Waldorf Music brings the software version of its Microwave 1 classic hybrid synthesizer to Apple’s iPads. Following the success of the macOS and Windows plug-in versions Waldorf has ported the software to iPadOS allowing the play the wonderful instrument from the touch screen as well using it within AUv3 hosts like Apple’s Logic for iPad, Steinberg’s Cubasis 3 or AUM. External MIDI controllers can be connected via USB.
| 35 years ago Waldorf Music released its first instrument, the Microwave, which took the hearts of the leading musicians and producers of the nineties by storm. Its vibrate and distinctive sound transported the early wavetable sounds of the eighties into the rising electronic dance music of the following decade. Massive base lines, enigmatic wavetable modulations, brutal attacks and pads smooth like silk have been inspired generations of musicians. Microwave’s unique interpretation of wavetable synthesis combined with analogue filters defined what hybrid synthesis is at its best.
The Waldorf Microwave 1 software version was painstakingly recreated from the original hardware with all its idiosyncrasies and wonderful singularities.
A multi-year effort and a labor of love which analyzed and modeled the original instruments down to the finest sonic details of every aspect of the hardware. Only the first generation of the Microwave and also the Waldorf Wave were based on a custom developed integrated circuit called the Waldorf ASIC. In combination with the legendary Curtis filter chips and a very unique 68k CPU based controller software the ASIC defined a very special flavor of wavetable sound unparalleled to none. No one else than the inventor of Wavetable Synthesis of the eighties, Wolfgang Palm, helped to design this unique chip. Waldorf took a huge effort to analyze and recreate this integrated circuit. As the original, the apps runs the internal synthesis with the ultra high sampling rate of 250 kHz regardless of the device sampling rate. The recreated digital waveforms have been bit-by-bit compared with the original to be 100% identical.
Even the old-school digital-to-analogue converters of the original hardware were modeled with their non-linearities and tone shaping color which were leading into the two Curtis filter chips variants used for the revisions A and B of the original hardware. The software allows further for artificially detuning and recalibrating of the analogue components.
Brutal attacks, snappy decays and a plethora of wonderful transients define the sound of the first generation Microwave. But the Microwave 1 app goes one step further: Its modern and inviting graphical user-interface reveals many aspects of the synthesis engine which were hidden before in the original hardware by its sparse hard to use interface. Its livelihood never sounding mechanical but always different was based on a very unique architecture to create the envelopes, LFOs and modulations which was painstakingly recreated down to the finest grains.
A modern interface with readable high-contrast fonts supports an intuitive sound editing process with many graphical representations of the wavetables, envelopes and filter response curves using animations for modulations and playing positions. |
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| Microwave 1 for iPad is now available in Apple’s App Store at an introductory price of 14.99 EUR (including German tax) / 12.99 USD until 3rd November — rising thereafter to 29.99 EUR (including German tax) / 24.99 USD. Available here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microwave-1/id6736358373 |
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