Buying new gear can be full of disappointments and pitfalls. For an initial period the frustrations of a new synth not being fully integrated into my studio far out-weighs the excitement. The recent acquisition of my MicroWave XTk has proven this true, but also added the stress of potentially ruining my new toy.
You see I like to do a number of things when I buy second hand gear. The first is to clean it and the second reset it to ‘factory’ standards. Inevitably, old synths are full of sounds created by their previous owners and before I create my own, I like to start afresh. Once I had located the latest factory presets, I also purchased a librarian/editor to make programming easier from my PC. Then I created a MIDI patch script for use in Cubase, as there did not seem to be one readily available on the net. Creating patch scripts is a laborious and maddening process that took me a whole evening. In the meantime, my new toy sits untouched, I really had no time to play the thing.
With modern digital synthesizers, there is also the daunting and potentially ruinous process of updating the Operating System (OS). Having checked my synth, it
appeared to be running on version 2.29 of the OS. I then trawled through various web sites and found that the latest OS is 2.33 dating from 2000. A quick visit to the newly reinstated Waldorf website (the company went out of business in 2004 and have only resurfaced at the end of 2007) gave me the latest OS.
The one thing about updating the OS of a synthesizer is that if it goes wrong, the synth could end up irrevocably damaged. If the part of the OS that tells the synthesizer how to ‘boot up’ is damaged it will never work again. Scary when you have just paid a substantial sum. With fingers crossed I loaded the OS into Cubase and played the file to the XTk. The display read ‘Receiving System 2.33…” and all looked great until an error message appeared. Now I was really worried. Having read the manual again I realised Cubase was sending MIDI clock data to the XTk and
once I turned this off the system updated without problem (running at about 90bpm it took just a couple of minutes).
Now everything is set I can actually use the machine to create sonic mayhem. And boy does it create mayhem. The bass from this synth is truly astounding and its ability to create a sheer wall of noise is unrivalled. The MicroWave is a truly iconic instrument. Just one look of the red alpha dial and you know what is in front of you. Just one press on the keys and you could pierce you eardrums.
You see I like to do a number of things when I buy second hand gear. The first is to clean it and the second reset it to ‘factory’ standards. Inevitably, old synths are full of sounds created by their previous owners and before I create my own, I like to start afresh. Once I had located the latest factory presets, I also purchased a librarian/editor to make programming easier from my PC. Then I created a MIDI patch script for use in Cubase, as there did not seem to be one readily available on the net. Creating patch scripts is a laborious and maddening process that took me a whole evening. In the meantime, my new toy sits untouched, I really had no time to play the thing.
With modern digital synthesizers, there is also the daunting and potentially ruinous process of updating the Operating System (OS). Having checked my synth, it
appeared to be running on version 2.29 of the OS. I then trawled through various web sites and found that the latest OS is 2.33 dating from 2000. A quick visit to the newly reinstated Waldorf website (the company went out of business in 2004 and have only resurfaced at the end of 2007) gave me the latest OS.The one thing about updating the OS of a synthesizer is that if it goes wrong, the synth could end up irrevocably damaged. If the part of the OS that tells the synthesizer how to ‘boot up’ is damaged it will never work again. Scary when you have just paid a substantial sum. With fingers crossed I loaded the OS into Cubase and played the file to the XTk. The display read ‘Receiving System 2.33…” and all looked great until an error message appeared. Now I was really worried. Having read the manual again I realised Cubase was sending MIDI clock data to the XTk and
once I turned this off the system updated without problem (running at about 90bpm it took just a couple of minutes).Now everything is set I can actually use the machine to create sonic mayhem. And boy does it create mayhem. The bass from this synth is truly astounding and its ability to create a sheer wall of noise is unrivalled. The MicroWave is a truly iconic instrument. Just one look of the red alpha dial and you know what is in front of you. Just one press on the keys and you could pierce you eardrums.
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