Firstly, they have a very big pitch range. Their base frequency can be from less than 1Hz up to around 20kHz.

Oscillator 2 can be hard-synchronized to Oscillator 1. This means that the phase of Oscillator 2 is reset as soon as Oscillator 1 resets its phase. When you tune Oscillator 2 much higher than Oscillator 2, it plays its waveform in its usual manner until Oscillator 1 starts a new waveform cycle. Then, Oscillator 2 starts its waveform again as well. This results in metallic, harsh spectra which are very well known from old analog synthesizers.

Furthermore, Oscillator 1 can be Frequency Modulated by Oscillator 2. What does that mean? The explanation is simple, while the results can be very complex. The magnitude of Oscillator 2's waveform is used to raise or lower the pitch of Oscillator 1. A zero magnitude in the waveform of Oscillator 2 therefore means that the pitch of Oscillator 1 isn't modulated, a positive magnitude raises the pitch while a negative magnitude lowers it. The amount of this effect is controlled by the FM Amount parameter. This frequency modulation can span several octaves if you like and the FM Amount is of course modulatable. The results can range from buzzing distortions over metallic, dirty sounds to clean, rich bell timbres.

Don't ask for Oscillator Waveforms, Pulse Width Modulation or Ring Modulation here. We will come to that a little later.

What else do they feature?

Both Oscillators can have individual keytracking, from -100%, which means that a played scale is inverted, through 0% where no pitch change occurs up to 200%, meaning, that every semitone interval is interpreted as 2 semitones. The resolution of this parameter is very fine to also allow, for example, 25% or 33% scalings.

You can set the Pitch Bend Range of both Oscillators individually. And in a range of 10 octaves (120 semitones)!

All continuous parameters of the Oscillators can be modulated in real time by any of the available Modulation Sources. Among others, they feature the LFOs, Envelopes, MIDI Control Messages or Velocity.

In short (you will find a closer look at them in the Operating Manual):

Imagine a table with 64 entries. Each entry represents a single cycle waveform like sine, triangle, sawtooth or one of many, many other spectra stored in the Wavetable memory.

The easiest way to think of such a table is when you start with a dull wave like sine in the first entry over brighter waves in the next entries up to a very bright wave like sawtooth in the 61st slot. On top of that, add the "classic analog" waveforms triangle, square and sawtooth wave (the last three waves of each wavetable are always triangle, square and sawtooth, to give you the classic "analog" behaviour at hand).

Think of a parameter that you can tweak to choose any of these waveforms while the sound is playing. When you turn this parameter, it might sound like an opening or closing filter. From sine to sawtooth and vice versa. This is one of the characters a wavetable can produce.

Now replace the wavetable with a completely weird one in your imagination. Each entry has a completely different waveform, e.g. an e-piano timbre followed by a bell type wave, a square wave and so on. When you now tweak the parameter, the timbre will change drastically. This might be interesting for rhythmic sounds.

Keep the above wavetable in mind, but think of gradual changes between the waveforms. That's the biggest thing about it. Just controlling the timbre to change slightly between two or more completely different spectra, stopping in the middle, going back and forth, as you like.

Doesn't that sound interesting? We bet. But now we come to the really good things.

You have this effect separately for each Oscillator! This means that one Oscillator can become brighter while the other one gets duller, or one plays a transition between e-piano and bell while the other stays at a triangle wave.

But it gets even better. You don't need to control this behaviour manually. Just control it by any of the available Modulation Sources, e.g.:

• an Envelope, as you would set up a filter sweep.
• or a LFO to change the waveforms periodically.
• or Velocity, to determine the wave that sounds when you strike a key with a certain strength.
• or Keytrack, to have a different wave on each key you play.

Everything you can think of is possible plus lots more. And the handling is quite easy. You set it up in a way similar to a filter. Your initial "Cutoff" parameter is called "Startwave" and you modulate it with "Keytrack" or "Envelope Amount" or similar things.

All wavetable-based Waldorf synthesizers feature at least 64 ROM wavetables, where you can use one in each sound. Here are some examples:

There is a wavetable that does nothing else but just change gradually from the first harmonic up to the 4th harmonic. It is called "Resonant" and you can find it on the very first wavetable position in memory. The description, in fact, doesn't sound very spectacular, but the sound can do so! When you set up both oscillators to play different waves from this table and modulate them with two different LFOs, you will get a very dense pad-like sound which only needs a little chorus and a slow amplifier envelope to be perfect.

