Waldorf Streichfett String Synthesizer Sounds ‘Like Adult Movies Sounded 30 Years Ago’

waldorf-streichfett

Waldorf will be introducing a new synth at Musikmesse 2014, the Streichfett String Synthesizer.

The Waldorf Streichfett combines the best of the now extinct species of String Synthesizers of the 70s and early 80s. Its dual sound engine features a fully polyphonic strings section and a monophonic solo section, which, according to Waldorf, is ‘essential for recreating how adult movies sounded thirty years ago’. 

streichfett-string-synth

Here’s what they have to say about the Streichfett:

The Ensemble Effect handles lubrication of the String Section, while the Effects section adds adjustable Phaser or Reverb. Alternatively, the Effect section can be used to animate the strings registration, allowing spectacular sound morphs.

Here’s an unofficial audio demo, via GearJunkies:

The Solo Section offset presets named Bass, E-Piano or Clavi, and just like in your typical string machine, the sound has little to do with that name. Instead, these are shimmering and slightly percussive sounds that blend well with the string section.

Although the User Interface is simple and easy to comprehend, it controls a rather complex sound engine which is capable to delivers rich and creamy pads unlike any other instrument.

Twelve patches can be stored and selected in the Memory section, USB and MIDI are of course on board.

Features:

  • Fully polyphonic Strings Section with Violin, Viola, Cello, Brass, Organ and Choir presets
  • 2nd Layer with Violin/Viola Voicing
  • Ensemble Effect for String Section
  • Typical String Envelope Generator with Crescendo and Release
  • Monophonic Solo Section, offering Bass, E-Piano, Clavi, Synth and Pluto sounds
  • Dedicated Tremolo for Solo Section
  • Switchable Envelope generator with variable Sustain setting and Attack/Decay (Release) function
  • Effect Section with Animate, Phaser or Reverb
  • Layer or Split for Solo Section
  • Dedicated balance knob for quick adjustment of layered/split sounds
  • Fully programmable with 3×4 memory locations

Controls:

  • Volume Pot
  • Strings Section with organic preset select, Crescendo and Release pots
  • 3-state Octave switch (Base/Both/8va)
  • 3-state 2nd voice switch
  • Ensemble Effect pushbutton
  • Solo Section with organic solo sound select pot
  • Tremolo pot
  • 3 state split switch (splitpoint low/mid/layer)
  • 2 state sustain switch
  • Balance pot with center detend
  • Effect Section with 3 state switch (Chorus/Phase/Animate)
  • Effect Depth pot
  • 3 state switch for memory bank position (A, B, C)
  • 4 pushbuttons for program number (1 to 4)
  • Full MIDI/USB Control

Connections:

  • Stereo Audio out (Left/Stereo, Right/Mono)
  • Headphone out
  • USB MIDI

Price and Availability

The Waldorf Streichfett will ship in late Springtime, with a list price of 235 Euro (excl. VAT). See the Waldorf site for more info.

Note: Google translates ‘Streichfett’ to ‘spreadable fat’. Let us know if you’ve got a better translation!

80 thoughts on “Waldorf Streichfett String Synthesizer Sounds ‘Like Adult Movies Sounded 30 Years Ago’”

  1. This looks very cool. I’m assuming its digital due to the size of the box, but if it sounds good it could be a nice little addition.

      1. Honestly, I’d take a Q over a minibrute any day of the week ( I own both). I’m really happy that analog is enjoying such a renaissance, but this attitude that everything else is worthless is really lazy and no better than the prevalent attitude a 10 years ago that VSTs were the only way to go. I remember there was an assumption that people only bought hardware for the presets, and that REAL musicians knew that VSTs were the way to go….and so here we are. Same narrow mindset. Different product. I prefer to use both analog and VAs, because both do different things better than the other.

        I really think we should be more focused on workflow and not what team a synth is on. Contrasting working with my P12 and my Andromeda are a testament to that.

        1. I absolutely agree with you. I remember people laughing at me when I played casios with fx s, then everybody started with that… only analogue is as silly as only digital… workflow is the most important thing… it s the music, not the instrument, it s the musician…inspiring instruments are just that…inspiring instruments

  2. Incredibly clever! I’m not sure the market is there but it should be. There are so many great cheapish strings machines floating around the secondhand market. Why not just buy a new one?

  4. Streichfett is a generell term for margarine or butter and streichen is the german verb for to bow.

    Greetings from germany!

