Waldorf Blofeld keyboard: installing "standard samples"

Question

I'm not sure that this StackExchange is the best place for this, so close this question with extreme prejudice if I'm out of line.

I have a Waldorf Blofeld keyboard, and via their "Spectre" application on Windows I'm trying to download (or upload; however you want to look at it) the "Standard Sample" set from the computer to the device. The software seems to start transferring the file (a MIDI file), and the device UI displays a message to the effect that the contents are being downloaded.

However, after getting to (variously) 3% or 4% of the transfer (according to Spectre), the transfer just stops. The little red "MIDI" light at the top of the keyboard UI stops flashing as well.

I've left it sitting there in that state for long periods of time (hours), and nothing ever happens.

Now, I've been able to do firmware updates and patch file transfers from the same computer with the same setup without any problems. And in all other ways, the keyboard seems to work just fine; it plays music and stuff.

Is there some sort of "reset" or something that can/should be done to prep the sample memory for a download?

I'm running the 1.22 version of the firmware, and (I think) a new version of Spectre; I just re-downloaded it and re-installed it today.

Answer 1

I don't know whether this constitutes a helpful answer for any future sufferer of my problems, but here's the status:

• The "Standard Sample Set" is really two downloads. One download is a MIDI file (the one I had), and one is a "wpc" file. I don't know what "wpc" means but that's the one you really want.

• The "wpc" file is loaded via the Spectre app in the "Program" part of the application view (the stuff on the left). When you open the "wpc" file, you'll see all the samples listed in that panel. Then you click "Transmit" to send them to the Blofeld. That process takes like 20 minutes. It may or may not be the case that the "wpc" file must be loaded first. All I know is that started working before the MIDI file load worked. For me.

• For whatever reason, my original PC succeeded in that but did not succeed in transmitting the MIDI file for the samples. Now, I will point out that I have no idea what the MIDI file is supposed to actually do.

• I installed Windows 10 on another old laptop I have and was able to install the MIDI file from there. I still don't know whether that did anything useful or interesting.

• I can see that the samples are there. When cycling through the "Shape" values available for an oscillator, you get through a zillion "Wavetable" values and then you get to the samples. The samples seem to be pretty good, though if you try them out in a random patch weird things can happen for reasons I don't understand; I think the way the oscillator software iterates through the samples doesn't necessarily work the same as the way the wavetable entries work, so sometimes settings in the patch may cause things to go off the rails. I would love for somebody who gets it to explain what's going on.

Thus and all, I think I've done what I want, though I'm not entirely sure I see the point. The Blofeld is extremely flexible with its "native" analog simulation self, and the samples seem like an add-on that might enable some useful effects but musically I'm not so sure. (I'd love to be proven wrong of course.)

For reference, the Blofeld stuff is available here, for now at least.