Introduction

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Wolfram Franke, a brilliant mind in the world of sound design and synthesis. I had the pleasure of collaborating with him on the F.’em synthesizer, for which I created a sound set. It's truly an honor to share more about Wolfram's incredible journey and contributions to the electronic music world.

He played a key role in the development of legendary synthesizers such as the Waldorf Blofeld, Micro Q, and Access Virus C, and was also involved in the iconic Waldorf Wave. The Virus TI, which evolved from the Virus C, stands as one of the landmark instruments in electronic music.

In addition, Wolfram contributed to the development of the groundbreaking F.'em synthesizer from Tracktion. His influence also reaches into the sonic innovation of BioTek, another hybrid synthesizer pushing the boundaries between nature and machine.

He was also the lead developer behind the iconic PPG Wave 2.V plugin, a pioneering collaboration between Waldorf and Steinberg that brought wavetable synthesis into the digital domain with surgical precision and deep sonic character.

With his background straddling both analog and digital technologies, and a developer’s mind fused with a musician’s ear, Wolfram’s vision has quietly shaped modern electronic music.

1. Vasil:

Let’s start from the beginning. What inspired you to get involved in synthesizer development, and how did your journey with Waldorf begin back in 1992?

Wolfram:

Well, after getting piano lessons from when I was a little child I joined a local punk and new wave band as a keyboarder in 1985. For that I bought the MK1 synthesizer from the German home organ brand Wersi. Since Wersi targeted the home organist and the typical party entertainer, it didn’t really have sounds suited for punk music, but rather sounds like accordion, tuba, trumpet and so on. So I had to create my own sounds right from the start. The MK1 was an additive synthesizer so I had to understand how to create the desired waveforms by adjusting individual harmonics, which meant that I had to understand the very core of how sounds are produced.

Close by our practice room was a little demo studio that was run by Achim Flor, who at that time also was a sales agent for TSi, a distributor for music instruments and tools, among them at several points in time PPG, Simmons, OSC (the creators of the OSCar), Steinberg, Novation, MIDIMan (later M-Audio) and who founded Waldorf in 1987 to first create hardware products for Steinberg, such as the SMP24, Midex, SMPII, and to create a new version of the PPG Wave 2.3 in rack format, which became the Waldorf MicroWave.

Now, in late 1989 Achim searched for people who could create sounds for this upcoming synth and he asked me if I would give it a shot. I did and after the initial 32 sounds I gave him he asked for more. Then, in 1992, they hired me as product manager for all TSi products including the Waldorf range and over time I became more and more involved in the development of their synths, starting with the legendary Waldorf Wave.

2. Vasil:

Virus TI Legacy. You were instrumental in the creation of the Access Virus TI, a pivotal instrument. What were the most exciting challenges in its development, and what do you believe made Virus so iconic in the global electronic scene?

Wolfram:

The Virus was the right instrument at the right time. I still remember when Christoph Kemper told me back in the 90s that he was working on a DSP-based synth and that he was in talks with the then-head of Access Music to use their MicroWave or Matrix Programmer as its housing, with the respective additions like LCD, audio outs and so on.

The Virus TI, and the TI2, were the culmination of the Virus series. I worked on the TI part, mainly the audio and MIDI driver integration and the plugin, together with my colleague Timo Kaluza.

The biggest challenge was to get a sample-exact sync. Plugin audio is processed in blocks of samples that vary on each platform, each audio driver, each host app and even if the host is paused or playing. So, a plugin gets the MIDI data in advance, sends this data to the Virus TI, gets back the audio data and renders them into the host-provided audio buffer. And the biggest challenge was determining the correct latency of this process and all the circumstances I mentioned earlier. Getting this right cost me many nights’ sleep.

3. Vasil:

Waldorf Micro Q. This synth was a game-changer for many producers, myself included. It deeply influenced my perspective on synthesis and music production. What made Micro Q so special, and what memories do you have from its creation?

Wolfram:

Well, the Micro Q was a budget version of the Q. The Q had three DSPs to process its audio and the Micro Q did more or less the same in one DSP, with some limitations, for sure. I didn’t have to do a lot with its development other than writing the specifications of the original Q with its three oscillators, two filters and so on, and I certainly took part on specifying the user interface of the Micro Q. And I made one of the demo songs, which unfortunately doesn’t sound as good as intended since the stereo delay parameters were changed in the last second and the song was never updated to set these new parameters. This is why the song sounds a bit drowned in delay. I still think it’s great, though.

