Microwave by Waldorf - out now! (iPad)

gusgranite

@auxmux said:

@gusgranite said:
I found this link to Sysex banks that can be imported into Microwave. The Soundsets banks are already in the app but the others look new. For some reason they are all duplicated so ignore the ones that end in _1. I used the Documents app to extract the .rar file.

https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/540340-waldorf-microwave-i-any-downloadable-sysex-presets-available.html

Excellent, thanks! Sounds so so good.

Hmm, I can only see the added presets in the standalone, not in the AUv3?

cam

Anyone knows how to load wave- / cyclesforms?
In the past (90/2000) there was an app, called audiodiver to write and import these files.

Philandering_Bastard

@gusgranite said:
I found this link to Sysex banks that can be imported into Microwave. The Soundsets banks are already in the app but the others look new. For some reason they are all duplicated so ignore the ones that end in _1. I used the Documents app to extract the .rar file.

Super! Thank you!

MAtrixplan

is this intro price

MadGav

@MAtrixplan said:
is this intro price

Yes, ends Nov 3rd. (Iirc 12.99 now 24.99 after)

Philandering_Bastard

@gusgranite said:

@auxmux said:

@gusgranite said:
I found this link to Sysex banks that can be imported into Microwave. The Soundsets banks are already in the app but the others look new. For some reason they are all duplicated so ignore the ones that end in _1. I used the Documents app to extract the .rar file.

Excellent, thanks! Sounds so so good.

Hmm, I can only see the added presets in the standalone, not in the AUv3?

World here.

Edit: works. Sheesh.

Nighur

How does this compare to other wavetable synths (SM1, ButterSynth…)?

cam

I like buttersynth. MW1 is for me more classic

AtticusL

Such a surprise to see this on the iPad! Yes!

Pavlova

Question is - is Waldorf also going to NOT support it after a while ? their other apps didn't receive updates in 8 years - and are known to be broken in one way or another - which makes buying their stuff a bad investment IMHO.

Slush

@Pavlova said:
Question is - is Waldorf also going to NOT support it after a while ? their other apps didn't receive updates in 8 years - and are known to be broken in one way or another - which makes buying their stuff a bad investment IMHO.

€15 euros..

PapaBPoppin

I'm seeing a lot of praise for this synth and excitement for its arrival

I don't need this and don't know anything about it

Please quell my fomo

1. I'm doing Lofi, jazz, and late 90s boombap. Would this benefit me for those genres?

As in

A. Now, with presets that fit well with those genres

B. 6 months down the line with some learning, tweaking, experimenting, be a useful addition to my sound library?

I can get it now, but I've dropped a LOT of the appaholic tendencies, since I'm focused on deeply learning and practicing everything (and I feel I'm set as of now)

2. I have minimal synth knowledge. I'm still learning what I like. Less on saws, mellow tone, smooth keys - retro piano, electric vintage and stringlab have been my favorite grabs so far

But I do want to learn too -- so if this is recommended for any of my genre preferences, would you recommend this to grab on sale because of what it IS able to do?

gusgranite

@Philandering_Bastard said:

@gusgranite said:

@auxmux said:

@gusgranite said:
I found this link to Sysex banks that can be imported into Microwave. The Soundsets banks are already in the app but the others look new. For some reason they are all duplicated so ignore the ones that end in _1. I used the Documents app to extract the .rar file.

Excellent, thanks! Sounds so so good.

Hmm, I can only see the added presets in the standalone, not in the AUv3?

World here.

Edit: works. Sheesh.

Ok working here too. I had to open the PRESETS folder in files to get them to show for some reason. All good.

klownshed

@Pavlova said:
Question is - is Waldorf also going to NOT support it after a while ? their other apps didn't receive updates in 8 years - and are known to be broken in one way or another - which makes buying their stuff a bad investment IMHO.

I'm going to get £13 worth of value out of it in no time. I don't buy any software as an investment TBH.

It's all transitory. Worrying about whether I'll still have it in 8 years will mean I don't get to play with it today. I can make a ton of music with it before it dies.

I spent £13 at the supermarket earlier. Nothing I bought will last until tomorrow.

michael_m

@128BPM said:
Ok - chat gtp just pointed to some legendary all time favourites:

Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"

Underworld - "Born Slippy .NUXX"

Leftfield - "Song of Life"

Future Sound of London - "Papua New Guinea"

BT - "Flaming June"

808 State - "Pacific State"

The Orb - "Little Fluffy Clouds"

Air - "La Femme d'Argent"

Massive Attack - "Teardrop"

Impressive

I wasn’t thinking of buying it, but this is a list of great pieces of music, so changed my mind.

