Thnx, wasnt aware of these at all
When Iâll become interested in the product of a company the official forum is the first place Iâll go. Nothing beats user reports (even if they are for different products) and how a company handles postings/requests is also really eye-opening.
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Yep solid leap of faith spending that much coin on release date.
Did the same with the Blofeld when first released and was a bad move.
Was useless as midi clock and timing was horrendous when driven externally.
Got sick of waiting for an update so got rid of it.
It was cheap so didnât care really.
At NAMM 17 the Quantum was already pretty far in the development. it look like the interface wasnât complete. They had more than a year to fix bugs, work on the GUI and test a the Quantum. Iâm sure it will be âstableâ. Itâs Waldorf new flagship, they wonât get rich from selling vocoders 
Largo, Nave and lector work without any bugs.
Even my Blofeld works perfectly.
âŠok, i admit iâm a Waldorf fanboyâŠ
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Rolf Wöhrmann is in charge of software on the Q. He joined Waldorf after Blofeld, and did all the iPad stuff and the Eurorack stuff too. Excellent idea tnussb to consider the history of a company when buying stuff.
Who did Blofeld Software?
Stefan Stenzel and Wolfram Franke
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Lasts a Lifetime
A concern of mine, with such high value possession is maintenance. (No doubt itâs my electronic development background.)
In particular i think of acquiring repair parts five plus years from now. Two things in particular give me pause:
- The color display â which are notorious for the potential of a small production run part.
- The touch screen â and this has me especially concerned.
This is something to consider but no over-riding reason to not buy this synth.
More brutal detail
First the touch screen is a mechanical part â which definitely decreases itâs functional life.
Second, touch screens can potentially crack or scratch, or just plain fail.
Third itâs a lower production part likely even than the display, which makes availability more restricted.
Fourth, given the Qâs design with the control knobs just outside the touchscreen, itâs possible this is a custom manufacture for Waldorf. This is not that uncommon for touch screens.
And fifth, absent source code, substituting a different part is likely a very large challenge. Waldorf could potentially do this as an option to service.
I am less concerned being able to find parts for just about everything else, even long-term. Encoders could be a challenge after many years but like not insurmountable. The keyboard should be easy â itâs a conventional part. The wheels and buttons would be doable challenges. (You could 3D print something for instance.) Connectors will all be a piece of cake. And internal components should in general be easy â with one exception.
The processors (and i presume itâs plural), or specialty parts like FPGAs (i bet there are few), and memory. Again production runs for these can potentially be relatively small though likely not. But on the other hand the chances of failure are very low, so these should be safe.
Waldorf will need to stockpile parts once they are no longer stocked elsewhere, based on expected failure rates, and the number of systems needing support. That puts a level of trust, and this is the sort of thing that a manufacturer running close to the line might skimp on. What if Waldorf goes out of business, they almost did before, or switches to a software only company? Hopefully source code is made available in this case.
I am seriously considering asking Waldorf for the opportunity to buy spare part(s) â particularly for the touch screen. Having spare parts should also help support price on the resale. With the color display i want to at least have a part number to watch availability.
Also (an aside): Special thought needs to be given the SD card. You need to be sure you keep a few around and to never throw away the last computer you have that reads and writes SD cards, and can work with the data.
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There were a lot of issues with the Blofeld reported on the old waldorf mailing list (now gone) as well. That was before the current version of the waldorf site that has a forum.
When I bought mine, I assumed there would essentially be no support and made sure I was still comfortable with the bugs at the time. The keyboard version historically had more bugs than the module. I have the module.
So there is hope 
About âLasts a Lifetimeâ:
Yes, touch screens are really critical here. Every touch screen I have every used on a regular daily base started to make problems after some years (the only exception here are absolute mass products like IPads/IPhones with multi-year manufacturer experience and exposure to millions of users).
Especially in heavy used screen areas like fixed button positions. If there are no other means to navigate the GUI like additional buttons and encoders an otherwise perfectly working device becomes completely useless when the touch functionality ceases.
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My Korg M3 touchscreen died after a few years a while back. Virtually gave it away after that.
Apart from a touch screen malfunctioning, my biggest problem with touchscreens on synths is the responsiveness, resolution and general user experience.
We are all so accustomed to the fluidity and incredidible response and resolution of our iPhones / iPads touch screens that anything else feels like nothing but a compromise these days.
