My bro when you release your synth baby I will preorder without even consulting my s/o if the price point is 600💶 or less, and we are starve saving for international travel this year. … if it’s more than that I’ll probably be a solid month 2 customer.
I built, with help from Waldorf, the first editor for the Kyra (Edisyn again). Some info: the Kyra is a VA. It is NOT a wavetable synth, despite unfortunate terminology in the manual. Many have pled to add wavetables, but I don't think it's going to happen given the FPGA architecture. I think the #1 issue is the lack of a jog dial for those waves and other large selection ranges. #2 is certainly menu diving. While the multimode UI can be confusing, multimode is *identical* to nearly every multitimbral synth in history: that is, multimode patches contain references to single patch slots but do not contain the single patches themselves. It's a great sounding and extraordinarily powerful synth. Sizewise: it's the same as the Iridium and M. Waldorf were, and remain, awesome to work with. EDIT: for those of you arguing that you can do wavetables in an FPGA, *of course you can.* The problem is that coding for an FPGA is not like coding for a DSP or CPU: retooling the Kyra's FPGA code for wavetables would be a nontrivial undertaking at this point, and I'm pretty certain this is not in the cards.
No, no. _This_ is the best Bad Gear ever. God damn you did a great job of illustrating the amazing sounds of Kyra. Great job! Also please forgive my plugging (for the thousandth time) the Kyra Controller Max4Live plugin I built - makes working with Kyra a lot easier for Ableton+Kyra users and does away with those goddamn +/- buttons for everything other than setting up Multis. :) I don't know how you keep getting better, Florian, but please never stop.
Always admired Waldorf's medical-tech aesthetic. Never managed to get much in the way of true-grit out of them, but the anti-septic purity of units like this are a genuine joy to experience.
I was super excited when I saw the Valkyrie prototype. It's the technical pinnacle of VA capabilities IMO. It deserves way more love. It felt like Waldorf took it, released it, then immediately pivoted to other products.
I think the issue is FPGA programming is complex (more like circuit design - so boil your heads, "VST in a box" imbeciles).. and the designer himself was not part of what was signed over. So there's nobody there to work on the firmware. It's a great shame really as being all FPGA based it's one of the synths out there that perhaps has the most potential to evolve via updates
The strangest thing about watching Audiopilz regularly is that I have this perversely positive association with "WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS FLASHING IMAGES." It just feels wrong to get excited about that.
Thank you for your brilliant critiques and humorous banter. I genuinely enjoy and appreciate your work. Thanks and kind regards from Mick ‘down under’.
Thanks for the reply, I find the Waldorf salad of synths and the dressings of lush sounds that Waldorf gear provides incredibly inspirational. The synth universe is ever expanding ( I doubt that you will ever run out of material, both great and mediocre.) and let’s hope it continues to provide the occasional big bang with sprinkles of stardust. Again, kind regards from Mick down under.
What about that groove box ? hehe !!! Exellent review as usual , straight to the point , and craziest thing is that you make some great tracks with gear that you don't connect with that much lol couldn't be that thing we call "talent" ? omg !!! I§ actually think of grabbing one .... the filter is just a piece of art ,and now that we have editors around this might help for the absence of knobs and those menu diving ....
No one in the comment section seems to address what an FPGA is. FPGA stand for Field Programmable Gate Arrays. The simplest definition I can think of is if youre programming in C you define what a synth can do. if you program an FPGA its more like defining what the hardware can do. Youre defining logic gates and emulating hardware with software. FPGAs can be used for a variety of applications because youre actually defining the structure of the hardware inside of the chip rather than using software limitations that exist inside of the hardware
if you make a groovebox, I will buy it. you probably have more of an idea of what people want from a groovebox or synth than 99% of the people signing off on, and designing the same.
Imo workflow is the most important aspect of a hardware synth, and is also the most nebulous to pin down. Then on top of that no two people want the exact same feature set
I thought about this thing. It was like 1400 USD on Thomann. But...the Hydrasynth Deluxe won out because I wanted full size keys, enough of them to relearn some basic piano on. Plus the ribbon and poly aftertouch are just nice to have tightly integrated into a synth. Also the 8 big, rubber sided metal encoders correspond nicely to an obsession that most software synth and sampled instrument makers seem to have with allowng no more than 8 macros. I also appreciate their determination to ship a full print of the manual with the instrument instead of referring me to their website to download anything more than a quick start guide. And the headphone port...it's on the front panel under the pitch and mod wheels. Not on the back or top. I like that. It makes me feel like the synth wants me to unplug from my computer and spend some alone time with it.
