Waldorf – Microwave (Windows)

Microwave technology has proven itself at its best with its unique interpretation of wave synthesis combined with analog filters. Now Waldorf Music is bringing this magical instrument back to digital workstations around the world with the Microwave 1 plug-in.

35 years ago, Waldorf Music released its first instrument, the Microwave, which captured the hearts of leading musicians and producers of the nineties. Its vibrant and distinctive sound carried the early wavetable sounds of the eighties into the burgeoning electronic dance music of the following decade. Massive baselines, mysterious wave modulations, brutal attacks, and silky-smooth pads inspired generations of musicians. Microwave’s unique interpretation of wavetable synthesis combined with analog filters defined hybrid synthesis at its best.

Now is the time to bring this magical tool back in software form to the digital workstations of producers and musicians around the world. The Waldorf Microwave 1 plug-in has been painstakingly recreated from the original hardware with all its features and great features.

Digital Section (ASIC)

• Internally runs at 250 kHz sampling rate to match the original ASIC sampling rate.
• Modeling of digital-to-analog converters (DAC) for each voice.
• Two oscillators based on a single wavetable for each multi-instrument.
• Unique digital noise generator based on ASIC technology.
• Digital mixer of oscillators and noise based on the original ASIC, including overflow error.
• Accurate recreation of non-interpolated pitch generation.

Wavetables

• All original wavetables from Microwave 1, are based on the original coding and identical to the original.
• Including algorithmic and speech tables.
• Accurate recreation of 8-bit quantization and aliasing.
• Easy-to-use wavetable editor based on internal control tables.
• Access to the complete waveform catalog of the original instrument.
• Custom waveform editor.

Filter

• Accurate modeling of the A and B revision analog filters.
• Voice-activated individual calibration of cutoff and resonance for modeling of hardware flutter.
• Modulation of cutoff and resonance.
• Frequency response graph animated with live modulations.

Amplifier

• Modeling of analog amplifiers with voltage control and panning section.
• Accurate recreation of DACs with voltage control, including step effects.

Modulators

• Recreation of the unique envelope and LFO timings based on the original 68k code.
• Modeling beautiful micro-variations in timings due to limitations of the original hardware.
• Filter envelope with ADSR and additional delay parameter.
• Volume envelope with ADSR.
• All timings and levels of the filter envelope and volume envelope can be modulated.
• Unique 8-stage wave envelope with variable key off point and looping.
• Wave envelope levels and timings can be modulated.
• Attack-Decay envelope for LFO1 with additional delay.
• 2 LFOs with different waveforms, symmetry, and humanization parameters.
• LFOs can be phase-shifted relative to each other.
• LFO1 with the global option, tempo, and level modulation.

Non-standard tuning

• 4 user settings can be edited individually.
• They will be saved in user presets.

Multi-mode

• Up to 8 instruments that can be layered and split, or any combination of both.
• Split by key zones and velocity range.
• Multi-instrument mixer with volume, pan, detune, transpose, and many other parameters.
• Each instrument can be individually customized.
• Huge catalog of original multi-sounds.

Polyphony

• 8-voice polyphony, as in the original equipment.
• Dynamic assignment of voices to multi-instruments.

Presets

• All factory single and multi presets are included.
• 5 additional original sound sets.
• 2 new sound sets from modern sound designers.
• It is possible to import original .mid and .syx files with preset dumps, including user tables and wavetables.
• User presets store all additional data, such as user wavetables and tuning and velocity tables.

Equipment management

• The plugin can be used to control the original hardware in single mode via MIDI interface,
• Optionally, it can be controlled in live mode, where each control element is transmitted automatically.

Additional features

• Customizable spectrum analyzer.
• Customizable graphical user interface.