Waldorf Pulse 2 4-stars Reviews

Good synth but lacks major sounds

For such high quality type of synth I expected a generous sound bank, not just bass and acid, but also the more traditional and orchestral instruments, none of which being present. Sure I could program all these by myself, and after half a year start playing, but I buy a synth not just for the hardware but especially for the sounds. And the matrix type of menu is for me somewhat cumbersome for live play, sure others may like it.

Despite that i had to firmware update it to get it work and startup, it sounds very nice. The oscillators are honest and quite raw. It doesnt sound like the classic waldorfs which are quite metallic but its quite warm. The basses are very good and the paraphonic mode serves well polyphonic situations. The quality made is good and sturdy. Quite heavy for its size.

Affordable Analog Synth

For what you get, the price of this unit is really good. It is built like a tank, and I really like the format. Small and practical! Using the USB, the computer recognises it immediately (I use it with Ableton Live and that works like a charm).

A drawback of the format is of course that every knob has several functions. This is made very easy with the matrix on the front panel. However, I feel this could have been further improved by developing the display a bit further. The display is really big, but sadly most of the time it is only used to display the preset number. I think it would have been better if it gave a bit more visual feedback on the functions (for example, a graph with the ADSR). I think this is a feature on the Blofeld so it clearly can be done... As I said, this is my first synth and for a beginner the layout maybe isn't the best.

It does sound really good! Definitely for leads and basses it's great. Although it is a monophonic synth it can do some polyphonic sounds (!?) but it is clear that the volume reduces when more than two notes are played at the same time.

So all in all, a very affordable, good sounding synth, with a few small but ignorable drawbacks.