Demo samples (192kbps MP3)

Pulse_bass: 3 oscillator bass, velocity controlling the envelope filter amount.

Pulse_misc: Miscellaneous sounds making use of the vast modulation possibilities and the arpeggiator.

Read more: www.vintagesynth.org

reKon™ VST Pulse Editor: www.voltagekontrol.com/reKon

Waldorf Pulse

The Pulse packs a lot of analog power in a compact and cheep unit. The MIDI implementation is top notch and the Pulse Plus even doubles as MIDI-CV converter. The filter sounds really good. It can self-oscillate and be overdriven by the oscillators producing some harcher tones. If you want smooth MOOG-like sounds, keep the oscillator amplitude low in the mixer. The random sound generator produces some interesting sounds that can inspire one to come up with new ideas.

There are two things about the Pulse that I don't particularily like: the user interface and the sound of the oscillators. The user interface is not worse than most other rack synths but it does fall short when compared to e.i. the Pro-1. In my opinion, part of the joy with analog synths is to have a physical control of most parameters that makes it easy to make changes to the sound as you play.

The problem I have with the oscillators is that they sound a bit static. There has been several discussions about the design of the Pulses oscillators but to my ears they definitely sounds more like DCO:s than VCO:s. This makes most lead sounds have a piercing kind of quality. But for bass sounds this is much less evident. The truth is that few synths can put out the amount of deep bass that Pulse does. Maybe there is some sort of integrated bass enhancing EQ:ing going on like in the Juno 106.

- Three Oscillators with variable waveforms
pulse with variable pulse width (saw, triangle and cross modulation)
- Oscillator sync
- Waldorf 24 dB lowpass filter with resonance up to self-oscillation, frequency range 25Hz to 35kHz.
- 100 programs, divided into 59 ROM presets, 40 user programs and one random sound
- Two envelopes each with selectable trigger modes
- Two LFOs with different waveforms (triangle, sin, saw, pulse and sample&hold)
- LFO frequency range from 0.008 Hz up to 261 Hz
- Internal Arpeggiator (tempo from 50bpm to 300bpm and 16 predefined rhythm patterns)
- All parameter changes sent/received as MIDI controller
- Four routable modulation units with adjustable source, amount and destination
- Six knobs and four buttons for convenient editing
- 19" 2HE Rackmount
- Stereo Line out
- MIDI In/Out/Thru