Waldorf Music is a German synthesizer company. They are best known for the Microwave wavetable synthesizer and Blofeld virtual analogue synthesizer.

History

Waldorf Electronics GmbH was founded in 1988 by Wolfgang Düren, who at the time was the German distributor of PPG. The Waldorf name refers to the German town of Waldorf (near to the former capital of West Germany: Bonn) where the company was founded. Later, the company was headquartered in Schloss Ahrenthal. On 5 February 2004, Waldorf declared insolvency at a German court. Shortly before, the company was turned into an Aktiengesellschaft called Waldorf Music AG, but to no avail. In Summer 2006, a new company Waldorf Music GmbH was officially established, although it is not a legal successor to the original company. Waldorf's headquarter has now moved to Remagen and is led by CEO Joachim Flor. After the demise of PPG in 1987, Waldorf took over the heritage of wavetable synthesis. Based on an ASIC designed by Wolfgang Palm, the Microwave, and later the WAVE, were built. However, Palm never functioned as an employee of Waldorf. Over the years, Waldorf continuously adapted new technologies. While the Microwave I (released 1989) was based on ASICs and a Motorola MC68000 micro processor, Microwave II (1997) was driven by a DSP. In 2013, NAVE, a synthesizer app for iOS was released. Their Kyra (2019) is the first fully FPGA-powered synthesizer. While many other synth manufacturers aimed to recreate previously existing hardware in software, Waldorf went the other way and presented the RackAttack, a hardware drum synth in 2002. The synth engine had been published as a VST instrument a year before. Nevertheless, the Streichfett came up in 2014: a synth that recreated the sound of vintage string machines.

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Distributed products

Developed for Steinberg

Notable users of Waldorf gear