I bought an Alesis Micron because of the episode on it... this episode is making me want to buy this piece of Bad Gear... Maybe I should be more careful with watching your videos :D Great episode as always
Another great episode! Can't wait to see what the boxticker 2077 looks like! No seriously though, imagine if you designed the ultimate synth and then worked with people to really build it. Considering your experience- it would be uniquely awesome and would definitely tick all the boxes.
Gotta do the Zoia some day. I hated that thing. Just sold it. Menu diving Hell with a single encoder and a tiny screen. Requires a bunch of cables constantly sticking out the back while you're trying to program it. If only it had a computer patch editor or a headphone jack and a battery. That said, if Empress ever decides to make a mixer with Zoia brains and enough processing power to handle all the line ins, I'd buy it in an instant.
Nice one! I was one of the people that opted for a Hydrasynth instead simply because the Hydrasynth has a value dial and is 19 inch rack-mountable out of the box. You did a great job showing off the Kyra in this one though!
@@AudioPilz where can I find this "internet" thing ? I asked my IT people to install it for me, but they just keep laughing at me and closing my support tickets.
Ah, Kyra, one of my favs! Has a great origin story, and that zero aliasing makes it sweet and clean sounding. Great job showing off some sonic capabilities 😁
You're truly the greatest Florian Pilz who has ever lived. I check, the other ones are dull as ditchwater. I'm look at you, quality manger of Houdek Arzberg GmbH from Azberg Germany!
As you said, its a very cool and sexy looking synth, but should i ever be in the market for a top shelf Waldorf, it would not be the Kyra. I’d choose the Iridium probably. Nice Jams as always!
But The Frozen Autumn use a PPG Wave and an Elka Synthex, if I remember well ? It's true that they have a ton of synths and I have seen them with a Waldorf Blofeld on one photo...
the Waldorf Kyra is best hardware synth which all musician must have, here's the why: 1.even you have current best pc, you can't handle soft synth in higher setup, e.g. 192khz, most project runs soft synth in 44.1, 2.most hardware synth has less limited voices, 1 synth for 1 track, Kyra can loads more track, Kyra = less cpu, higher sound quality.
This sounds amazing. I got the UDO Super 6. Main Points Head to Head, Kyra sounds just as nice, if not nicer in many patches, especially with some of the more exotic waveshapes. Super 6 is set up more like a traditional analog synth and like the kyra can load wavetable shapes with an intuitive but limited OSC mixer. It also has massive stereo field capability. With a much more familiar and user friendly hands-on interface, the main point against the Super 6 compared to the kyra is it's price point at double the price.
Man, those tones are juicy. Almost as nice as my Super 6 ;) which does have FPGA oscillators, but analogue filters. There’s a very similar “custom wave but not wavetable” system there too. The 128 voices and multitimbrality are definitely ahead of mine though! I suppose that’s the power of a fully-FPGA virtual analogue path. Anyway yes, as I said at the start, very juicy indeed. Definitely sounds crisp, but that could easily be changed with a saturation plugin. I wonder if some slight drift between the voices can be programmed in, which would also help alleviate some of that coldness when people want to avoid that.
It did sound pretty great, I must say. As for any coldness, there are those little things called Airwindows plugins, which can make the most sterile Ultranova patch sound like it was recorded direct to lathe vinyl in the jungles of Bolivia. Plus they are free, so unless you’re DAW-less all the way there is no reason to reject fat but too clean synths like this.
@@Pictus_Invictus ToTape for analogization and loudness, ADclip for extra loudness before the limiter (I don’t think he’s done a limiter proper, since it’s uncool in these post-loudness war times), all weird effects for weirdness. Many of his plugins beat the shit out of commercial versions, and consumes little to no CPU. His personality holds him back though, and I don’t mean that he is unpleasant or anything, but his line of thinking is often difficult to understand. Partly because he’s smart AF, but also because his condition means he doesn’t exactly start at the right end to make it easy to understand. No matter, Airwindows is awesome all the way.
Heinz Edelmann. Well known Czech-German illustrator (worked with the Beatles), but also a a brand of Austrian Pickled Sauerkraut. The net resulting sensory effect is about the same! Also...one of these facts may be entirely made up.🤓
That is a beautiful synth. I do love the "German White" look of Axel Hartmann's designs. I could certainly make it work in my productions. And I am happy to see the salsa I discovered made it into your production. Have a great weekend, Florian!
It might be too similar to what you've showcased for us today, but I'd love to see you cover the Access Virus TI Snow! It's like a Virus, but scaled back... what fun is that?! Also, I've been eying one and can't decide if I want to buy it. Anways.... Great episode as always!
@@teamphil AudioPilz said he'll create a video when he can fill an entire screen with complaints about that device. I don't think he'll be able to do that with the Virus A/B/C. TI maybe but that'll be the same complaint over and over again: TI not working as advertised on modern Macs - so I don't think that'll count either.
