It's all in the packaging. The signal path is monophonic, just one filter, LFO and envelope, but the oscillator is capable of producing up to eight different waveforms at once to throw though it. The oscillator is all controlled by a switch and two knobs. Depending on whether you choose saw or pulse waves, the knobs do different things. They even do different things depending on where you set them. With the saw wave selected, the 'wave" knob will add a second oscillator in hard sync through the first part of it's travel, then it will start stacking extra copies of the waveform as you continue turning it (no hard sync), then it starts detuning them into different chords and, finally, it gives you a big, fat unison when it's turned all the way up. The other knob, marked "Tune", sets the depth of the hard sync, or the detune of the extra oscillators, or it changes the chord that's being played. With the Pulse wave selected, you get PWM and other stuff when you turn the knobs.. It's really, really clever and really, really easy to use. You can make a completely different sound with just a couple of twists. It's awesome.
The trick oscillator isn't why I bought it, though. The Minilogue and Monologue only have low-pass filters but this does low, band and high pass which means it can do things the others can't. And it sounds great, better than the Korg filters. In fact, the sound quality of the thing is stellar all the way through.
Of course, it's not all wonderful. The envelope is weird and very basic. The only knob is marked "Decay" and there are switches for "Sustain" and "Release". It means the knob will actually work as either Decay or Release and Attack is fixed. The LFO is also pretty basic but it has an ARP mode, which has a clutch of predefined patterns as well as the usual up/down stuff. It's not in the same league as the Monologue's Motion Sequencer but it's handy enough. There is no master volume (but there is a headphone volume knob) and there is no octave transpose on the oscillator so you have to play really low MIDI notes to get low notes.
Worst of all, it doesn't have any patch memory but you can send all parameter positions through MIDI (USB or MIDID cable) to your sequencer, so it is possible to store and recall settings. Strangely, though, two of the switch positions cannot be automated or stored so you have to remember to set those manually.
Elsewhere a lot of things just happen automatically, like if it is receiving MIDI clock it automatically syncs to tempo. To set the MIDI channel you hold in a button at the back and it detects incoming data and sets itself to that channel. You can trigger a note from a button on the front and it remembers the last note that was input and triggers that (or middle C). There is also a third party VSTi and standalone editor that unlocks a couple of hidden features like a second LFO that only does vibrato at a fixed rate.
Overall, it sounds absolutely amazing and a lot of effort has clearly gone into giving users the greatest amount of flexibility from the fewest number of controls, to the point that I don't even know if I'll bother saving patches. It's just so easy to remember where things should be to create specific types of sounds and so quick to get from one to the next. It's so good that it's got me thinking about maybe getting a Blofeld and doing our live sound mostly with hardware. We'd keep Orion as our sequencer, for drums and for the irreplaceable Wasp - I say "irreplaceable" but I think maybe Rocket could do as good a job. A lightweight software set-up like that would easily run on my 8" tablet so we could have a really tiny live rig. And the thing I've discovered with Blofeld is that, even though it has been around since 2008, there isn't so much as a single used one on eBay. That's extraordinary and says a lot about how good Blofeld must be. I am sorely tempted at this point. If we weren't off to play in Europe in a few weeks I would probably already have bought one but the trip is costing us a fortune so it will have to wait.