There is another wavetable which represents voices. Each entry consists of a voice analysis with a particular formant character. The wavetable is called "Chorus 2". When you now use the middle E on your keyboard to set up a sung "Aaah" wave, you can use keytrack to find the right formant character for every key on your keyboard. So, also much lower or higher notes still produce the "Aaah" sound, but with a different pitch. This is a kind of a "multi sample", although it was created artificially. With some tweaks of the sound, it can come very close to a choir sound. Maybe you remember the good old PPG Wave who had this famous "PPG Choir Sound". This sound was done in a similar way.

Now we come to the Pulse Width Modulation, which you might have searched for in the Oscillator section. On our wavetable synths, Pulse Width Modulation is done with wavetables. And we feature a lot of those, all with different characters. Just think of a wavetable that contains waveforms from a plain square wave through asymmetric rectangular waves to a single peak. Now you can go through these different pulse waves as you would do with an analog synthesizer. With the Mod Wheel, Velocity, an LFO or Envelopes. It is absolutely the same behaviour.

There are much more wavetables in memory, featuring lots of timbres from soft to hard plus analyzed samples or crazy rhythm things. If that's still not enough, you can use a software based editor to create even more wavetables and waves. And they all work together with Oscillator Sync, Oscillator FM, Ring Modulation and Mixer Saturation.

Now, is that unique?

Maybe you know the II/XT predecessors, the Wave and Microwave, and the PPG Wave and Wavecomputer. They all had the same wavetable engine producing lots of side effects.

One of these side effects is wanted sometimes. They were non-interpolating. They just threw out a single sample until the next sample had to be played back. This resulted in a waveform with a lot of steps in it. For brilliant waves like sawtooth or square, this behaviour was perfect. But if it came to hollow waves, you could easily hear additional harmonics created by the tone generator.

Modern technology allows very powerful interpolation algorithms where those steps are smoothed out perfectly. This is good, but not for those brilliant, sharp sounds you might to get out of a "Wavetable" synthesizer.

So, we wanted both behaviours, and we wanted it user adjustable. The result is the Time Quantization parameter. It controls the behaviour of the wave generators by selecting the interpolation method. Setting it to minimum means that the waves are played back with perfect interpolation to minimize any side effects, while setting it to maximum means that you get the rough, non-interpolated sound character of the Microwave 1, the Wave and the PPG synthesizers.

Another side effect, which was annoying on all the older wavetable-based synths, is aliasing. Unfortunately, aliasing started already at middle pitches so a sound programmer had to make a big effort to make sure that he didn't use bright waveforms in the upper keyboard ranges. But still aliasing was noticeable. That's something no-one wants to have, maybe only for historical reasons or for really weird effects. And exactly for that reason, we put a parameter into the II/XT that is called "Aliasing". Usually, it is switched to off, but you can create the exact behaviour with that parameter like on the old wavetable synthesizers.

Wavetable-based synthesizers never had a tuning problem due to their digital oscillators. However, when you want to create analog-type sounds, you might need oscillators which aren't in tune that perfectly. Also, LFOs and envelopes should behave a little differently with each note you play. This gives a sound more life. For this reason, we have another parameter in the Quality page which is called "Accuracy". It simply switches between accurate and slightly randomized parameter calculations allowing you to decide if you want to have a sound exact or a little inaccurate.

For a Waldorf customer, maybe not. For people who still don't have a Waldorf synthesizer, a lot.

As with each Waldorf synthesizer, when the sum of all mix sources exceeds a certain limit, the signal is overdriven. And with an additional parameter you can decide if the overdrive behaves like analog saturation or digital clipping.

Furthermore, you will find the Ring Modulator level here. A real Ring Modulator uses the output of both Oscillators/Wave Generators to produce the sum and the differential frequencies. You can adjust the volume of this signal here. A Ring Modulator can provide you with the calm of wind chimes, a reassuring church bell, the opening gong of a ceremony or, in it's wildest state, some of the weirdest spacey effects that you can imagine.

The noise level and on the Microwave XT, the audio input level, are also adjusted here.

And again. All parameters are fully modulatable by any of the available modulation sources.

Basically, the Microwave II/XT features two filters. Let's start with the second one.

You can switch Filter 2 between a 6dB Lowpass and a 6dB Highpass filter. Not really spectacular but it helps you creating sounds by just lowering some low or high frequencies. It is especially useful when you simulate sounds you heard elsewhere.

