Leak: Waldorf Iridium – A New Quantum Desktop Hardware Synthesizer?
The hardware and software company Waldorf is preparing something new and surprising for us. The Iridium, a new desktop synthesizer?! When and where – that is not yet known. As can be seen easily, the design reminds the large flagship sound generator Quantum. The display, controls, buttons, and the individual sections have been placed in compressed form on a table variant. That sounds like a really interesting and cool surprise in the summer slump!
With Iridium, Waldorf releases a desktop version of the large Quantum synthesizer. The design of the keyboard has been shrunk to a table version and is therefore somewhat reminiscent of the Waldorf Kyra synthesizer. This also means that the hardware is rack compatible. The first thing that catches the eye is the identical display. And that is just as touchable and contains the same functional fields as its big brother. Next to it, the two rows of three sit on knobs. At the top in the middle are the large main rotary control and some menu buttons that operate functions similar to those of the large prototype.
Iridium is a 16-voice polyphonic hybrid synthesizer. The sound is generated by three oscillators. You can design the sound using the three oscillator sections with the well-known five synthesis forms Wavetable, Waveform, Particle (and Granular Sampler), Resonator, and Kernel (with 6 operators). It continues with the mixer, three digital stereo filters (including the digital former), the six envelope generators, six LFOs (including the complex LFO), a master-effect rack with 5 slots, and the volume control with the master compressor. In order to bring movement into the sound, you can freely program the modulation matrix with 40 slots. Your presets and samples can be stored in the integrated memory (2 GB) or via USB and SD card (up to 7000 presets).
On the connection side, the same inputs and outputs are also available that we also know from the Quantum. Here, too, the two synthesizers are the same. So Iridium is actually a small Quantum. Also new are the 16 trigger pads in a 4 x 4 matrix. With this, you can trigger notes, chords, arpeggios, and sequences for the internal sequencer (up to 32 steps). This reminds a little of the ASM Hydrasynth. Incidentally, Iridium is completely compatible with all Quantum patches.
According to speculations in the forums, the price should be around 2000 euros. Unfortunately, there is no further information. We will, of course, keep you up to date as always, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter below.
