Keyboards

Waldorf's flagship keyboard synth has been available for months — but until very recently, it was so unfinished that it was scarecely reviewable. Since April, Gordon Reid has stuck with it, painstakingly noting the improvements that have come with each system software upgrade, until finally, with the synth standing at OS version 1.13, enough features are working to justify a full SOS review.

Paul Wiffen made no secret of his fondness for the OSCar in September's issue, and now reminisces about the other great keyboard love of his life — the Elka Synthex, a synth whose reputation and influence far outweighs the number that were ever sold.

Some cheap monosynths from the '70s and '80s are now highly regarded and hugely expensive second-hand buys. Not so the Jen SX1000 which, says Gordon Reid, is an unjustly neglected nugget of synth history.

Want to get serious about your music? A quality master controller keyboard is a good place to start. Paul Ward looks at two machines that offer a little more than most.

Under hypnosis, Paul Wiffen regresses to an earlier life when he was involved in the development and marketing of what is now regarded as a British classic.

Take the sound engine of the acclaimed JV1080/2080, add the data from three expansion boards (plus space for two more), a 5-octave keyboard arpeggiator, 40 multi-effect algorithms and four real-time control sliders and what do you get? Paul Farrer turns (XP)30...

Korg's Trinity workstation has, like their earlier instruments, become virtually an industry standard — but far from resting on their laurels, the company have upped the ante still further with the new Triton. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser provide an exclusive hands-on review.

Even the mightiest keyboard players have to start somewhere and quite a few started with Korg's diminutive MS10 patchable monosynth.

Most US synthesizer manufacturers followed the now all-too-familiar corporate history of rapid growth in the 1970s followed by acrimonious dissolution in the 1980s. What happened to Octave, however, was a little different...

Italian firm Generalmusic have made their reputation in the home keyboard market, but their new Equinox is an extremely well-specified professional workstation.

Waldorf's long-awaited Q synthesizer is now shipping, but without many of the features it will ultimately possess. Gordon Reid takes a hands-on look at what's here now and what's to come.

For those who want to fit an entire MIDI studio on a desktop, Roland have produced a baby keyboard stuffed with their Sound Canvas GM/GS sounds. Paul White clears space by his computer for the SK88 Pro.

Norm Leete waxes lyrical about the mega-synth that introduced sampling to the world back in 1980 and went on to appear on innumerable hit singles and albums.

Yamha scored a big success with their famously blue, knob-endowed CS1x Performance synth, and now they seek to build on this with the silver-grey CS2x — but does the 1-digit increment and change of colour scheme constitute revolution or evolution?

Ensoniq were as the forefront of workstation and sampling technology in the '80s, but their recent synth offerings have not kept up with the fashion for controller-festooned techno boxes. The Fizmo, however, updates their take on wavetable synthesis with extensive real-time control.

Philip Meehan fondly remembers his first love — a keyboard with the voice of an angel, the mind of a genius, and the body of a heavyweight boxer in a big black coat.

With the advent of 'groove'-based instruments like Yamaha's DJX, the humble home keyboard is acquiring a new hipness. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser explore Roland's attempt to make the cutting edge user-friendly.

Sam Inglis roots around in the dustbin of history and fishes out one of the few Roland analogue instruments you can still afford without a second mortgage. Does it deserve to be rehabilitated?