I've been trying to avoid selling this - it's by far my favourite hardware synthesiser, with an awesome aesthetic, unique character, endlessly interesting sounds, and a big red dial on the front. But I recently downsized my apartment and I can't justify keeping my rack-mounted hardware around anymore. These synths are too much fun to be gathering dust in storage so I'm selling it to someone who'll make use of it!

It's got the most character and quirkiness of any synthesiser I've ever used. It's not pretending to be an analog synthesiser and it's fully leaning into being a 100% digital synthesiser and the character of sound that gives you. The presets sit easily into a mix, and they respond incredibly well to adding reverb and saturation to bring out their character and add fatness.

It's a classic Waldorf synth from the company's greatest era, but their synthesisers are notoriously highly strung, so a few of maintenance tips…

Like almost all Waldorf hardware of this era, the finish on the front is becoming faded and patchy, but wiping the front down with a damp cloth helps prevent it drying out and keeps the finish. (Don't use soap or cleaning fluids - they wipe the printed labels off the panel!)

The Microwave II is sensitive to fluctuations in voltage, whether that's from ground loops in your setup (ie. having the Microwave connected to computer/speakers/interface that are connected to a different power socket). So make sure everything in your set up is running on a single electrical circuit.

It's also sensitive to sysex messages being received too quickly, or out of order - so if you are using sysex to send patches to the Microwave II, make sure you use a MIDI interface that handles sysex well.

There's an amazing community supporting the Microwave II, and you can find hundreds of software editors and preset packs online, and there's so much depth in the sound design that you'll still be learning tricks years later. I'm extremely sad to let this go but I'd be more sad to put it in a closet or storage unit somewhere - please give it a good home!