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Such a tiny box... but what an enormous sound.

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Waldorf clearly has a sense of humour, naming the Blofeld (and also its upcoming Stromberg) after James Bond villains. However, this is a very serious instrument that belies its compact footprint.

The metal front panel is the epitome of simplicity, with seven silver-metal/ aluminium rotary dials, a very nice backlit monochrome graphic display and a parameter matrix that can be used to select the various modes and settings quickly.

Select the function you want with the buttons on the left of the matrix and turn the corresponding dial to affect the function in the corresponding vertical column. Easy!

In terms of connectivity, Blofeld is limited - this could be one of the compromises Waldorf had to make to keep the price down. There's no MIDI Out (except for via USB,) only one stereo output and no audio input.

Interestingly, the vocoder that was included in the original spec (and that's listed on the box) doesn't seem to have made it to the final version, but we guess this may be added as an update later.

Blofeld is a 3-oscillator, 25-voice desktop synthesizer that incorporates Virtual Analogue and Wavetable synthesis. There are 1,024 program slots (all user-writeable) and it has a 16-part multitimbral mode.

Two independent effect units are available in the normal 'Play Sound' mode and there's one available per part in Multi mode. There's one global effect, too.

Feature-wise, Blofeld is like the best of the Q and Microwave series rolled into one but with a number of great new additions. Be warned though: this is a very deep synth indeed.

Wavetables

The wavetable synthesis combines lots of different waveforms of varying timbre and harmonic content that are put together to form a continuous cycle of sound that stops and starts with a key press or release. Each wavetable is designed to have a different sonic character, while the Brilliance control can enhance harmonics within the wavetables (and the sawtooth and pulse oscillator models).

The Blofeld has 128 waves per wavetable - and 66 wavetables in total. The length of the tables can also be limited. Using various modulation options, wavetable synthesis allows for very ethereal, rich and textured sounds.

On top of this, wavetables are great for continuously evolving sounds (particularly pads) and can also be useful for bell-like textures and much more. They definitely sound amazing and inspiring on the Blofeld.

You'll be pleased to learn that the Blofeld features wavetables from the Microwave XTK and XT and also from the Q and Micro Q models. It also incorporates the 'Upper wavetable' from the venerable PPG Wave - this can be looked upon as a 'best of' wavetable, incorporating all the extreme wave types from smooth to nasty.

Oscillators

Moving on to the Virtual Analogue synthesis/Osc section, the supplied waves include sawtooth, triangle, sine and variable pulse wave. Each oscillator can have its own PWM source and amount - they sound suitably phat and analogue-like and we're very impressed by their solid, heavy and wide frequency range. Oscillator sync between Oscs 2 and 3 is also available.