On the other hand, I worked on the Blofeld where I designed and programmed the user interface. I’m quite proud of it, especially considering the very limited hardware it runs on. Its micro controller is a Motorola 68k equivalent with only 32kB of RAM. Just think of the power of an Atari ST, well, a little faster, but with only half the RAM of a C64.

4. Vasil:

From hardware to virtual: The PPG Plugin. The interview you did for Amazona details how you recreated the PPG as a VST. How did you approach the balance between authenticity and innovation when replicating such a classic?

Wolfram:

When I developed the original PPG Wave 2.V plugin, computer hardware was quite limited, so I had to cheat here and there to achieve the goal of a faithful recreation of the PPG Wave 2.2. I still think I did a good job back in 2000 with it.

For its updated version, the PPG Wave 3.V, I had the luxury that computers were much faster, and therefore I could emulate the original sound characteristic much better, especially the oscillators.

And I wanted to add effects to it. When listening to PPG Wave sounds in classic 80s tracks, it is almost always processed with chorus, reverb or delays.

Also, a huge part of the myth of the original PPG Wave sound came from its Waveterm samples, so I made sure to include them and have them sound like the original PPG hardware back then with their crunchy 12-bit resolution.

5. Vasil:

Biotek & F.'em – hybrid synthesis. You have helped create hybrid instruments that blur the lines between synthesis types. What was your design philosophy behind BioTek and F.'em? What were the biggest creative or technical hurdles?

Wolfram:

BioTek, my first creation for Tracktion, was originally meant as a macro synthesizer for end users, with its deep sound designing capabilities available only for accredited sound designers. So, to fulfil the wet dreams of a sound designer, I packed everything into it I could think of and was able to develop. But soon after we released it, people wanted to access its parameters directly rather than adjusting macro controls the sound designer made available. And so I did, resulting in this synth with a huge amount of parameters, many of which even experienced sound designers haven’t even touched yet. Honestly, have you created any sound that uses its layer trigger modes to switch between different sounds depending on the note playing speed, for example?

With F.’em, I wanted to create the ultimate FM synthesizer. If others offer six operators per voice, why not offer eight? Plus a sample operator that can modulate those operators and another sample operator which is modulated by all of them. Plus filters, a nearly unlimited modulation matrix and everything else you can find in it. And it should at least be somewhat usable, albeit never becoming the easiest FM synth in the world.

6. Vasil:

Sound design evolution. Over the years, you’ve worked on analog modeling, wavetable, FM and hybrid synths. How have you seen synthesis evolve over the decades, and where do you see it heading?

Wolfram:

Honestly, I don’t know where it’s heading. There are always interesting concepts popping up like the Dawesome plugins but ultimately a synth is always only as good as the sounds it has available for it. Only a few end users create sounds from scratch, they mainly call up existing sounds and only adjust cutoff, envelopes or effects.

What I pity, though, is that physical modelling and additive synthesis never really took off. Sure, there are nice examples of them out there, but especially additive synthesis is so nice to work with. But it’s so fine-grained that creating a sound with it just takes too much time.

7. Vasil:

Personal connection. As someone who has used and designed sounds for several of your instruments, I’ve always admired the character embedded in them. What continues to inspire you to innovate in this field?

Wolfram:

First and foremost I am a musician, although I don’t have a lot of time to actually make music. But I also like to listen to good music and always enjoy a good sound, from any instrument but especially from synths. So, I always try to make better synthesizers for people to enjoy and to work with.

8. Vasil:

Advice for the next generation. What advice would you give to young sound designers and synth developers starting out today?

Wolfram:

Difficult question since there are so many aspects to it. I think I don’t have an advice for synth developers, only maybe for sound designers. Listen to sounds you like, try to analyze them and then try to recreate them. Start from scratch often rather than using existing sounds. That gives you a better understanding of the synth and its power. If you feel that a feature is missing, try to come up with a way to simulate it. Simplest example here would be that if a synth doesn’t have a chorus, put a little LFO modulation on the oscillators to get a chorus effect.

Vasil:
Thank you again, Wolfram, for sharing your time and insights.

Conversation captured by Vasil Ivanov, The Editor