Sunday, June 26, 2011

Blofeld sl upgrade completed

Well it did succeed and the samples are there.
However the smpsounds.mid from waldorf still sticks when transmitted to the Blofeld - I have contaced Waldorf on what this file contains (their download section is not the best seen - sections and files really lack information).
Now I just have to experiment with actually creating some patches using the samples as there doesn't seem to be any default ones.

Blofeld Sample upgrade

Finally got the file from Waldorf and tried to get it to work:
Used sweet MIDI Player to upload unlocking mid file - my initial enthusiasm for the program is beginning to decline... but I was met by success - on startup the display now reads "v 1.15B11 SL" - I'm thinking that the SL is significant ;-)
The mail from Waldorf also described that I should probably upload the sample sounds from their site to the blofeld. So i searched the site (www.waldorfmusic.de) for the blofeld sample content and ended up with the file smpsounds.mid filling about 8 kB and tried to upload this to my blofeld using sweetmidi - without success the blofeld display just sticks with the message "Receving data, please be patient..." and never does anything else. And my blofeld still contained no samples.

So I tried some more internet-research - I discovered that the Spectre program (supplied as a beta from waldorf) actually can upload the mid files and that the samples I needed are in the spectre section of the waldorf site (sigh) - so I downloaded the Samples from that location and am currently in the process of uploading the samples to my blofeld using the Spectre program - the upload of samples takes about 18 minutes using USB/midi so theres plenty of time for this post :-)
However the smpsounds.mid file still did not work but I have come to the conclusion that I don't need it.
More on this later when the upload has completed (curerently at 63%)

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Waldorf support

Still waiting for response from waldorf for the SL upgrade license for my Blofeld - wondering if they are on vacation... all of them at the same time ;-)

Installed the Blofeld Sound organizer from Kotro Laszlo Lehel
http://www.youtube.com/user/KotroLaszloLehel
or
http://lady.rdsor.ro/~kotro/index.php?m=soft
This is highly recommended for any Blofeld user though it is not too happy on my win 7 64-bit platform - but it works and has a nice random function (apart the obvious benefit of enabling you to manage all 1024 programs/patches of your blofeld). And he responds to your questions - super for a one-man show.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Upgrading my Waldorf Blofeld synth with SL sampling option

So to get acces to the samples residing inside my Waldorf Blofeld:

I bought the option from Waldorffs homepage - I then had to play an attached midi file to the Blofeld to access the "Challenge Code" which Waldorff needs to activate my Samples.
So that started a longer search for the right tool to do this:
After some false starts (midiOX and anvil studio) and wrong goings (it does not help that in win7 you cannot adjust your midi player and thus win media player couldn't do the job either)
I finally came across Sweet MIDI Player and voila: install, start program load midi file press play and the display showed my challenge code.
Now I am waiting for the file from Waldorff :-(

The blog has been started

So now I have started my first blog - I recon subjects here will be my challenges and experiences with music and synthesis using the equipment I have.
Ableton live
Gladiator plugin
Waldorf Blofeld
Roland SH-101
Kurzweil K2000R
 just to mention a few