Donât know the quality of the Quantum touch screen but I would hope they have bolted the latest iPad screen in that thing
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General user experience is another important point. I mean for me hardware synths are mainly about hardware controls. If you know your machine(s) you can and will navigate the controls blindly (even if some menu diving is involved).
Good luck doing this with a touchscreen without any tactile feedback âŠ
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Service and Warranty
Well expressed tnussb! Same thing was in my head too, the touch screen is a single point of failure â it goes down and the Q is kaput. There are no work arounds â short of a backup Q someplace.
Which brings up the question of service and warranties. For me living in the US i assume Korg USA is the company that does the service, This actually is a little bit of an assurance to me. Korg is a larger company and is probably more experienced and capable of service. On the other hand what happens if (and more likely when) the agreement between Korg and Waldorf goes defunct? Then its back to Waldorf Germany â or more likely for me either finding an independent service tech here in the US or servicing it myself. (Which i probably could do â especially with a little help and a service manual and a good source of parts.)
Hence my desire to stockpile the touch screen replacement parts and a service manual.
The when here also applies to the need for servicing. If you keep and use a synth long enough, regardless of maker, you can be almost certain of some sort of failure sometime. That might be thirty years down the line but eventually everything electronic will require some sort of service. I donât mean to scare anyone, just dealing with reality here.
Warranty â I read a couple of things online from and about Waldorf warranty service that are not at all reassuring. Fortunately German warranty law would not apply in the US.
So i looked at a couple of online dealers.
Kraft Music â They offer the Waldorf warranty of one year on the Q.
Sweetwater (a large online retailer here in the US) â They have a 24 month warranty on the Q. Plus they are also have a factory-certified Service Department. (I assume Waldorf is specifically included in this â but will ask in email specifically before order.) That would be very helpful and is actually somewhat reassuring for service past the end of warranty.
I definitely will shop for warranty in purchase and will consider an extended warranty though i normally would never.
Why you need to keep the original box for Waldorf warranty!
From a Waldorf warrantyâs instructions for returning a product for service:
The unit must be insured and sent prepared in its original package. Please include a detailed description of the defect. Products that were not send [sic] prepared or in the original package will be returned unopened.
Mod-erate Annoyance
Why are there two buttons within two inches of the touch screen both labeled âModâ?
OK â one is âModâ and the other is âMODâ.
I get why separate dials are labeled âAmountâ or âSpeedâ â they have similar functions but are in different sections. That makes sense. Two âModâ buttons for the touch screen is just confusing.
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My biggest concern is overall health of Waldorf ----will the company have the resources to support the machine 5 years from now? What happened to just about cause the company to fail?
DSI and Electron are perfect examples of small manufactures thriving -------how do you place Waldof? i donât know the company but badly want the Q
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Contacted Korg USA â and they do indeed provide warranty service on Waldorf products in the USA. I presume they would provide service beyond warranty too.
The Quantum is a huge risk imo.
Hopefully they havenât priced themselves out of the market.
This thing is $6000 in Oz
Waldorf is a big company, but just how big to suffer loss of sales on a monumental project like this 
Time will tell just how many they sell
Yep. Thatâs a price region like back in the 70s when synths (i.e. synclavier) were unaffordable to common men.
The OS from the flagship Waldorf Wave was never finished, but thats some time ago. However the Quantum has my attention.
Depeche Mode!
Good that youâd bring the Waldorf Wave synth up â there is a comparison there, this probably influenced the design of the Quantum. I had forgotten. Check out this video, the sounds blow me away.
So $9000 (USD) in 1994 is a little over $15,000 in todayâs dollar.
Can the Quantum do anything like this?
I canât help but think Waldorf should have scrapped the analog side of the Quantum, in turn greatly reducing the price and making it much more accessible to the public.
Considering the analog filter isnât even a multimode I question their thinking even more
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Long-term (25 years later) on the Waldorf Wave
Thanks NoiseLab for sending me off on another heading.
When Waldorf went insolvent in 2003 - 2004 they released publicly both the service manual (with schematics) and the source code for the Wave. Users have since continued to improve the OS, porting the compiler to modern computers, and replacing the floppy with a USB memory stick that you can boot from, etc.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results ⊠but thatâs an indication to me that i wonât be left in a Quantum without a paddle.
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