showed the real names of the sources, the processing chain in between and the real name of the output instead of abstract midi channel numbers…Convenient,flexible,fun, but long to program, need a computer for modification, big box to carry with you as a midi processor. ( of course it has other capacities ).
Then I used a bome box to convert midi notes to pchanges. Light to carry but same problem with programming and no control nor visual feedback on the box itself.
Then came the sipario. Routing anything to anything, splits by velocities,notes, sending pchanges to the whole midi network at the push of a button, filter of of events , tempo changes…Anything is simple,intuitive and tales only a few seconds to setup.
I’m actually working with a mate on a complex live setup and the sipario has proven invaluable in getting everyone synced while controlling every element with a single controller.
Setup looks like this :
Sipario midi out 1 to octatrack.
Octatrack midi out to midi merge. Master transport seq.
Analog keys, which control almost everything via keyboard splits, midi out to sipario midi in.
Sipario midi out 2 to merge box.
Merge box goes to peak,blofeld,space,zoia, xair18,a second octa which is double sequenced by a machinedrum in its own loop.
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Maybe of interest: I’ve posted three tracks with heavy use of the G2 sequenced by the OT in this post.
First two tracks, two parts are used; in the third - all four parts - most of the percussion coming from the G2. I patched all sounds except one synth patch (Memory Korg? by Smakos from G2 patch archive), which I built on. On the third Dubovernout patch variations switch with OT scenes and some synth modulation is mapped to crossfader.
After a year or so exploring iOS and digging Reaktor, I’m in love with the G2 again. Defs great for live as it handles all the midi I throw at it, new performances load in under a second. No glitches, no hangs or crashes…no soundcard needed! I have the engine (expanded at leat ;-p) and the OT makes for a great sequencer and interface for it. I now look at tracks midi tracks 1-4 and see the OT knobs as the 8 G2 morph groups on each of those channels.
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