Waldorf Iridium (16-voice, duo-timbral Quantum desktop)

That would be the Rytm MK2. :slight_smile:

Here’s a slow sparse custom patch for the Iridium, this is a single patch played/recorded live.

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Bax-Shop today removed the Iridium from their product list, can not order it anymore. Thomann changed the shipping date from 4 weeks to ‘unknown’. That sounds not good to me…

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The reported gaps under the screen, wonky buttons etc seems to me like they are having to sort out manufacturing issues, looks like a longer wait to get one

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On the Gearslutz forum one guy received a Iridium with a complete detached touchscreen. So yes, Waldorf has some production problems.

From Waldorf only silence…

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Alright, so here’s a video demonstrating the Iridium’s Live Granular mode of the Particle engine:

  • Track 1 of the Rytm is set to send MIDI to trigger the Live granular engine of the Iridium (which has been allocated a single voice on layer 2 via “voice split”.)
  • Oscillators 2 and 3 are each set to a “grain poly/ count” value of 1 and panned L and R, respectively.
  • Increasing macro J on the A4 raises the depth of random S&H values being sent when the CV track is unmuted. (These values are set to randomize Particle position of each oscillator in tandem).
  • Macro 5 on the Rytm controls Particle length and decay.
  • Macro 6 on the Rytm controls the range that the grains are allowed to jump (in octaves).
  • Scene 8 enables the effect. (engaged at 29 seconds of the clip – disengaged at 59 seconds)

My criticisms of the current implementation are:

  1. None of the time-based params are BPM-syncable. (ie. particle position/ particle length/ gate length, etc.), so randomizing these often yield unmusical results. (There is a MIDI CC LEARN function for every parameter on the machine, which would allow you to set up a bank of values to quantize to in Max MSP, but doing so would forfeit resolution, as well as the Iridium’s comprehensive mod matrix.)

  2. In Live Granular mode, the travel parameter becomes unresponsive (as the buffer is constantly updating), so there’s currently no option to halt the buffer to loop grains. I’ve put in a feature request for this, and will update things if/ when this should change.

  3. Currently, the Iridium is set to ping pong grain counts of 2 or more, so there is no way to align each to minimize the effect. This is my reason for using two oscillators with a grain count of 1 panned L and R. (The caveat being that the first grain is currently hard-wired to pull signal from the left input, so there is no way to have both channels represented in this configuration.)

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What’s is the synth sound from 0.45?))
Sounds organic

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If you’re talking about the melody that enters at 45 seconds, that’d be the Rytm (pinging the filter with the noise generator, etc). :slight_smile:

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Nice))))

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Received my Iridium today. First impressions :

  • The chassis looks good. No touch screen light bleed, buttons aligned, as it should be.
  • Firmware 2.5.0, just updated to 2.5.1
  • The preset sounds are wonderful
  • A synth with lots of modulation options. Need time to discover them.

A perfect companion for my Hydrasynth keyboard, Hydrasynth Desktop and PolyEnd Tracker. Controlled by a Arturia Keystep and a Sensel Morph.

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:joy:

I see you’ve had yours for a while. How do you feel about navigating around the synth? Is it getting pretty fast for you or is it an annoying amount of presses to do things?

Is the touch screen finicky?

I’m very into the idea of grabbing one of these in the near future. I love Waldorf Synths in all of their digital glory, so organic!
The resonator looks and sounds amazing as well as the wavetable stuff. If the Digiformer is similar to their previous filter distortion algorithms, I’ll be in sound design heaven!

The only thing that throws me off is knowing how deep of synth this is and if the required navigation can become muscle memory or not.

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I personally find navigation to be a breeze.

By default, it’s set to switch to the corresponding page whenever you address a knob on the machine. You can disengage this behavior, though.

The Kernels engine is the only thing that ever gets a bit laborious, since you have to juggle 4 pages for each of the 6 operators, etc. But even then, it’s always clearly laid out and sensible.

I’ve had no issues whatsoever with the screen, aside from the qwerty keyboard that pops up whenever you’re typing a filename to save. (It can be easy to click the wrong key, given the amount of hot spots on that screen.)

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Awesome to hear that :slight_smile: Thanks!

I navigate the Iridium with ease. I’ve not even really needed the manual for anything because it’s so easy to use. The touchscreen response is good but I can accomplish almost anything without ever touching the screen. The ergonomics of this synth is well thought out. You’ll absolutely love this synth, such a joy to use.

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Awesome! Thanks! Looks like I’ll be putting this on my short list once I part with some other stuff to make room!

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It’s like have two synths in one, two part muti timbral. I’ve heard that importing samples is a bit awkward. I’ve only sampled directly into it and that’s a straight forward process. Granular synthesis on this is my favorite feature by far.

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Yeah, it’s every digital synthesis type I would want in one synth! It really eliminates a lot of other synths and software for me.

In a way I’m happy it’s only duo timbral. It’ll make me focus on making each sound shine rather than just layering things which is something I’m more into these days. A couple of awesome sounds vs a bunch of okay ones. The endless possibilities means I won’t be looking elsewhere for something better for a long time. Win, win, win, for me anyway!

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Something else I’d like to point out to anyone reading this thread is:

You can mute modulation slots in the matrix.

Not only does this aid the user in diagnosing, if they should later hear something they’re not fond of, but it also affords them the ability to “reconnect patch points” as a performative feature. (Ie. Clip launching, but for modulation)

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I must admit I’m dreaming of owning one of these.

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