Waldorf Iridium Desktop Mk2

The Mk2 with more RAM and flash memory and lots of new functions

With the Iridium Desktop Mk2, Waldorf presents the second Generation of the successful IRIDIUM series, which can certainly be regarded as a milestone in the history of synthesizers. This synthesizer is a top candidate for sound designers and film musicians as well as all those who are looking for something new that classic synthesizers with a handful of waveforms and a Lowpass filter cannot offer. The Mk2 can do everything the first Generation can do and more.

The second generation scores with an upgraded CPU board with expanded RAM and flash memory. This creates larger sample capacities and a significantly expanded world of synthesis possibilities. On the software side, the Iridium Desktop Mk2 offers a mutator patch randomizer, which creates new patches or mutates existing patches based on certain specifications. There is also a new polyphonic arpeggiator and microtonal functions that can be saved in patches.

The layer structure also benefits from the increased memory: up to four layers including newly developed round-robin and random-robin modes enable even more complex sound layers.

With SEEDS, the oscillators are given a sixth form of synthesis: inspired by wavetable synthesis, in which each Wavetable represents a sonic journey, Waldorf has found a way to build these sound journeys not only on static waveforms, but to synthesize each intermediate point dynamically from sub-oscillators - the so-called seeds. These are controllable, can be combined with ring modulation and FM and can be enriched with noise and non-tonal material. Similar to Wavetables, users can use and edit the included predefined sound journeys and create their own.

The Flavour control, introduced with the PROTEIN synthesizer, creates more sonic vibrancy through micro-variations in timing, timbre, pitch and other parameters. This is comparable to the VINTAGE control on some current analog synthesizers.

In collaboration with the legendary Aphex Twin, the sequencer of the Iridium Desktop Mk2 and Per-Note Parameter Locks has been expanded. A sequence can now be up to 128 steps long and have up to 16 individual parameter variations, including oscillator synthesis mode and effect parameters. The changes are saved per Patch and can be edited on a separate page.

Synthesis & sound generation

At the heart of the Iridium Desktop Mk2 are its three digital oscillators, each with five selectable synthesis modes:

• Wavetable: Waldorfstyle with the latest Nave technology including voice synthesis and generation of Wavetables from external audio sources
  
• Waveform: Waveform with up to 8 simultaneous waveforms per oscillator in detuned or chordal mode with hard sync, warp, PWM and pitchable noise
• Particle: Granular sampler with multisampling and traditional sampling mode
  
• Resonator: Exciter with multi-sampling and filter bank modeling
  
• Kernel: up to 6 sub-oscillators that can be connected via FM at audio rate; for futuristic experimental sounds and FM-like sounds
  
• Seeds: Synthesized in sub-oscillators Wavetables with fluid dynamic combinability
  

Some of the oscillators are incredible in their own right and offer an enormous range of different sounds. The number of parameters for an oscillator is enormous, and they can also be modulated in many different ways. The following mixer controls the volume and saturation of the tone generators. The routing for the signal path is also defined here: this includes the two filters, the D-shaper and the five effect slots. This is followed by two extremely excellent digital multimode filters, which contain 12/24dB LP/BP/HP combinations as well as filter models from Nave, Largo, PPG, Quantum and State Variable. The already impressive sound palette is complemented by the Digital Former in a remarkable way. This complements the sound generation with a bit crusher, distortion, comb filter, ring modulator and much more. The signal path is completed with five simultaneously usable effect slots per layer. Decide for yourself whether and where delay, reverb, chorus, flanger, phaser, EQ or compressor appear in the effects block thanks to the free routing.