Microwave 1

A legend returns: Microwave 1 Plugin

35 years ago, Waldorf Music revolutionized the music market with Microwave. The instrument took the scene by storm in the 90s and brought the wavetable sounds of the 80s into the world of up-and-coming electronic dance music. Now the legendary synthesizer is celebrating its return - as a software version in the digital workstations of musicians and producers worldwide.

Its characteristic sounds - from massive basslines to mysterious modulations and buttery pads - have inspired generations of musicians. The Microwave is the epitome of what hybrid synthesis at the highest level is all about: the fusion of wavetable synthesis and analog filters.

Waldorf has developed the Microwave 1 plugin over many years of detailed work and with great passion. The characteristics of the original hardware were carefully analyzed and digitally recreated. This unique sound is based on innovative digital and analog designs that were developed long before the era of DSP-based instruments.

Details

This plug-in is a faithful recreation of Waldorf’s first generation Microwave Synthesizer based on the famous
Waldorf ASIC chip (Application Specific Integrated Circuit).

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.

Hardware Control

• Plug-in can be used to control original hard in single mode via MIDI interface,
• Control optionally in live mode where each control is transferred automatically.

Extras

• Configurable spectrum analyzer.
• Resizable graphical user interface.

Mac:

• macOS 10.14.x or higher
• 64 bit
• Intel- or M1 based Mac
• RAM: 64MB

Windows:

• Windows 7-11
• 64 bit
• Intel or AMD Prozessor
• RAM: 64MB