For example, when you set it to a highpass with a mid-low cutoff setting, you can remove some bass end from typical Roland Jupiter pad sounds. This synthesizer also had a 6dB highpass which gave it its distinctive sound character. You simply could turn those sounds louder in a mix without creating overlapping phases in the bass end. The highpass filter is also very nice to create thin, sharp digital sounds because it adds a little brightness at the top end.

Setting it to lowpass also helps you in designing a sound. For example, some old machines had 18dB filters which aren't implemented in the II/XT. Just set the first filter to a 12dB type and the second filter to 6dB Lowpass. Now make sure that the second filter is slaved to the same modulations than the first filter and your 18dB filter is perfect. You can also use the same with the first filter set to 24dB which gives you a 30dB filter type in the end. Sounds good, huh?

Now let's come to Filter 1, which is definitely much more powerful. The best thing is to explain every single filter type currently available in the II/XT.

	24dB Lowpass This is the standard flavour. "Standard" might not be really correct, because it still does more than any other digital filter and therefore you should start thinking of an analog filter now. The 24dB Lowpass type in the II/XT doesn't sound exactly like the one you can find in the Microwave 1 or the Wave. It also doesn't sound exactly like the Pulse filter. The character is something in between those two filter characteristics or, if compared with synthesizers from other companies, it sounds pretty close to the SSM filter which worked in the Prophet 5 and other classic polyphonic analog synthesizers. It is very well suited for polyphonic sounds because it doesn't annoy you by a too strong presence. A Waldorf filter is a Waldorf filter and has to offer one very important thing, self oscillation! Search for it on any other digital synthesizer and you will go mad. Most synthesizers don't feature it at all while others produce it sometimes, depending on what you did right before. Testing it is very simple. Just turn down all mixer levels, put Cutoff to a medium position and turn up Resonance to full. When you now play a note, the filter should start to oscillate with a certain pitch. If not, this particular synth can't do it. This is an easy task for the Microwave II/XT. The filter model we use just does it, it is not an artificially added sine wave or some weird mathematics, it is just the model which goes into self oscillation at particular parameter settings. And that is another difference between a Waldorf synthesizer and all other tone generators. By the way, the self oscillation works with all filter types of Filter 1. It is just explained here to make sure you find this information at the very beginning.

	12dB Lowpass The 12dB Lowpass type is more aggressive than the 24dB Lowpass. This is due to the fact that it doesn't filter as strong as the 24dB Lowpass but also comes from the Resonance, which has more side bands here. So, when you are searching for those typical "Bass Line" sounds, use this filter type.

	24dB Bandpass While a lowpass filter only removes the top frequencies of a signal, the bandpass removes both the high and the low frequencies, leaving just the middle frequencies around the Cutoff setting. Use this filter for thin sounds.

	12dB Bandpass The 12dB Bandpass also thins out the material. However, it is much more aggressive than the 24dB version because of the fact that it doesn't filter as strong as the 24dB Bandpass.

	12dB Highpass This filter type just removes all signal parts below the Cutoff frequency. As with all other types, this filter also features Resonance up to self oscillation.

	24dB and 12dB Notch What do these do? As their name says, they simply hit a notch in the frequency spectrum. Top and bottom end are unaffected while in the middle, they cut the signal. So, they are the opposite to a band pass filter.

	Band Stop The Band Stop is also a kind of Notch filter because it removes a certain frequency band from the input signal. The difference to a Notch filter is that you can adjust the band width that has to be removed from the signal. Due to the fact that you can modulate this band width in realtime, you can create very nice filter sweeps.

These were the standard filter types. All types following now are unique and allow you to create even more impressive sounds with the Microwave II/XT.

	Sin(x)->12dB Lowpass What does that mean? I don't want to become a mathematician, I am a musician! No, no, you don't need to learn difficult formulas here. The explanation of this filter type is a little technical but the results aren't. This filter type consists of a sine-waveshaper with a 12dB filter behind it. Every input signal (imaginary x axis) is used to process an output signal (y axis) with the formula y = sin x * pi. Imagine a sine wave going from -100 to +100 with a maximum amplitude of 100. When you input a sample with a magnitude of 50 (on the x axis), the output is 100. The output of 100 is 0. The output of 0 is also 0, and so on. The audio character of this filter is very much like a compressed signal with a lot of punch. In fact, this filter comes very close to those found in monophonic analog synthesizers. However, it might be too strong to be used in a pad sound or some kind of "Poly Synth" sound. But it is perfect for bass sounds.

