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

The Lounge Other Gear
#487

You’re right it’s hard to predict. It only matters if you tend to buy, and then sell gear later. What you’d really be worried about are values dropping drastically. One little related past event is to look at the price stability of the Iridium’s sib, the Quantum. I think you can judge that as fairly stable. Another factor would be if Waldorf dropped the price — like what happened with the Digitone Keys. Also a factor would be a competitor, let’s imagine ASM bringing out a product, that does what the Iridium does better and for less. I think that is improbable. Except perhaps if Waldorf does this themselves — Rolf in that very forth-coming interview video up thread, signaled another product in the family. Who knows ? Another issue is where you are buying, for instance the new prices of Waldorf products are slightly elevated in the USA, relative European prices. All said i feel fairly reassured on the value holding, but i’m not rock solid on that.

Coming from a new product development and manufacturing career background, you always tinker with the manufacture to improve. My feeling only, but some of the observed shortcomings in build quality are not as bad as they are being projected. I like the observations Y-NE made in this regard. It won’t hurt you to get a box with a little larger serial number though.

And on the “shop” page on the Waldorf site, the Iridium is the only synth product that is listed as ‘No Stock”.

Add to those reasons, the opening burst of demand on a new product. I’ve been scratching my head on this myself. We will be waiting now with the delay in delivery, so we have the luxury of some more time to observe this before we must lock down an order.

I really respect the order you have brought to the playing and use of the Argon. I will look forward perhaps to a similar approach by you to the Iridium.

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#488

Thanks for the detailed reply! Appreciate the support too :slight_smile:

I watched the interview with Rolf, and really like that they are actively developing the OS for Quantum and Iridium. For me that adds to the longevity, as Waldorf is doing great work lately IMO.

One follow up question is if I can pass through stereo audio. I want to route my Pro 3 through the Iridium. If that works, I want to put a vesa mount arm above the Pro 3 and leverage the CV between them. It’s nice that they both have CV integration at the mod matrix.

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#489

I’ve been thinking similarly about the Hydrasynth with the Iridium.

#490

You can route audio through the Iridium

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#491

I’ve updated to 2.5.1 now. In the comments of the Amazona review Rolf from Waldorf wrote that 2.5.2 is not yet publicly available. You can drop him a PM if you want it already

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#492

I know, It was me who wrote the comment :slight_smile:

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#493

I just pre-ordered :slight_smile:

I could change my mind, but decided that it’s pretty ideal for my needs.
I want something that I can take with me to do some composing, that has deep sound design.
I was looking at OT, Machine+ or MPC, but decided Iridium has more value in a studio set up.
As I mentioned I also want to explore integrating it with the Pro 3.

Edit: Sweetwater called and told me that optimistically it will be 4-6 weeks.

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#494

It’s really beautiful what you get out of it.
Would you mind sharing how easy/hard do you find it to setup some patches?
Pretty interested in this synth, for the end of the year I guess…

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#495

Thanks so much for the kind words, friend. :heart: (I’ve been contemplating doing a patch from scratch video.)

Honestly, most of my entertainment comes from the idiosyncratic mod sources + scale source slot.

Ie. Spreading voices with random bipolar trig, and then scaling that by keytrack, so that lower voices fall closer to the center of your image and higher voices fall further away.

Then again. If you instead use a free envelope to scale the random bipolar values, and the keytrack to modulate the sustain amount of said envelope, you get movement + the skewed weight.

Then experimenting with sending those same values elsewhere in the patch to craft tasteful patch deviations across the stereo image is the kind of poly magic I’ve always loved from Zebra and Bazille, but with more engines. :slightly_smiling_face:

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#496

And how easy is it to operate?
I remember people being very happy of Quantum UI, making programming complex patches a breeze. But Iridium lacks the many knobs, so I was wondering if UI was still pleasant to operate.

And also, what do you think about the touch screen? Is it responsive enough or at times is it a bit low?

Edit: :man_facepalming:t4:

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#497

Back to this question, I’m wondering how it is to wiggle it as an instrument, as a performance in itself rather than as sound design patch development. I might ask this way: how is it to play with only minimal use of MIDI note input, or simple uses of its onboard sequencing as a player would do with a Buchla Easel. I’ve seen this, but that’s just one ambient example. Would you take it to other places in real time?

#498

Another question…

Does the Iridium have the factory patches from the Quantum?

#499

I don’t know, but they can’t be totally the same given that the filter is different between the two.

#500

One thing is not really clear about the 16 voices of the Iridium? Are the 16 voices mono and 8 voices in stereo?

I makes quite sense because with the Quantum with only digital filtering is 8 voice stereo.

#501

Based on what I read, and seen so far, it’s 16 voices stereo.
The oscillator kernels have panning, and that would only make sense if the voices are stereo.

Page 46 in the manual says this:

Stereo
When Count is set to any kernel value higher than 1.0, this parameter determines the stereo panning for every played oscillator kernel signal. In Center setting, all oscillators are played on both stereo channels. Higher settings move the signals within the stereo field.

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#502

It’s 16 voices in stereo.

Each operator in the Kernels engine can be panned independently; this effect is only heard if they are set to be carriers.

Each oscillator has its own pan value that can be modulated per voice.

Each filter has its own pan value that can be modulated per voice.

The Digiformer has a pan value that can be modulated per voice.

The Quantum’s analog filters sum each oscillator signal to mono. The digital filters are the only way to retain a stereo oscillator signal.

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#503

Awesome! Looking forward for an future update of the Quantum :slight_smile:

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#504

This looks very promising for CV integration (well except the very end of the video :slight_smile:) .

#505

Awesome stuff

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#506

Thanks gino! I talked to Rolf from Waldorf after this video. I missed to configure the CV voltage levels correctly. By default they are set to a value that doesn´t allow correct pitch but with the right values it tracks perfectly. I wanted to record another video with the CV inputs but I forgot about it and was busy with something else.

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