Waldorf Pulse

1996, Full Midi, rack-mounted 3 VCO monophonic analogue synthesizer

Waldorf Pulse

This page is soon to be updated; I’m using this synth a lot and have become a big fan…

A very clean and controlled but proper warm analogue sounding synth. I mainly use the basses and bottom end on this, some sounds come across very vintage especially using subtle amounts of white noise to add grain to the sound. Apparently NIN have used this synth and I can totally understand that on account of NIN’s clean choppy synth basses.

Sounds: The Pulse also has an ability to create huge phase distorted basses that sound like they are being rammed through a hard limiter to the point of obliterating the sound, great for nu skool or dnb type sounds. The top end lead sounds are often a little too clean for me, sounding too tight and almost digital in places. Likewise with the resonance of which I think sounds too clean when used out front. Perhaps it’s the accuracy of the electronics which I feel detracts from the character in certain situations.

Programming: I’ve been making my own sounds using the front panel up to now but the interface makes life rather difficult; for one thing you cannot see the value of a parameter on the screen until you have changed it, this makes the modulation section particularly tricky. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a VSTi front end instead; see below!

Conclusion: All taken into account it is a great monosynth, perhaps somewhere between the old and the new. As with anything; you use it for what it is good at. (I will update this properly once I’m familiar with the new VSTi software)

HG Sounds Pulse Control

HG Sounds Pulse Control

HG Sounds Pulse Control

This software deserves it’s own section. It’s early days in my testing and I am not completely familiar with everything yet – but, I can say that this software works great for me in Ableton Live 8 and that it has changed the way I see the Pulse completely. Watch this space.

2 Comments

  • James Simmons says:

    Hold down the Mode button whilst turning a knob to see the current value without altering it.
    This also allows you to move the knob to approximately the right position to avoid obvious jumps whilst tweaking.

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