	Wave Shaper This filter type features a wave shaper similar to the Sin(x)->LP type above, where you can set up the shape curve yourself instead of using a sine wave only. The Microwave II/XT has an additional parameter for this purpose that selects one of the waves of the current wavetable. The wave shaper is of no effect, when you use a raising sawtooth wave, because all input values on the imaginary x axis have the same output value on the y axis. A square wave instead brings all input values to their maximum values, either positive or negative, resulting in a fully distorted sound. Whew, this blows you away. All other waves produce a certain effect which you just use or leave. Don't care about knowing what is really going on inside the machine, the only thing that counts is the ear. And the Wave Shaper filter certainly is very impressive to this part of your body. Maybe to others, too, but this shouldn't be part of this text. Behind the Wave Shaper stage, there is a 12dB lowpass filter with a full parameter set, as usual.

	Dual LP/BP This type features two parallel filters, one 12dB Lowpass and one 12dB Bandpass. They are coupled in their parameter set to allow easy usage, only the Cutoff of the Bandpass can be set separately as an offset to the Lowpass Cutoff. Due to the fact that the Offset is adjusted in semitones, you can easily setup filter sweeps where the bandpass is a fifth or an octave higher then the Lowpass. With high Resonance settings, this gives the sound a kind of glimmer.

	FM Filter Classic analog synthesizers were able to modulate the filter frequency with one of the oscillators. This resulted in colorful modulations where the Resonance wasn't as clean as without modulation, going up to whirling timbres. In digital synthesizers, this modulation wasn't possible because of the processor power needed to calculate it for all voices separately. On the Microwave II/XT we found a way to do so, and now you get this modulation back. However, due to the still high number of calculations, there is a special 12dB type allowing you to use Oscillator 2 as modulation for its Cutoff. But it's worth using it.

	S&H->12dB Lowpass Sample & Hold as filter type? Yes, you are right, but don't think of Cutoff with Sample & Hold. In fact, this filter is a realtime sample reduction where an incoming sample is held for a certain time before the next sample is used to again hold it. So, you get a grungy, bad quality, sample reduction that sounds exactly like the first available samplers which were introduced in the late seventies. The S&H Rate is modulatable, which means that you can change the sample rate with keytrack, velocity, or by an envelope, LFO or whatever you can think of. Isn't that cool? And the results are even cooler.

That was an awful lot, huh? But you might now imagine what only the filters of the Microwave II/XT are able to do. And we don't need to talk about their sound here, you probably read a lot about it already in magazines.

And if you haven't, they sound outstanding, got brilliant critiques and behave as you expect. But best of all, you will just forget that they are digital, they are simply FILTERS.

In the Amplifier and Pan sections you find the standard set of controls like Sound Volume, Panning and various pre-routed modulations.

But there is one parameter that you wouldn't expect here. Chorus on/off. Remember the time when polyphonic analog synthesizers like the Roland JX-8P or Korg PolySix had this chorus? You just activated it and the sound blew you away. Later, synthesizers were equipped with big multi effectors which had to be set up very carefully to create a particular sound character. And the "Aah" and "Ooh" effect was gone. The Microwave II/XT brings it back, you just activate the Chorus on a pad sound to give it its perfect finish. And the best thing is that you don't have to care if you are in single or multi mode. Due to the fact that this Chorus effect doesn't have any parameter, you can use it on any and every part in multi mode.

Beside the Chorus effect described in the Amplifier and Pan section, the Microwave II/XT has three separate effect processors. When you create a sound in single mode, as one usually does, you might add a little Delay or a slow Flanger to it. What happens when you switch into multi mode and want to use that sound? On a lot of synthesizers, the effect you programmed is just gone, on other synthesizers it is replaced with the settings of a different multi part. On the Microwave II/XT, the sound keeps its effect if it is on one of the first three parts. So, program your multi with the "dry" sounds going from part 4 to part 8 and use the first three parts for flanging, delayed or overdriven sounds. But keep in mind that the Chorus still works on all parts.

As always, what does Waldorf offer me which is unusual? Firstly, the Microwave II/XT has a total of four envelopes per sound program, two typical ADSR envelopes, one 8 Time/Level envelope with loops and a bipolar 4 Time/Level envelope. The interesting thing about all these envelopes is that you don't need to use them only in the specific sound module where they are pre-routed. Via the Mod Matrix, you can use any envelope to modulate any sound parameter. So, you could set up the Filter Envelope to move the stereo position of your sound or the Volume Envelope to detune Oscillator 2. But let's focus on the envelopes themselves.

Both the Filter Envelope and the Volume Envelope are implemented as standard ADSR types. This is because they are the most frequently used ones and should provide easy and fast access.

