Waldorf Protein (leaked)

The whole thing feels very well made, with a nice heft to it, along with high quality encoders and pots that feel the same as the iridum keyboard/core. I get the screen at 30mm (just over an inch) on the diagonal, but it is bright and clear, with good resolution for its size, and wide viewing angle. I've had no issue using it, whereas I do have issues sometimes with screens larger than this.

It has 8 voices that can be spread across 4 layers, with each layer having 2 oscillators with independent wavetable selection (unlike the Microwave 1 Plugin), always with triangle, square and saw as the top 3 waveforms. There are 64 wavetables of 61+3 waveforms. The oscillators have a very nice sound to them, very much like the Microwave 1 Plugin - I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of demos showing this off.

Each layer can be routed to FX1, FX2 or Out.

Layers can be configured in single mode where the user selects the active layer and each layer can be configured as desired. These different layer setups are saved with the patch, so could use this to instantly change between a set of 4-timbres without patch loading. Layers can be copy/pasted and loaded from saved patches.

Alternatively, in multimode the layers can be layered so they play at once, round robin, random robin or midi split (multi-timbral via midi channel).

It has a separate Dirt/Noise source, with a choice of noise/crackle types.

The filter section can be LP/HP/Bypass. It can also be put into drive mode with choices of PNP/Tube/PickUp/Diode/Crunch (sinusoidal waveshaper).

It has envelopes for the wavetable position, filter and amp - these are all ADSR. The way it works is that moving one of the envelope knobs, or going via edit and selecting the relevant envelope, depicts the envelope shape with its ADSR parameter values.

The main select encoder can be used to select the desired stage, then either the dedicated knob (eg envelope:wave) can be used to change the selected parameter value, or the select encoder can be pressed which allows that encoder to change it.

It remembers the selected stage for each envelope type, so turning the relevant envelope knob affects the last selected stage for that envelope eg could have wave knob changing wave env attack, filter knob changing filt env decay and amp knob changing amp sustain. I was initially a bit sceptical about this but find it works well in practice.

It has 2 syncable LFOs with shapes including random and S&H, routable via the 8 slot mod matrix, which has sources that include 10 CCs, random and constant.

The 2 FX, which are serial insert, include chorus, flanger, tremolo, drive (same modes as filter), compressor, EQ, delay and reverb. with a good number of parameters each. Quantum/iridium owners should be at home with these - it seems a surprisingly strong offering for a synth at this price point.

It's MPE capable, with per-note pitchbend, poly-aftertouch and MPE Y-axis (cc74) as matrix sources.

The arp and 32-step mono sequencer are global rather than per layer, but they have a good selection of options each and share some concepts from quantum/iridium.

The flavour knob is global and brings random variations to a number of parameters. One of those parameters is wavetable position, but it avoids going into the fixed tri/sqr/saw top waveforms, so there aren't any extreme changes in timbre from that.

Obviously it's firmware based, so all of this is subject to potential change over time.

It runs fine from a power bank.

Given the quality of the hardware and the scope of the sound engine, I was genuinely surprised at the €329 EUR price-point.