      1. ?? “streichen” doesnt mean “spread” in any case ..

        and also it doesnt mean “bow” in this case, it means “coat with” like apply butter

        streichfett is simply an old word for butter because its milk or pork fat that you can put on a bread

        1. Streicher = string instruments
          Fett = same as english “fat”
          Streichfett = word game of streichen = play a stringe instrument (and other meanings) and Fett = see obove

          Anyone saying different: look it up in an actual dictionary, not the google scum.

        2. In English, “to spread” DOES mean to coat with or apply, as in to spread butter or cream cheese on toast…so it seems like you guys are all saying the same thing but don’t know it.

          1. The german word “streichen” has multiple meanings, and Streichfett indeed results in a new meaning. But it’s still a word game, streichen means to bow a string instrument (and also to cross something out, to spread something…) you get the idea.

  5. Looks pretty cool. I’m assuming that these photos are of a proof-of-concept and not of a real product, given that there is no power supply input.

    2. Uh…. Muskimesse is next week, so……. Also, the above images appear to be renders to me, rather than photographs. There’s no bevel on the edge of the front face.

      1. Goat man is right! It appears to be another of those fake string machine renders that pop up like a bad penny before every Musikmesse or NAMM show. Accept it, people: no matter how much you’d like a major company – or any company, for that matter – to make a string machine, it ain’t gonna happen! So please quit with the wishful thinking, ill-founded rumors and fantasy renders of string machines. It’s the stuff dreams are made of and, at some point, you have to accept the reality.

        1. Oh, I don’t think it’s a fake product. I am a 3d artist by trade and have had direct communication with Waldorf in the past about producing visual content, so I know they visualize their synths in 3d. It’s also easier to just render a 3d model than shoot it and clean it up. You don’t have to set up lights, and you get a very clean alpha.

          Musikmesse is next week, so I think we’ll get to hear it then… at least i hope so.

    3. how can a prototype work without a power supply man?
      what is it going to prove? have you even heard of rocket?
      i swear synthtopia has become aggregate for nonsensical comments.

  6. It’s a form of wordplay.

    Streichfett does indeed mean “Spreadable Fat,” but it’s very close to “Fetten Streicher” which means “Fat Strings.” So you get a cool double-meaning.

      2. actually, i think it’s the other way around, no? people that don’t really know lazily assume analog is better all the time.

  10. Amazing how much interest a step out of the crowd can produce, I don’t need strings but I could defiantly use some

    1. Yeah I think so because if its digital then you may as well just use a vst lol. I’m pretty sure it ain’t fully analogue otherwise they would have mentioned it.

      1. The main reasons to use hardware over a VST are quite nice, actually.

        * Dedicated controls at your fingertip
        * Doesn’t suck up your precious CPU

        These are the main reasons I buy hardware–analog or not.

      2. I was just being facetious based on two comments prior to mine about how it ‘looks sick but is it analogue’ comment… When I wrote my comment, there was no comment in between so I didn’t feel the need to ‘reply’ to that one…

        That said, I think you’re wrong (or that you are not inherently correct, but this is just an opinion). I don’t think vst’s are bad, I don’t think digital gear is bad, and I don’t think analog gear is inherently good. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and there is no reason to necessarily create boundaries between what you use and don’t want to use. I could guarantee you that some 13 year old using nothing more than a drumstick, a microphone, and a 4-track recording device could make better music than you or I… it just takes creativity/ingenuity. One major benefit of hardware gear (digital or analog) is that it typically comes with resale value. People trade synths all the time, but this is much less the case with vsts.

        The world is unfortunately full of a species that loves to classify things into two categories: ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’

  12. Waldorf may be totally tongue-in-cheek on this product, but I definitely want one. I really wish I would have bought that RS-09 for $80 when I had the chance.

    1. I don’t think CPU power is an issue these days unless you’re using an IPad for production. 🙂 I think the reason hardware is preferable is because its more fun.

      1. There’s also the added bonus that hardware will still run in 5 or 10 years. Today’s apps probably won’t be compatible with whatever OS versions our hardware is running in two or three years.

    2. Absolutely! I’ve been lusting after some paraphonic divide-down goodness and if this delivers that then I for one will be on it like stink on [censored].

  14. I like that making 80’s porno music is a selling point. They have definitely caught my interest. I remember watching a movie with subtitles, and when the music came in the screen read: [sleazy synthesizer]. I have been searching for such sleaze and perhaps found it.

