How to Overcome Blofeld Distortion Issue?

[HideawayStudio]

I have a vague recollection reading somewhere that a firmware update will sort the Blofeld's habit of easily distorting when playing some patches at higher velocities. Can anyone advise on whether there is a software fix and exactly how to perform the update + whether there are any risks in doing the update?

[pneuman]

That problem is news to me! I haven't seen this myself, but there's quite a list of outstanding bugs on the Blofeld right now, most of which affect some people more than others (most are in the multi-mode, which I personally haven't used much). Waldorf has a patch on the way that aims to fix a lot of the outstanding issues, and it should be out soon with any luck, but if you aren't running the current latest firmware (1.1.3 I think) then it's probably worth an upgrade.

To do the upgrade, just grab the latest firmware file from here:

http://waldorfmusic.de/en/downloads?rel ... eld/system

The update itself is just a MIDI file, which you play to the Blofeld over USB from your sequencer or any other MIDI player app (I'm on Linux myself, but I've heard of WIndows users using WIndows Media Player to do it). There's no real risk in doing it -- if the Blofeld doens't receive the whole update file intact it won't try to apply it, so the only thing that could go wrong is if you lost power while it was patching, but even then there's a recovery routine you can run.

[th0mas]

If you're at a software version before 1.11 I believe you want to upgrade to 1.11 before upgrading past that, or your wavetable names will be messed up.

[cartesia]

never heard of any distortion issue..

of course, if you get the levels modulated to go higher than the sound engine can cope with, things will distort.. but I've never had any issue with the blofeld.. mind you 1.12 was out by the time I got mine, so maybe it was just an early OS issue.

[masstronaut]

Not a problem I've heard of. Of course some patches are supposed to distort.

If anything the issue early on was that the output level was too low. It's still quite quiet but can need that headroom when a lot is going on.

And yes, update the OSs in sequence if you have too. 1.11 > 1.12 > 1.13. Also do it slowly and over DIN, not USB.

[Hugo76]

I've noticed at least one patch distorting heavily. Don't remember the name, but it's quite a beautiful keyboardish sound (don't know what I should call it). And this one surely isn't meant to distort. I'm running the latest OS.

[masstronaut]

They changed the output level in an early update because it was too quiet. Maybe some patches made with the old system do unexpected things?

I don't know, I make my own sounds.