5 ms·

Dave Smith was also behind the Korg Wavestation (released in 1990), which is an evolution of the Prophet VS. The Wavestation seems like it's just barely on the

Dave Smith was also behind the Korg Wavestation (released in 1990), which is an evolution of the Prophet VS. The Wavestation seems like it's just barely on the older side of a dividing line between digital synthesizers and romplers. Take a look at digital keyboards like the Yamaha DX7, Roland D-50, Casio CZ-101, Kawai K1m, or Ensoniq ESQ-1. They're all synthesizers, you use them to make sounds. You can use them as preset machines (and I'm sure most people did), but they have a ton of possibilities for sound design. Then came the Korg M1, E-mu Proteus, Yamaha SY85, etc. These machines are more like "a bunch of sounds in a box"--you buy the box, you get access to all of the sounds recorded in ROM. You get a bunch of standard sounds like acoustic and electric pianos, bass guitars, strings, saxophone, etc. These keyboards have no realistic sounds and limited opportunities for sound design, but they are incredibly flexible from a musical perspective. If I show up to a jam session or an open mic with a keyboard, that keyboard had better have a good palette of acoustic & electric sounds. The Wavestation is a fantastic instrument but what keyboardists wanted in 1990 was, you know, samples of all the acoustic and electric instruments on tap, but the Wavestation had no acoustic piano or drums. The Wavestation was not commercially successful, even though it's a fantastic piece of gear. The revised Wavestation EX got acoustic piano samples and drums but it still focused on synthesizer-like sounds. Ironically, the synthesizer-like sounds are what people like about the Wavestation these days. https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/korg-wavestation-tips-techniques https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/korg-wavestation-tip... I have a Wavestation SR at home, and it's really cool, but I can see why it wasn't as commercially successful as its competitors. The Roland JD-800 (from 1991) basically has the same story--the JD-800 is a digital synth made in an era when people really wanted romplers. Both the Wavestation and JD-800 got recent rereleases in cute, miniature formats as the Korg Wavestate and Roland JD-08.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tbossanova 4y ago
Interesting, because one of my pet peeves from going to early 90s gigs was hearing those tinny (to my ears) approximations of acoustic pianos etc. I would have much rather had a freaky synth sound than that! Of course later on, people started using the overly-clean fake piano sound to artistic effect, so I eventually came around to liking it in context.
- dietrichepp 4y ago
  There's a Brian Eno quote from A Year with Swollen Appendices that people always pull out in these conversations: > Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. Same reason why we see new video games that look they belong on the original PlayStation. The real sell to me is flexibility. The synths sound cool, but I'm only going to bring one instrument. Romplers support a diversity of styles of music and roles in the band.
  - ushakov 4y ago
    i actually like that a synth is one instrument only i absolutely get distracted by DAWs
- musicale 4y ago
  > people started using the overly-clean fake piano sound to artistic effect, so I eventually came around to liking it in context. Funny how that works - something that fails in its original purpose turns out to be great for something else. DX7 synth piano and M1 sampled piano are classics and the "dance piano" lives to this day. FM piano/rhodes sounds (and DX7 presets) also fueled 80s ballads. Roland TR-808, 909 and TB-303 were picked up from bargain bins, fueled entire new genres of music, and turned into classics for the ages.
erwincoumans 4y ago
RIP Dave Smith, thanks for everything. The Korg Wavestate is great and there is an excellent software version now, Wavestate Native both standalone and VST plugin, for Mac and Windows. You can import your own samples: https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/wavestate_native https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/wavestate_native
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Minor nitpick - the ESQ1 and related SQ80, Mirage and SDP1 are hybrid, not digital. They use digital wavetable oscillators fed into analogue filters.
dwringer 4y ago
I found it fascinating to play with the software version of Wavestation, which includes all the sound banks they released for it. Growing up in the early 90's the sounds were everywhere and just playing the default patch from most banks evokes nostalgia of countless TV shows, movies, and commercials. I'm pretty sure more than a few daytime TV shows just had some guy press 2 or 3 keys from bank 1 patch 1, "Ski Jam".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tbossanova 4y ago

Interesting, because one of my pet peeves from going to early 90s gigs was hearing those tinny (to my ears) approximations of acoustic pianos etc. I would have much rather had a freaky synth sound than that! Of course later on, people started using the overly-clean fake piano sound to artistic effect, so I eventually came around to liking it in context.

dietrichepp 4y ago
There's a Brian Eno quote from A Year with Swollen Appendices that people always pull out in these conversations: > Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. Same reason why we see new video games that look they belong on the original PlayStation. The real sell to me is flexibility. The synths sound cool, but I'm only going to bring one instrument. Romplers support a diversity of styles of music and roles in the band.
- ushakov 4y ago
  i actually like that a synth is one instrument only i absolutely get distracted by DAWs
musicale 4y ago
> people started using the overly-clean fake piano sound to artistic effect, so I eventually came around to liking it in context. Funny how that works - something that fails in its original purpose turns out to be great for something else. DX7 synth piano and M1 sampled piano are classics and the "dance piano" lives to this day. FM piano/rhodes sounds (and DX7 presets) also fueled 80s ballads. Roland TR-808, 909 and TB-303 were picked up from bargain bins, fueled entire new genres of music, and turned into classics for the ages.

erwincoumans 4y ago

RIP Dave Smith, thanks for everything. The Korg Wavestate is great and there is an excellent software version now, Wavestate Native both standalone and VST plugin, for Mac and Windows. You can import your own samples: https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/wavestate_native https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/wavestate_native

Gordonjcp 4y ago

Minor nitpick - the ESQ1 and related SQ80, Mirage and SDP1 are hybrid, not digital. They use digital wavetable oscillators fed into analogue filters.

dwringer 4y ago

I found it fascinating to play with the software version of Wavestation, which includes all the sound banks they released for it. Growing up in the early 90's the sounds were everywhere and just playing the default patch from most banks evokes nostalgia of countless TV shows, movies, and commercials. I'm pretty sure more than a few daytime TV shows just had some guy press 2 or 3 keys from bank 1 patch 1, "Ski Jam".