Waldorf M 1.07 RC Update Adds PPG Waveterm Transitions Replay, Additional Filter Modes & More

This one is via an anonymous reader. Full release notes below.

Regarding PPG Waveterm Transitions Reply:

"I always dreamed of PPG Waveterm Transitions replay. So there are they here in M! Now in classic mode one can use the second oscillator as a PCM oscillator and play one of the 64 transitions, saved into internal flash. They could be loaded from the SD Card to the M and used for your patch. So you can make 4 channel Drum Machine with analog and digital VCF on each channel. Or multisample layered patch. And the OSC1 stays free to play its own wavetable. So I am very curious, what you can introduce with this new feature."

"You can load up these old samples and use your M as if you had a PPG Wave + WaveTerm combo."

New filters: Notch 12dB / Oct, LP 24dB/Oct, BP 24 dB/Oct,HP 24 dB/Oct, Notch 24 dB/Oct, Sin Waveshaper + LP 12 dB/Oct, Dual LP/BP 12 db/Oct, BandStop 12 dB/Oct. Almost all of the MicroWave 2 XT's digital filters are now available on the M.

Full release notes: [install at your own risk!]

via VladiS on the Gearspace forums:

"Hi guys (and gals )

For those who want to be an early bird and test FW 1.07 release candidate. There is a link to my GD where one can download the fresh update for the M.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lTa...ew?usp=sharing

As this was a DSP-oriented release, most of the changes/fixes/addons were made in the DSP area.

Here are the most important bug fixes :

- fixed abruption of LFO1 in synced mode (Decay should be = 127)
- fixed corruption of the first userwt on the save / load / mode change, in case they are different.
- fixed «first 8 notes problem»
- fixed oscillators leaking on the Master Volume = 0
- fixed bug with non-acting Hard-Sync and Glide button’s LEDs when a user changes parameters using under-screen encoders

Addons are :

- Implemented bank change (as Bank Change LSB = CC32)
- Implemented various WT scan limiting settings for the Modern Mode. The new sound parameter called TRAVEL for both Waves has the next settings :

Analog On (An. On) — regular 0 … 63 scanning
Analog Off (An. Off) — top 3 waveforms (analog) excluded. Scanning in range 0...60
Analog Only (An. Only) — scanning possible in range (60...63)
Circular — scanning is in range 0...60 with wrap. I.e. if modulation sum lays over 60 (or under 0) — there will be a wrap-around over border and scanning continue from the «other side». For example, modulation Sum 66 will lead to wave 6 if you have chosen wave 0 as start and wave 26 if you have chosen 20 as start (20 + 66) = full overflow + 6 wave positions.

- Implemented additional fast/slow modes for the LFO1 and LFO2. The parameters names are L1 RANGE and L2 RANGE and they are located on the new page in section LFO — LFO Tweaks. The settings are :
Normal — standard, MW1 — derived settings (0.1 — 15.4 Hz Range)
Slow — slow range (0.012Hz — 1.54 Hz Range = 0.1 x Normal Range)
Fast — fast range (0.485Hz — 61.6 Hz Range = 4 x Normal Range)

-Implemented additional Glide mode (reverse exponential mapping). The new parameter is called GL.MODE and has next settings :

lin — standard setting (0-2s linearly in time scale)
exp — new setting (0-1.2s reverse exponential mapping scale)

- Extended the range of the B.RANGE parameter from +-12 to +-48 semitones for both oscillators

- Added bit reduction for the Modern Mode. The parameter name is DEREZ, and this is controlled by how many bits will be reduced from the normal 16 bits samples of Oscillator’s Modern Mode. The Range is 0 — 14. With 14 bit you achieve effectively 2-bit grittiness

- Added next MW2 VCF models for the Modern Mode* :

Notch 12dB / Oct, LP 24dB/Oct, BP 24 dB/Oct,HP 24 dB/Oct, Notch 24 dB/Oct, Sin Waveshaper + LP 12 dB/Oct, Dual LP/BP 12 db/Oct, BandStop 12 dB/Oct

- Added for the Modern Osc Mode all parameters to control the digital VCF as on the MW2 — Envelope Amount (VCF EG to Digital VCF Cutoff), Envelope Velocity (Velocity to VCF EG scaling for the digital VCF), Keytrack, Extra parameter** (see description below), Modulator1 Source, Modulator1 Controller, Modulator 1 Amount, Release Modulator Source, Release Modulator Amount. The previous Modulator Source and Amount became Modulator 2 Source** (see below) and Amount accordingly.

* only the existing 3 will be active in the Classic Mode. No of the new add-ons will be active there!

** Extra parameter of Digi VCF controls the next :

- in the classic mode — it controls the attenuation of the VCF — the more value the less the attenuation via resonance. It allows morphing of the VCF sonically between versions of FW1.05 and FW1.06

- in the modern mode — it controls the shift of the BP 12 VCF for the Dual LP/BP 12 dB/Oct VCF from the LP12 frequency. It could be only positive.