Gavinski

@PapaBPoppin said:
I'm seeing a lot of praise for this synth and excitement for its arrival

I don't need this and don't know anything about it

Please quell my fomo

1. I'm doing Lofi, jazz, and late 90s boombap. Would this benefit me for those genres?

As in

A. Now, with presets that fit well with those genres

B. 6 months down the line with some learning, tweaking, experimenting, be a useful addition to my sound library?

I can get it now, but I've dropped a LOT of the appaholic tendencies, since I'm focused on deeply learning and practicing everything (and I feel I'm set as of now)

2. I have minimal synth knowledge. I'm still learning what I like. Less on saws, mellow tone, smooth keys - retro piano, electric vintage and stringlab have been my favorite grabs so far

But I do want to learn too -- so if this is recommended for any of my genre preferences, would you recommend this to grab on sale because of what it IS able to do?

Given your preferences, as cool as this is, no you don't need it.

squeals

@klownshed said:
I'm going to get £13 worth of value out of it in no time. I don't buy any software as an investment TBH.

It's all transitory. Worrying about whether I'll still have it in 8 years will mean I don't get to play with it today. I can make a ton of music with it before it dies.

I spent £13 at the supermarket earlier. Nothing I bought will last until tomorrow.

Normally this is my thinking. If an app has meant that much to me then I have not updated old iPads so I can still use it. (My wife updated the only laptop that ran champ manager 01/02, we’re in therapy and working through it, it’s not easy to regain trust when someone disregards how hard it was to sign Cherno Samba to Southend, but we’ll get there 🤣)

In this case it’s more like worrying you’ll still have it after 8 months than 8 years in my experience. Attack was pretty much useless to me from the start. When did it come out? June 2015? last update November 2015.
So for me it’s a pass or at least a pass until I have some confidence in it. at this point in time £13 can buy or go towards something I have more confidence in.

RonnieOmelettes

For the price of a couple of ready meals…

Slush

@RonnieOmelettes said:
For the price of a couple of ready meals…

It’s the cheapest Microwave for your tv dinner.

qqq

@squeals said:
In this case it’s more like worrying you’ll still have it after 8 months than 8 years in my experience. Attack was pretty much useless to me from the start. When did it come out? June 2015? last update November 2015.

I think what happened to a lot of apps at this time is that AUv3 came out. These companies realized that updating stand-alone apps was going to be unprofitable, and porting them to AUv3 was not feasible. The standard was new and murky and larger companies backed away to see how thing shook out.

All this to say that I think the iOS music space is a lot more stable now and larger companies are more willing to maintain things. But I totally respect not letting Waldorf "fool you twice".

I'm also hoping this means we'll eventually get a Nave 2 and Attack 2 with AUv3 support. Maybe we'll get even luckier and they'll be like Korg and not make us buy it again :P

squeals

@qqq yeah that makes sense. Understandable, but like @RonnieOmelettes reminded me I have expensive microwave meals to buy for work from m&s and the m&s in my work is more expensive cos we’re a captive market, no deals.

128BPM

@128BPM said:
Ok - chat gtp just pointed to some legendary all time favourites:

Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"

Underworld - "Born Slippy .NUXX"

Leftfield - "Song of Life"

Future Sound of London - "Papua New Guinea"

BT - "Flaming June"

808 State - "Pacific State"

The Orb - "Little Fluffy Clouds"

Air - "La Femme d'Argent"

Massive Attack - "Teardrop"

Impressive

I wasn’t thinking of buying it, but this is a list of great pieces of music, so changed my mind.

Yes , great list.
Unfortunately I was advised that the list could be false…ChatGPT just guesses. Sorry 😒

klownshed

@squeals said:

@klownshed said:
I'm going to get £13 worth of value out of it in no time. I don't buy any software as an investment TBH.

It's all transitory. Worrying about whether I'll still have it in 8 years will mean I don't get to play with it today. I can make a ton of music with it before it dies.

I spent £13 at the supermarket earlier. Nothing I bought will last until tomorrow.

Normally this is my thinking. If an app has meant that much to me then I have not updated old iPads so I can still use it. (My wife updated the only laptop that ran champ manager 01/02, we’re in therapy and working through it, it’s not easy to regain trust when someone disregards how hard it was to sign Cherno Samba to Southend, but we’ll get there 🤣)

In this case it’s more like worrying you’ll still have it after 8 months than 8 years in my experience. Attack was pretty much useless to me from the start. When did it come out? June 2015? last update November 2015.
So for me it’s a pass or at least a pass until I have some confidence in it. at this point in time £13 can buy or go towards something I have more confidence in.

It’s £13. Two pints. Less than a dominos pizza and it won’t give you indigestion.