ADSR means that they feature a total of four parameters to shape the sound module. "A" stands for Attack meaning the rate or speed with which the envelope goes from its minimum to maximum value after triggering a note. "D" means Decay, which is the rate the envelope takes to go down from maximum to "S", which in turn means Sustain. The Sustain level then is held as long as the note is held. After releasing the note, the "R" phase, standing for Release, is used to determine the speed for the envelope to take from the current level to the minimum level.

Now we come to the more interesting parts. Every phase of the ADSR envelope can be modulated through the Mod Matrix. This means that you could change the Decay rate by Keytrack to simulate the behaviour of, for example, a piano, where low notes need longer to decay than high notes. Also, you could setup all four stages to be modulated by Velocity. For example, the attack, decay and release rates could become faster on high velocities while the sustain level is lowered a little to get a punchier sound, when you play harder. But that's not the end. You can also modulate the envelope by itself. It is extremely interesting to modulate the decay and release rate by itself to change the fall-off curve of the envelope. When you modulate these rates with a negative amount, the envelope becomes much punchier because the exponentiality is increased. When you modulate them with a positive amount, you can create "gated" sounds that hold their level for a particular time and then fall off rapidly.

All these features are unique to Waldorf synthesizers and they are mentioned here to show the powerful sound engine of the Microwave II/XT.

As its name says, this envelope features eight times and levels that can be set up separately to create complex envelope movements. The key off point can be set freely to any of the eight steps. Furthermore, this envelope features two loops, one for the key on and one for the key off phase. So, you can create a very complex repeating modulation source. That's still not all. The envelope itself can be modulated in time and in strength which means that it could be faster, the higher the played note is.

The Free Envelope isn't as complex as the Wave Envelope, it is more like an enhanced ADSR envelope with separate times and levels per stage. However, the levels of this envelope are bipolar which means that they can have values above and below zero. This function is interesting when you plan to modulate its influence on a sound parameter, for example by Velocity or the Modulation Wheel.

You probably know the standard LFO parameters rate or speed, delay and shape or waveform. However, the Microwave II/XT LFOs are much deeper. First of all, there are two LFOs per voice, that can be used for modulating any of the available modulation destinations. This also includes unusual parameters like Oscillator FM Amount or Amplifier Envelope Decay. But, you can certainly modulate the standard parameters Pitch, Cutoff or Volume as well.

The most interesting part of the LFOs is the way you can synchronize them to other events.

You can sync them to MIDI Clock, which today is the most common method to create dynamic filter or panning sweeps. The LFO speed can be adjusted from 128 bars down to 1/32 tuplet. This means that the LFOs feature the full range from very slow changes to hard rhythmic breaks, all in sync to a sequencer or drum computer. But the best thing is that they are also synchronized to the internal arpeggiator, which gives you this interesting effect without using any external MIDI clock source.

You can also sync the LFOs to note start. This means that the LFO restarts its cycle, each time you press a key. This is useful for sounds with strong LFO modulations, for example on the filter or volume. You can easily create staccato effects with this function.

It is obvious that you can sync all LFOs of a particular sound as one LFO. This is the behaviour of classic analog synths where only one LFO was available for the sound you were playing.

And finally, there's another way of syncing. You can sync the second LFO to the first with an adjustable phase offset. This means that LFO2 is glued to LFO1 with all its parameters except the waveform of it and the delay to the first LFO1.

Now you've got LFOs, envelopes, external MIDI controllers and so on. But how could these modulations interact, for example when you need a vibrato on the Filter where you control its strength by Aftertouch.

This is where the Modifier section starts. It offers you basic arithmetic calculations like adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing plus lots of very powerful algorithms to tweak your modulation source signals in a musical manner. There are four Modifier slots that you can use for those purposes.

But first, how could you set up the Filter vibrato controlled by Aftertouch? In the Modifier section, you just select a LFO as one of the sources, Aftertouch as the second source and "*" (multiply) as type. That's all you need to do here. Of course, you have to tell the Microwave II/XT that it should change the Filter Cutoff, but this is done in the following section, the Mod Matrix. But let's stay at the Modifiers for a while.

For example, the Modifier type Ramp. It gives you an adjustable 1 stage envelope where only a linear increment is performed from minimum to maximum. You can control its rate and trigger it by any signal which switches from a value equal or below 0 to above 0 (a positive zero crossing, to speak with the words of a developer). You get those from an LFO or a controller.