*** all parameters described below, except Extra, Mod2 Source Mod2 Amount are NOT available in the Classic (ASIC emulation) oscillator mode! Period! due to DSP MCU performance restriction. The patch parameters of FW 1.05-1.06 ModSource ModAmount of DigiVCF will be translated from existing patches to the Modulator 2 Source and Modulator 2 Amount accordingly.

- Added Range Parameter for the EG1 (VCF) and EG2 (VCA). Now the range of the timing could be changed for these two, related to the CV of Analog VCF and VCA accordingly. The new parameter called RANGE, located at the Page ENV Tweaks, and has the next settings :

normal — regular range, derived from MW1
fast - range within 0.01s — 1s on each segments (A,D,R) of the envelope
slow — range within 0.05s - 1 hour 35 minutes on each segment (A,D,R) of the envelope. Drones are welcome.

And last but not least. This is my thank you feature to all who supported me at the early launch phase of M and during the first batches.

I always dreamed of PPG Waveterm Transitions replay. So there are they here in M! Now in classic mode one can use the second oscillator as a PCM oscillator and play one of the 64 transitions, saved into internal flash. They could be loaded from the SD Card to the M and used for your patch. So you can make 4 channel Drum Machine with analog and digital VCF on each channel. Or multisample layered patch. And the OSC1 stays free to play its own wavetable. So I am very curious, what you can introduce with this new feature.

There is next sound parameter were added (located on two new pages of the OSC section)
On the page OSC2>Transition next 3 parameters are located

Transition Enable — (TR.ENA) enables replay of transition on the OSC2. The OSC2 controls Octave, Semitones, and Detune, and mixer Osc2 are active and make the same functions as on the regular Oscillator 2. The Envelope Amount is inactive as there is no wavetable scanning occurring.

Transition Number (TR.NUM) — number of slots (00-63) from where the transition sample will be loaded and transferred to the DSP.

Transition Base (TR.BASE) — base pitch for the transition (usually D#1 for converted PPG Waveterm B library) Range is within C-2 (MIDI Note #36 ) to C3 (MIDI Note #96 ). The exact pitch in Herz for the according to midi note will be also changed if you change the Master Tuning, so mind this fact. I mean, that if you choose 442 Hz as master Tuning, the base pitch of A2 will be also shifted to 442 Herz in this case. It could lead to improper sample tuning if a sample has been recorded at 440 Hz as the base pitch.

Next 3 parameters related to the sample replay looping and located on the next page (OSC2>TransitionLoop)

Transition Start — (TR.START) — start sample number of the loop, if any.
Transition End — (TR.END) — end sample number of the loop, if any.
Transition Loop — (TR.LOOP) — loop type selector. The values could be the next :

OFF — loops are off, transition will be replayed from sample 0 to sample 32767 once. Good for one-shots as drums or SFX
FWD (Forward loop) — transition replay will be started from the sample TR.START and will be looped between TR.START and TR.END until the note is active.
BWD (Backward Loop) — transition replay will be started from the sample TR.END and will be replayed in the reverse direction to the TR.START and then looped.
ST+FWD (Start + Forward Loop) — transition replay starts from sample 0 and will be played until TR.START, then looped between TR.START and TR.END.
ST+BWD (Start + Backward Loop) — transition replay starts from sample 0 and will be played until TR.END, then looped in the reverse direction to the TR.START


The transition file format is regular .WAV file, 16-bit mono, 22050 Hz Sample rate. It’s close to the native Waveterm’s sampling frequency of 20,95 kHz, but the base pitch for 22 kHz will be D#1 instead of E1. The easiest way to take a tour of this transition world — is to download the library from the http://www.ppg.synth.net/waveterm/wt_lib.shtml

There are 2 new system options parameters in the System Settings, page 4 — UserWT (now UserWT/TR). They are the same by meaning as according to parameters of loading user wavetables and allow to choose the source (wave file on SD) and destination (transition slot on the M’s flash). The source parameter (Trans. file number) is in the range of 000-999 and corresponds to any file with the name Txxx.wav, where xxx is the number of the named range.

The files should be located on SD Card in the folder TRANSITIONS. The destination parameter (Trans. load slot) is within range 00-63 and corresponds to the internal slot of M’s flash storage.

The new action in the System Operations menu, named Import Transition (from SD) used to transfer the samples from the wave file to the internal M slot, according to the destination parameter.

If the chosen file will be bigger than 65Kbytes (32767 Samples) — only the first 32767 samples will be transferred. If the file is smaller — all samples not contained in the file will be filled with 0.

So there are actually the major changes of the FW1.07. There are a lot of performance tweaks under the hood that were made and now the DSP performance for the classic mode is on the limit. So with this, I will lock future sound parameter add-ons/changes. Only the parameters for the global LFO could be changed/added in the new release. So, NO more new sound parameters for the classic mode for all 1. xxx firmware versions for the Waldorf M.

Hope you will like the new possibilities.

The next 1.08 firmware will be UI/UX oriented to optimize the System Firmware. There I will try to cover all requests and fix all bugs related to the interaction between machine and man.

Thank you all for your priceless help and support!

Greetings from Remagen
Vladimir