If you don’t want to buy it that’s fine, your choice. But I’m not going to worry about how long it will last. I will be recording it into my Mac anyway for making music so all the tracks I use it in will just be audio.

I’d rather be happy with it whilst it lasts. If it stops working I’ll use something else. I have a ton of synths. Many of which still work after years and get zero use.

I wanted the real thing back in the 90s. Being able to play with it for £13? Yes please.

pricklyrobot

I always hoped they would break out and expand the text-to-speech synth part of Nave as its own app. Seems kinda niche and unlikely, but as long as we’re dreaming…;)

tyslothrop1

@pricklyrobot said:
I always hoped they would break out and expand the text-to-speech synth part of Nave as its own app. Seems kinda niche and unlikely, but as long as we’re dreaming…;)

If you have a desktop computer you can do something similar with vital, which is free for the lowest tier.

pricklyrobot

@tyslothrop1 said:

@pricklyrobot said:
I always hoped they would break out and expand the text-to-speech synth part of Nave as its own app. Seems kinda niche and unlikely, but as long as we’re dreaming…;)

If you have a desktop computer you can do something similar with vital, which is free for the lowest tier.

I have Plogue (doesn’t seem like they’re going to jump into the iOS game, sadly) Chipspeech on my laptop. Just wish there were better speech-synth options in iPad land.

The vocoder part of iDS-10 as an AUv3 could be another cool one, also seems unlikely though.

NeuM

@klownshed said:

@Pavlova said:
Question is - is Waldorf also going to NOT support it after a while ? their other apps didn't receive updates in 8 years - and are known to be broken in one way or another - which makes buying their stuff a bad investment IMHO.

I'm going to get £13 worth of value out of it in no time. I don't buy any software as an investment TBH.

It's all transitory. Worrying about whether I'll still have it in 8 years will mean I don't get to play with it today. I can make a ton of music with it before it dies.

I spent £13 at the supermarket earlier. Nothing I bought will last until tomorrow.

That’s the right way to look at this. Is it worth the money right now? Then get it. Besides, even though it’s a bit wonky for my current workflow, the sounds I’m getting out of this synth are pretty darn good.

Crabman

@aaa said:
@128BPM LLMs like ChatGPT might be useful for reasoning-related tasks, but they tend to be very hit-or-miss when prompted about facts. I haven't found any evidence that the Microwave was used on Enjoy The Silence. A couple of the top results on google indicate that it was actually performed with a Moog Model D, ARP 2600, and E-MU Emulator II. Haven't checked the other tracks you mentioned, but I wouldn't take anything ChatGPT says at face value. Always cross-reference with other sources if you're in doubt.

As for Future Sound Of London, the records on Equipboard don't show any evidence that they used a MicroWave. The list there is incomplete, but it's a good starting point - it neither confirms no denies that they used it. In any case, ChatGPT just makes guesses, it doesn't check for facticity, so I wouldn't trust it as a source for truth.

Snap! once said in an interview early/mid 90ies „it‘s the fattest bass you can buy for money“

https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/7698-Snap!

I really don‘t need/want new synths at this point but i gotta buy it to pay tribute to ios legend rolf woehrmann. Awesome to see him on this platform again 🙏

edit: about the concerns some people have with waldorfs update cycle or longevity. Rolf woehrmann did develop Nave (which never got AU update but still runs good at least on my end) but he had nothing to do with Attack.

And he ported iSEM for Arturia, which was the first synth who got AUV3 treatment later. He did also ispark and i remember that he was unhappy that he could not support it any further. Arturia did just cut it at some point. The rest of Arturia was ported by retronyms and is far behind iSEM.

If Rolf ported microwave now (easy to assume when he did the desktop version) than i would expect support for some time.

Crabman

PapaBPoppin

@Gavinski said:

@PapaBPoppin said:
I'm seeing a lot of praise for this synth and excitement for its arrival

I don't need this and don't know anything about it

Please quell my fomo

1. I'm doing Lofi, jazz, and late 90s boombap. Would this benefit me for those genres?

As in

A. Now, with presets that fit well with those genres

B. 6 months down the line with some learning, tweaking, experimenting, be a useful addition to my sound library?

I can get it now, but I've dropped a LOT of the appaholic tendencies, since I'm focused on deeply learning and practicing everything (and I feel I'm set as of now)

2. I have minimal synth knowledge. I'm still learning what I like. Less on saws, mellow tone, smooth keys - retro piano, electric vintage and stringlab have been my favorite grabs so far

But I do want to learn too -- so if this is recommended for any of my genre preferences, would you recommend this to grab on sale because of what it IS able to do?

Given your preferences, as cool as this is, no you don't need it.

Excellent thank you so much!