A similar modifier is the Lag. It doesn't create only one ramp but it moves linearily from the last input value to the current input value. The rate of this movement can be adjusted. The effect is that it smoothes out the input modulation in a linear fashion.

When you need the same thing in an exponential fashion, take the Modifier type Filter. It really acts like a Low Pass filter, but on modulation not audio signals. This or the Lag modifier might be very interesting in a situation where you have a slightly unpredictable input signal like Aftertouch, which can be difficult to play on some keyboards. With the filter you can smooth out the value changes so that you don't get steps in your modulation. When you route this modifier to the filter cutoff, the result is a sweeping rather than a jumping cutoff modulation no matter how quick the Aftertouch pressure changes. Isn't that cool?

Other modifier types include boolean operations like OR, AND and XOR and further algorithms like sort of a high pass filter, minimum and maximum value, a switch, an absolute value transformer and a Sample & Hold Generator.

There is a fifth special Modifier, which is called Modifier Delay. It works like the name says, just delaying the modulation input by a certain time before it sends it out to its receiver.

Now, how do you finally use these Modifiers? This is done in the next section. So, read on.

Now you've come to the heart of the endless possibilities the Microwave II/XT offers. Other synthesizers usually have some predefined destinations for their modulation sources, so that you might be able to route the LFO to pitch, filter and volume or an envelope to its respective receiver. With the Microwave II/XT, Waldorf followed their way of giving the user the ability to route any modulation signal to any of the sound's aspects. And it's done even deeper than any time before. And easier to use, too.

We created a Modulation Matrix with 16 entries or slots. Each slot simply features a Source, Amount and Destination parameter. So, with three dial turns you can set up Aftertouch to change the Filter Cutoff. Okay, this is possible in most of the current synths, but what about routing the Filter Envelope to the Ring Modulator output level? Or Velocity to Filter Resonance? Try that elsewhere and you will see that the Microwave will beat other modulation systems easily.

Beside these static routings, you can also set up the Modifiers as input sources, as mentioned in the previous chapter. They offer you interactive or intermodulating sources, including those strange things like LFO1 * LFO2, routed to FM Amount. Also, for easier access, there are predefined interactive modulation sources that you need in every-day sound programming like LFO1 * Modwheel to, for example, create a pitch vibrato controlled by the modulation wheel.

So again, just set up Source, Destination and Amount and the modulation starts. Isn't that easy?

All in all, the Microwave II/XT provides a choice of more than 30 modulation sources, and more than 30 modulation destinations all definable in each of 16 slots in the modulation matrix. For each single voice.

Another interesting story. The Glide effect not only offers you the well-known Portamento and Fingered Portamento (also known as Legato Portamento) effect, but it also features Glissando to generate discrete pitch changes in semitones.

Both Glissando and Portamento can either change the pitch linearily or exponentially and, of course, the time they need can be adjusted, as well.

You probably know this section from other synthesizers which you can switch to monophonic or polyphonic voice allocation. However, this wouldn't be enough for the Microwave II/XT. You can additionally start two voices at once with the dual mode or all voices with the unisono mode.

But that's not all here. Each envelope can be set to normal, single or retrigger mode separately so that you can, for instance, have a percussive sound where one envelope sweeps slowly through on all notes that you play legato. This is also true for the arpeggiator. As long as you don't play a new chord, the envelope goes through all arpeggio notes without being retriggered.

Now, what is interesting here? First, you have a lot of different order and assignment modes. You can for instance play the notes back in the order from the lowest to the highest key, from the first to the last played key or one of the previous in reverse form.

Beside the standard directions up, down and alternate, the Microwave II/XT also offers random to choose any of the played notes at a particular step. This feature is interesting when you hit c, e and a, for instance, and afterwards hit the a one octave below several times. Now the arpeggio is playing random notes but the low a will be played more often than the other notes. Voila, you've got a bass line.

The most interesting feature of the Arpeggiator is the user definable rhythm pattern. Each sound has its own pattern so you don't have to think about administrative work like "did I use this pattern in a different sound or can I overwrite it?". Just go to the User Pattern page and set or clear any of the maximum steps. You can adjust the total step length and if the note order is reset on each pattern cycle or not. So, a pattern might look like this:

*--*--*--**--*-*

where each asterisk represents a note and a minus represents a pause. Cool?

But, what happens when you switch to Multi Mode? Easy. Each sound keeps its arpeggio pattern and, if you like, you can easily set up a kind of drum pattern with some bass and chords.

Enough info? If still not, [ download the user manual ]