Late 2025/ early 2026, great condition, plastic is still on the screen.

Waldorf Iridium

All the power of Waldorf's flagship instrument is now available as a fully featured desktop synthesizer in the form of Iridium, with a few additions thrown in. The Iridium contains the exact same synthesis engines as the Quantum, and patches are compatible with both instruments, meaning the existing libraries of Quantum patches are at your full disposal on Iridium from day one.

The core of Iridium lies in 3 powerful digital oscillators per voice, with several modes building upon the foundation laid by Waldorf's legacy instruments, as well as state-of-the-art modern algorithms pushing the boundaries of synthesis. As of Quantum OS 2.0, each oscillator can operate in one of five modes. Wavetable is a modern take on the idea of morphing waveforms, pioneered by past instruments such as the legendary Waldorf Wave, adding in powerful capabilities for generating wavetables from audio and speech synthesis. Waveform provides fixed audio waveforms, but allows each oscillator to stack eight simultaneous waves at once, with detuning or chord modes as well as hard sync, PWM, and more. The Particle mode is a versatile sample-based engine capable of behaving like a traditional sampler, or offering more complex sound dsign potential courtesy of the granular mode. Fans of physical modeling will enjoy the Resonator mode, which provides precise control over excitation and body courtesy of multi-sampled exciter and filter bank models. Rounding out the palette of sonic colors for Iridium, the Kernel mode is a modular-like environment for arranging and connecting oscillators together into an incredible number of combinations, leading to the creation of classic FM sounds or compelling feedback patches.

While the Quantum is a hybrid synthesizer with digital oscillators running into analog filters, the Iridium is fully digital, but that should not be viewed as a downside. The three digital filters per voice are true stereo, meaning that spatial depth and movement created in the oscillators will not be lost going through the filter. The Dual Filter section provides two authentically analogue-sounding filters, with a variety of saturation settings in lowpass, bandpass, and highpass modes. Following those more typical filters is the Digital Former section, adding comb filters, bit crushers, and other unmistakably digital sounds to your toolset. Like the Quantum, Iridium also contains powerful modulation potential with six envelope generators and six LFOs, and an assignable modulation matrix for routing up to 40 control sources (including duplicates) to nearly any parameter.

Where Iridium deviates furthest from Quantum is in its physical form. Beyond the clear difference of being a smaller desktop unit compared to a full sized keyboard synthesizer, Iridium also features sixteen RGB pads for playing notes or triggering chords, sequences, and arpeggios. Additionally, Iridium further provides connectivity with your existing hardware gear with the welcome addition of CV I/O, with four inputs available as sources in the Mod Matrix, as well as Gate and Trigger inputs and analog Clock I/O.

While on the surface it appears to simply be a smaller counterpart to its sibling, the Waldorf Iridium is a highly featured and deep instrument for sound design and synthesis, and will reward anyone willing to dive in.