Microwave 1 Version 2

A Legend Returns

The legendary 'Microwave 1' and then some. The seamless recreation of the legendary Microwave 1 hardware synth. Now in v2.

35 years ago Waldorf released their 1st instrument, the Microwave... Its vibrate and distinctive sound transported the early wavetable sounds of the 80s into the rising electronic dance music of the following decade. Massive bass lines, enigmatic wavetable modulations, brutal attacks and pads smooth as silk have inspired generations of musicians. The Microwave defined hybrid synthesis at its best with its unique interpretation of wavetable synthesis combined with analogue filters. Now Waldorf bring this magical instrument back to your digital workstation: Microwave 1 Plug-in.

Massive bass lines, enigmatic wavetable modulations, brutal attacks and pads smooth as silk have inspired generations of musicians. The Microwave defined hybrid synthesis at its best with its unique interpretation of wavetable synthesis combined with analogue filters. The Waldorf Microwave 1 Plug-in was painstakingly recreated from the original hardware with all its distinctive features and singularities. This multi-year project was a labour of love. Waldorf analysed and modelled the original instruments down to the finest sonic details of every aspect of the hardware. Its unique sound was based on proprietary digital and analogue designs long before the following generations of DSP-based instruments were conceived.

Only the 1st 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 flavour 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 within the plug-in.

W‍hat's new in Version 2.0

• Additional voice cards (increasing original polyphony from 8 to 32 while keeping micro timing and variations)
• Multi modes like Round Robin and Random Robin
• Polyphonic Arpeggiator for each instrument part
• Global Arpeggiator including round robin modes
• Creative delay effect including diffusion and pitch shifting
• A completely redesigned preset browser with favourites and direct instrument part loading (also in v1.3.0)
• Multi-level Undo / Redo for parameter editing (also in v1.3.0)
• Simultaneous editing of multiple instrument parts (also in v1.3.0)
• New presets from renowned mixer, engineer and producer Chuck Zwicky (also in v1.3.0)

Features

• Rebuilt digital noise, with all its wonderful artifacts
• In addition to user wavetables, also user waveforms can be created
• All the original wavetables are available with their control structures and the full original waveform catalogue
• Modelled old-school digital-to-analogue converters of the original hardware with their non-linearities
• Additional randomization modes make wavetable editing fun and sonically surprising
• Quick layering of single sounds to create the most complex and exciting sonic structures
• Graphical representations of the wavetables, envelopes and filter response curves
• Sophisticated functions, such as tuning and velocity tables, have been implemented and can be modified within the UI
• Ultra high sampling rate of 250 kHz, regardless of the DAW sampling rate
• Recreated digital waveforms have been bit-by-bit compared with the original to be 100% identical
• Artificial detuning and recalibration of the analogue components included
• GUI reveals many aspects of the synthesis engine which were hidden in the original hardware
• The user can now easily edit existing wavetables and create new ones