Name: WALDORF Pulse, an amazing analog Synthesizer by tolberg in Synth demo 🎹🎲
Duration: 30 s
Description: test recording

Gear demos listenable in their own right as mini tone poems.

Synth demo 🎹🎲

generic analogue mono synth twiddling with u-he Diva (somehow originally mislabelled as a Waldorf Pulse2 demo - woops!)

Waldorf Pulse 2 - extra bits

NEWS UPDATE: The second batch of 25 pre-production units are nearing completion and am now taking pre-orders for delivery in June. A new Patch Editor/Librarian App & VST/AU plugin with full automation has also been developed complete with a new library of over 250 sound patches for Win/Mac/Linux and will be free to all Elfin-04 and 01 owners.

Introducing Elfin-04, Hideaway Studio's Compact New 4-Voice Polysynth Expander...
 
I have been working round the clock for weeks now on my dinky little 8-bit 4-Voice (4 x [2osc+1sub+LFO]) VA Poly Expander with 1960's style transformer-mixed output voicing and finally No's.000 thru 010 are born to the world and receiving very positive feedback from their new owners....... this 4-voice polysynth measuring just 16x12x3cm has full real-time control over her 32 parameters via simple midi ccs and 16 built-in patches. 

Based on an expanded form of a customized software synth-core design by ISGK in Japan, I think the Elfin-04's unique voice ouput/mixing transformers do add something for sure - they are driven full-swing with 60KHz PWM resulting in a lot of additional harmonics/mirror frequencies and some saturation that all gets trapped within the transformers which adds a richness/darkness to the sound (no-doubt inspired in part by my beloved DK Synergy). In the Elfin-04, the 4 voices are passively mixed but, unusually, by the topology of the output-transformers themselves which is a trick that used to be found in some more exotic 1960s valve test equipment where multiple signal outputs were mixed on isolated outputs (eg. my huge old Panoramic TTG-2 tube Dual Sinewave Generator). Also, each voice CPU is independently clocked so everything is genuinely free-wheeling across the voices so even the noise phases slowly when played on multiple notes and unison which is pretty cool.

Any questions, please PM me here on S/C or to EF86 on GearSpace.

All Sound Design & Recordings Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Hideaway's New Elfin-04 Polysynth: Detuned Unison Mode Montage 01

Elfin-08 No. 000 (basically two stock Hideaway Elfin-04 Poly Expanders bolted together running modified firmware with a stereo output) fires up for the first time on all 10 of its 8-bit processors and 8 output transformers!....

The allocation of the 8 voices has been distributed between the left and right audio outputs with even voices on one channel and odd voices on the other giving a rather pleasing stereo effect. The Detuned Unison Mode on the 8-voice is just massive!

All of the sounds in the test recording are factory Elfin-04 patches loaded up from the new Elfin Controller VST/AU/Standalone (win/mac/linux) patch editor which currently has around 260 patches built in.
 
NB: I am building these 8-Voice proof of concept variants in very limited numbers for those who can't wait for the official Elfin-08 otherwise the current Elfin-04 offers the very same sound but with less polyphony.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025

Hideaway Elfin-08: 8-Voice Functional Prototype Awakens...

A segue of recordings played back at normal, twice and half speed of the sound of laser light being modulated by plumes of dust kicked up by dropping nuts and bolts into dry icing sugar in a large glass jar. The optical mic was positioned on the far side of the jar and sometimes you can just make out the glass walls pinging as the bolts land on the bottom of the jar.

The slowly building up vortex was made by swirling the icing sugar and then playing back the resulting return to still  air in reverse.

Rather like the oil in water and electrolysis experiments, since it all takes time to disperse, you get a kind of natural decay tail effect.

Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Sound of Light Through Icing Sugar Dust: Nut Drop Field Segue...

A multi-track recording made whilst testing out  a supremely rare 1985 Mulogix Slave 32 previously revived at Hideaway Studio. The Slave 32 was the rare rackmount version of the Synergy II+ by Digital Keyboards and was the last incarnation of the 1979 Crumar G.D.S. which utilised the identical High Speed Digital OSC pcb assembly. All of the variants featured pure digital synthesis in 16-bit digital audio which was pretty impressive for mid 1970s technology!

Original Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

1985 Mulogix Slave 32: The Perfect Storm...

I originally wrote Red Autumn Leaves whilst testing a rare 1984 UMI-2B MIDI interface and sequencer running on an Acorn BBC Micro Model B computer after returning it to life a few years back.

Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

Red Autumn Leaves...

Originally built in 1938, Novachord 346 has proven to be a very special source of raw material for my sample libraries over the years. I recently decided to return to what was the first commercial sample library at the time to capture the beauty of this remarkable instrument and revisit some of the sounds I made shortly after I returned Novacvhord 346 to life back in 2009. This would not have been possible without the help, encouragement and skill of my late friend Stephen Howell known to most as Hollow Sun who I miss dearly...

Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio 2025.

1938 Novachord 346: The NC Affair (Sampled/Layered Novachord)

To my great relief the now 87 year old 1/4 ton, 163 valve beast came out of a five year long slumber not only without burning the house down but managing to survive a two hour long recording session without even breaking into a sweat.. the 7 rail noise-cancelling high-voltage power supply was barely warm by the end of it - just staggering really if you think about it!

Despite a ton of divider calibration issues and some dodgy tuning I managed to make it through the live recording in one take captured directly from the preamp output into just basic reverb with no delay or modulation effects added and no EQ applied.  A handful of edits and dubs were made mainly to smooth out the flow of things a little.

Composition & Recording Copyright D.A.Wilson, Hideaway Studio.

1938 Novachord 346: Beauty of the Beast.... (Live Test Recording)

A Small multitrack demo of the Waldorf Pulse 2
(not a real song/track)
Recorded in Ableton LIVE 9.7.1 with a MOTU Ultralite AVB @96khz
No EQ, no compression, no effects, pure Waldorf Pulse...
(Drums/Percussions/Basses and a pad playing a chord to show the paraphonic side of the pulse )
Nothing Special :-)

Waldorf Pulse 2 Demo

Track by Mátyás Lendvai
"I made a short ambient theme with waldorf pulse. i used a little reverb and eq. not a summer theme but positive sounding.
have a nice daay!"

Waldorf Pulse in Dub

Waldorf Pulse-1 Selfmodulation

WALDORF Pulse, an amazing analog Synthesizer

BE CAREFUL!!! EXTREME BASS VOLUME!!!
Frankfurt Messe 2013: Waldorf Pulse 2 nearly finished prototype. Recorded in 48k, 24Bits from the output.
There are still some Bugs that need to be fixed, like the volume drop when rasing the Resonance. This will and others will corrected in the final product 

This is one of the loudest and most powerful analog sound I heard in a long time.
The demo was recorded with the volume half way up.


WALDORF Pulse, an amazing analog Synthesizer

tolberg

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