6:30 "The four line stereo outputs aren't totally my thing". I think you just made Waldorf really angry. lol. Like probably 20% of the cost at least went to those outputs. Great video, as always.
Cool, you are right, too clean. I recently got me a korg ms 2000R (rack model) and although I’m happy with it, something is missing. 😉 another good candidate for bad gear. I’ll lend you mine
had this machine as a saved search on reverb since it more or less came out almost entirely for the hypersaw osc, which I personally think sounds nearly as good as I've heard. wouldnt pay what they're asking hence the saved search. Heard a bit of gossip around the lack of meaningful WT functionality though. Apparently there was going to be an entire section in the chain but around the same time someone at Waldorf decided to revamp their old microwave concept and ended up with that recent revamped, but still basically old school(ish) wavetable desktop which nixed any potential functionality in this machine because, of course, we can't have someone somewhere potentially not spending another 2 grand or whatever. Classic capitalism! woohoo guys well done! Keep up the good work dude.
One day I would like to see you do a reading in your inimitable style and delivery from the books on your shelf, a page of Kafka, Shakespeare, or Cosmopolis, with some background synth accompaniment of course, but no meme flashes, just a fixed camera shot, that would be cool
It's like an Access Virus successor that Access themselves never got around to making! Even the up/down buttons for selecting a ridiculous amount of options remind me of the same setup for selecting a patch on my Virus KB.
I love the sound of waldorfs Kyra and M. But from a usability standpoint i think Iridium is the only option for me personally. Also, who could afford all of them...
This is one of those synths that’s hard to sell when the Novation Peak is right there and has true wavetable morphing for $600 dollars less. Looks and sounds great though.
@@BellXllebMusicIt is possible through the DAW to control 4 different sounds separately, and at the same time - the instrument has 4 stereo outputs. 8-part multitimbrality. Sound can also be recorded via USB.
Awesome community service. I always wondered about this thing. It seemed Waldorf didn’t show it too much love either…like they got a better return from the Iridium I guess.
Didn't dare we did. 🙃 I do think there is something to this sound I would love to see Novation apply these chips in a eurorack module. A full size keyboard with minimal menu diving would be a winner too as mentioned already.
Every time I hear this synth I like the full lush wide sound of it. But in every RU-vid video about it there’s heavy critics about the user interface and Waldorf not developing this platform. Reminds me of that other lush synth that I actually have and really enjoy. The Roland D70. Love-hate relationship but very rewarding when you take time to totally reprogram the thing. I would really like you to make a Badgear episode about that one. And now I still don’t know wether to buy a Kyra. Can one handle two love-hate relationships at once? Decisions, decisions. :-)
No doubt it’s a great synth. Thing is, I’ve used the TI range in anger since 2006. I know it very well and for live use, my TI2 Keyboard sits with my MPC L2 delivering multi Timberlake channels of old school midi brilliance.. the Kyra form factor is just a bit alien to me. Maybe I ought to start nosing around it a bit more.
Nice video with some fair criticisms. Despite the minor gripes including lack of data wheel and less-than-optimal wavetable integration, the Kyra's sound quality is excellent and options for design/modulation are extensive. For me, even many of the factory patches are performance oriented and capable of being highly expressive. The build quality feels like late 80's Akai Professional (think MPC60 or S950). Just the right amount of weight and physical presence. No knob wobble, super smooth potentiometers with just the rights amount of resistance. Everything feels solid. It look me a bit to figure out how to get it working within Bitwig but once I did, wow! Soundcard mode is awesome. 8 stereo instances available and seamless integration with the DAW. Full disclosure I bought the Kyra second hand. It was a great deal at $1150.
Woah, that thing really uses FPGAs? I used them to mine sh!tcoins like half a decade ago, to frontrun the CPU- and GPU-miners 🤣 I've been at a Xilinx developers meetup a while ago and they had a (slightly weird) dude from Mercedes who explained that they make "heavy use" of FPGAs to handle the calculations iirc for Concierge and whatnot. Who knows... maybe I can buy this thing and finally drive a car while making sound and mining altcoins lmao Great great video, as always. They keep getting better and better, it's literally insane. That amazing animation at the end was mind blowing, true piece of art. Did you create that, too?
@@AudioPilz Now the serios question. Can you estimate how many hours takes you (or your team) to make that kind high quality video? It is a MASTERPIECE!
I use Waldorf Kyra, and Waldorf Iridium. Very worthy. I agree - not for beginners, but the number of presets allows you to use it out of the box - experience may come later.
I'll take one preorder for Boxticker 2077 w/ optional type C midi breakout cables and real simulated wood grain sides, please. And a BT-X silicone case.
