Today something should come out:
This year, Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, 27 November, and we wanted to give back to our community with what we know best: synthesizers.
Something new is brewing at Waldorf… and for the first time, we’re excited to announce it in a special event. Join us for the very first Synthsgiving in Berlin!
Its the Waldorf Protein 
Kernels + wavetables as operators 
Outrageous sounds falling out of it, made about 40 presets in a few hours.
And with just a single oscillator!!!
Time for a quantum big brother to go alongside.
Any wavetable types particularly taking your fancy?
So far, I’ve stuck with ones that have a sine at some index cos it’s nice to modulate to and from the sine
Make an FM klang type ravey stab/bass sound - 1 modulating 2, and 3,4,5 being modulated by 6 - find ratios/sub ratios that sound good, then just go wild switching the sines of the operators out for Wavetables. Didn’t notice what they were more just randomly switching until something sounded good. Constantly muting and unmuting operators to tell which I’m affecting, shaping the operators to have a start and end to the tone - so could start as a harsh klang bass, when played short or morphs into a pad when played and held as the operators and modulators fade in and out at different speed. Nice having the little second rise after the attack via the delay parameter in the envelope. Save. Change a few parameters, waveforms = entirely new sound. Save. Rinse and repeat!
Complex digital is my absolute favourite at the moment and this is just coming up with goods endlessly. So many of the presets are quite bad IMO, definitely one that shines most when you get stuck in.
Nice getting some interesting DX7 patches imported and then swapping the sine waves out for operators too.
But here it sounds like maybe you are talking about using the wavetable oscillator in fact?
But I’m talking about using the kernels oscillator but using wavetables inside this as carrier/modulator waveforms. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem possible to modulate the position of the wavetable when using wavetables in kernels. But it would be really nice if possible as sounds wild when moving the position when a wavetable is being used as a modulator and/or carrier. (But I wonder if it’s possible to modulate via MIDI 
)
Such a deep design in this synth, amazing how they’ve made it so easy to work with considering.
It is possible @dave_angel; just look for any param in the list like V4Osc1Kernel6WtbPos
They can modulated externally by any free CC or internally by the matrix (check me on that 
)
So it means you can take a DX7 patch, switch a sine for a wt with a sine embedded in it an listen to it get more knarly as you deviate from sine.
Some transitions are more subtle than others.
Timbral heaven!
Neighbourhood GAS prevention officer here 
Explore kernels, it’s a far more powerful FM synth than DN. Different vibes as DN has strength with parameter locks and having the Elektron sequencer. But Iridium Kernels is more like FM8 in its power - rather than 8 algorithms in DN it has an FM matrix operator 1 taking modulation from 2 and 3, operator 5 taking from 1 and 2, operator 3 taking from 4 and 1 etc etc.
Plus can switch the modulation out for AM or Phase Mod, or FM It’s outrageous.
Wow. I’ll look forward to jumping into this. Thanks a lot for mentioning.
Yea I don’t think it’s there unfortunately can’t see it in the matrix
Man, I’m glad that you posted this. That’s what I was going to name my new band. That would have been embarrassing!
Not in the mod matrix unless you make one of the 5 Kernel Macros point to it.
But assignable directly via MIDI mappings
On the odd occasion I’ve done both for the same Kernel param; one CC doing the coarse mod and the CC pointing to the macro doing the fine (the little yellow band representing the macro “scope” moves with the CC map allowing for subtle variation within the mod matrix of wherever you leave the “coarse” wavetable position)
I’d really like Waldorf to offer High|Low columns in the Global → MIDI → Maps page so we could have the 128 values doing subtle changes directly, but hey.
Excellent, time to go deeper on this thing!
When you say ‘Not in the mod matrix unless you make one of the 5 Kernel Macros point to it.’
Could you explain please? Going to go back over the manual around this tomorrow as I definitely want to be able to modulate the travel parameter.
Such a good synth!
Macros (as I think they’re called) are Waldorf’s way of wrapping FM synthesis’ complexity in something a little less daunting.
Now in the Mod Mx, when you scroll down the destinations and get to the Osc1 stuff you see the WT attributes, then WF (waveform) etc …
…and lastly KN1 Top-L, KN1 Top-R and so on
i.e. the 5 knobs (at least on Desktop, dunno abt Core)
So this is the gateway to modulating Kernels via the Mod Mx
These Macros are unassigned by default, I think.
When you go into Edit for Kernels next to Algo is Control
This takes you into a mini Mod Matrix for each knob with access to a limited no. of attributes for each kernel. Wavetable Position is one of them.
A nice feature is that, if you name a knob/macro (say Wood, Creepiness, or Clangitude!), that name then appears to the main Mod Mx list instead of KN1 Top-L, etc
Agreed! It’s been a while since I posted that and now I don’t see the need for any other FM synth in my setup. The Iridium is SO deep…
Excellent!! Thanks so much, I had not even looked at that top level page of Kernels as to adjust the operators you have to go a level below, so have only been swimming in the sea beneath (Wave, Mod, Env etc).
Thanks for shedding some light on it.
yeah guessed that, and what a deep ocean it is!
btw, re
rather than 8 algorithms in DN, it has an FM matrix operator 1 taking modulation from 2 and 3, operator 5 taking from 1 and 2, operator 3 taking from 4 and 1
you’ve seen, in the Kernels Mod page, each operator has up to 3 Mod Sources, right?
Forget 8 or DX7’s 32, that leads to an insane no of unique algorithms!
Note to self: try ModType as WT Position on one of the operators instead of the usual Phase Mod
I hadn’t seen that! it’s almost overwhelming, in the best way, how much is possible.
It’s hard to imagine how a synth could be more capable at this stage, it really is a golden age of affordable music technology.
My only wishes are extra outputs, and analog envelopes - but the output point is solved by the quantum/another core so it’ll have to be done at some stage, as I really want to layer two patches but not have to sum them down a single stereo output.
Have you got into multi sampling other synths? I think I’ll do my Matrix 1000 and others at some point, but then starting to think of a SSD drive or something beforehand as it’ll stop me in my tracks if half way through I have to move it over to a drive as the internal storage is fills up.
Need to add some textures/samples for particles osc too, as rinsed all the existing ones on there already 
