The Microwave defined hybrid synthesis at its best with its unique interpretation of wavetable synthesis combined with analogue filters. Now Waldorf Music brings this magical instrument back to digital workstations worldwide with the release of the Microwave 1 Plug-in.

A faithful recreation of Waldorf’s first generation Microwave Synthesizer based on the famous Waldorf ASIC chip (Application Specific Integrated Circuit)

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.

Now’s the time to bring back this magical instrument in a software form to the digital workstations of producers and musicians world-wide. The Waldorf Microwave 1 Plugin 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 within the plug-in. As the original, the plug-in runs the internal synthesis with the ultra high sampling rate of 250 kHz regardless of the DAW sampling rate. The recreated digital waveforms have been bit-by-bit compared with the original to be 100% identical.

COMPLETE FEATURE OVERVIEW

Digital Section (ASIC)

• Internally running with 250 kHz sampling rate to match original ASIC sampling rate.
• Modeling of digital-to-analog converters for each voice (DAC).
• Two oscillators based on same wavetable per multi instrument.
• Unique digital noise generator based on ASIC technology.
• Digital mixer of oscillators and noise based on original ASIC including overflow bug.
• Faithful recreation of non-interpolated pitch generation.

Wavetables

• All original wavetables of Microwave 1 based on the original coding and bit-identical to original.
• Including algorithmic and speech wavetables.
• Faithful recreation of 8-bit quantization and aliasing.
• Easy to use wavetable editor based on internal control tables.
• Full waveform catalogue of original instrument can be accessed.
• User waveform editor.

Filter

• Faithful modeling of revision A and B analogue filters.
• Voice individual calibration of cutoff and resonance to model detuned hardware.
• Cutoff and resonance modulations.
• Frequency response graphic animated by live modulations

Amplifier

• Modeling of voltage controlled analogue amplifiers and panning section.
• Faithful recreation of control voltage DACs including stepping effects.

Modulators

• Recreation of unique envelope and LFO timings based of original 68k code.
• Modeling of 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 filter and volume envelope timings and levels 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 various waveforms, symmetry and humanize parameters.
• LFOs can be phase shifted to each other.
• LFO1 with global option, rate & level modulation.

Non-Standard Tunings

• 4 user tunings can be individually edited.
• Will be stored into user presets.

Multi-Mode

• Up to 8 instruments which can be layered and split or any combination of both.
• Split by key zone and velocity range.
• Multi instrument mixer with volume, panning, detuning, transpose and many more parameters.
• Individual tuning per instrument possible,
• Huge catalogue of all original multi sounds.

Polyphony

• 8 voice polyphony like the original hardware.
• Dynamic assignment of the voices to the multi instruments.

Presets

• All factory single and multi presets included.
• 5 additional original sound sets.
• 2 new sound sets from contemporary sound designers.
• Can import original .mid and .syx files with preset dumps including user tables and wavetables.
• User presets store all additional data like user wavetables and tuning & velocity tables.