Hardware
Well it’s small, solid and weighty with a distinctive grey on white finish. The aluminium knobs have a nice damped feel to them, and the display is clear and easy to read, in fact the whole package reeks of quality.

The Manual
Never normally a strong point for synths, this one (bar a couple of minor typo’s) however is pretty good. The downside is, only the starter manual is printed, the full manual is on the accompanying CD in the usual PDF format. I would also have preferred some display screenshots in the main manual. I particularly liked the comment on page 11 though, ‘Don’t let your Blofeld beside children, mothers-in-law or pets. This could lead to critical interactions’!

In use
The techs specs are comprehensive, don’t think because this is a dinky little synth that it’s underpowered, 3 oscillators two of which can use wavetables, 4 envelopes, 3 LFO’s, 2 filters per voice, of which there are many types including high pass, band pass, low pass, PPG Wave filter and the particularly aggressive comb filters (positive and negative). These filters are crackers and in combination with the drive curves can produce some powerful overdriven sounds that will upset the neighbours.
The arpeggiator is well specced but a bit fiddly to program and comes with a modest 15 preset patterns. One sound that uses it to great effect is ‘Ricochet2008’, fans of old Tangerine Dream will appreciate that one.
So the sound, well it’s quite frankly German, classic Waldorf that takes you back to the PPG Wave, Microwave, and Q but for a lot less money. It comes loaded with 1000 presets (check out the website for good example demos) which show it off well, however with just a few tweaks of the aluminium knobs you can create your own wildly different sounds and it’s so easy you will want to.

Overall
Well I’ve had my Blofeld a few weeks and I love it. It doesn’t sound like my virtual analogue soft synths, workstation synths or anything else for that matter. That’s why I bought it. It sounds gritty, clangy, dark, ethereal and wonderfully synthetic. Furthermore with it’s gratifyingly easy interface I want to use it. I can quickly modify an existing patch and sonically mangle it in no time. On the wish list I would ask for a software editor, more comprehensive global spec and the ability for the arpeggiator to transmit midi, other than that I’m more than happy with my little German synth.