  15. why is everyone hung up on semantics?
    does anyone really care what the name means?
    waldorf has really gotten clever. they saw a gaping niche of cheaper portable desktop synths only korg was plugging and went for it. this is the third in the same format and i bet there is more to come.
    time to sell some stuff.

  16. I wonder why so many people go wild for hardware versions of antique synths when you can program the majority of those sounds easily on modern gear? That’s especially true of the largely-paraphonic string synth era. It also limits you to dote on the sounds and gear of an earlier period too much. I like a few of those old string-glob sounds, but never in an exposed setting. They’re too simplistic & fairly scream “70s pre-polyphonics.” I almost always blend them with ‘real’ sampled strings and Mellotron components, at which point they start to have some muscle. To each his own, but learning to program things better will save you time and money, as well as keeping you from sounding too cookie-cutter.

    1. Well, yeah. “String Machines” are synths with fixed or inflexible parameters and architecture. I kind of liken them to analog ROM-plers. But, there’s a certain charm and immediacy with these machines I think.

    2. People seem to get the most offended when you suggest that they do more programming on their own. That puzzles me, because if you’re into this world, don’t you WANT to shape it to make it your own? I had a Mellotron itch I finally had to scratch, so I sure have no ill will for someone who has the same yen for string synths. I can also respect that hardware hard-on thing when a tool rings the right bells. Still, I’ve played some vintage gear, so I understand the ingredients pretty well. I CAN build a software string synth in my sleep. If a Solina is your ultimate thing, okay, but that’s one the least strenuous things you can ask of a polysynth of any kind. I apologize for not WANTING to sound like ’30 years ago.’ 😀

  17. I hope it can sound like the legendary Solina and I wonder if the phaser mimics the Jarre small stone effect? Time will tell.

  18. Shame it seems to be fully digital. Would have been cool if it was digital oscillators but with analog BBE chorus/delay.

    2. this is ridiculous. judging a synth only by the virtue of being digital and without even hearing it?
      absurd. how bout using your ears sometimes?

  24. Dearest Waldorf,
    Please put the nave engine into one of these boxes, with some endless encoders and the screen from the blofeld and then watch as I hurl my money unthinkingly into the account of whichever retailer gets it in stock first.
    Kind regards,
    Some internet idiot.

    1. waldorf must sell some “pedalboard” in which rocket, filter2 and streichfett fit in with power unit dispatch … semi modular thing with usb !!!

  26. I really like this idear of a modern stringer synth, and I relly don’t care if it’s analog or digital, as long as it sounds good.

    One of the reasons I want this is that it has an Ensemble effect. If you are into hardware synths, there really are not many options for getting a modern stringer synth with the Ensemble effect. You can find several digital synths, and FX units that has an “Ensemble” effect, but it’s not a Stringer Ensemble effect, but rather another type of dense Chorus, and it DEFINITELY does not sound the same!

    If you want that kind of stringersound today, you’d almost certainly have to get a real one, that is darn heavy, and takes a hell of a lot of space… thus, I like the idear of this new creation from Waldorf. In addition it will have something old Stringers do not; MEMORY! and MIDI CONTROL. It’s much more integrateable into a hardware studio setup with options for creating editors on the computer.

    In the hardware market I know of only two synths that come with a dedicated Stringer Ensemble effect, and that is the Alesis Micron, and the new Nord A1… but both have keyboards, and I personaly prefer modules, so the Waldorf “butterfat” thing is really interresting to me.

    But I’m really interrested in hearing it… especialy how the Ensemble effect sounds, and not the least; the build in Phaser… a Phaser on a Stringer synth, and you’re in Jarre land imediately, but the Phaser is crucial… hope it sounds close to a Smallstone.

    So… niche product or not, analog or not… I’m ging to follow this one closely… it’d be really nice if this was good… then my Eminent 310 Unique organ could retire maybe…. naaah… probably not ;O)

  27. I have not seen one of those USB connectors on new kit for years, if it was only for data I am sure they would have used a micro connector. It doesn’t mean that you need to use a computer though, you an buy a wall wart that uses a USB A connector, and just plug your lead into that. It’s quite an neat solution really and I would love one. All I have to do now is convince my wife to help me make the porno film to go with it.

  29. If people had heard an Omni string sounds in person I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t thumbs down every comment that mentioned the word analog. No need to model analog when you can have real analog. I’m not sure what the point would be to model a simple string synth with digital. Speaking of simple, a filter and LFO would have been a sweet bonus.

  31. In German strings are called “Streicher” or string instruments are “Streich Instrumente” So, a better translation would be Fat Strings

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