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Fantastic. Waldorf strikes again! This synth is all about choice, and it gives you plenty of it - you can sculpt some of the most out-there sounds imaginable.
Oscillators (X3) can be VA or Wavetable. The VA sounds don't sound particularly analog, but nice nonetheless - the "brilliance" control those add a little something sometimes. The saw is very aggressive. The wavetables give you a wide variety of ready-to-use sounds - "clipping" and "feedback" are personal favourites.
Ring mod, noise, osc sync etc. are also available. 2 filters with adjustable drive (any normal types, plus 2 "comb" filters - very nice effects if you modulate the cutoff of a driven comb filter) can be placed in any configuration - F1 to F2, or maybe send osc 2 and noise through F1 & F2 and have oscs 1 & 3 go through F2 only, or even two independent filters? You'd be surprised how useful this can be, especially with one filter driven and the other "clean".
Where the synth really shines is the Modulation Matrix, which almost reminds me of a modular. It takes a short while to fully program, but offers an unbelievable amount of flexibility - remember you have 4 envelopes and 3 LFO's. In practice you never use more than 10 of the 16 slots. There's also 4 (?) "Modifiers" which allow you to mix together 2 sources in various ways. Haven't used this much, but could be very useful.
There's also the 2 effects slots. Effects are good for what they are - part of creating the sound - but not really extravagant or anything. My next purchase will probably be an effects rack or two.
The arpeggiator is incredible - practically a sequencer. You have to go through a lot of menus to program it, and it takes some getting used to, but I've been able to make some passable ambient soundscapes using only arpeggiators. Oh, and did I mention this thing has 16x multitimbrality? Great for the studio.
On the sound side, this excels in complex digital sonic mayhem. For normal synth playing it's quite good as well, although I have yet to find a good organ preset. Basses good (ignore the presets and make your own), Pads wonderful (plenty of pad presets), Leads very nice. If you like performance controllers, pedals, mod wheel and such you'll love this - the mod matrix lets you control any part of the sound in real time with a bit of tweaking.
Overall fantastic value, an absolute winner. Good on you Waldorf!
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