Keyboards

Korg have upgraded their well-established Trinity range of sample-based workstation synths with a new board offering the sonic capabilities of a Z1 polysynth.

If you thought home keyboards were all about cheesy organ presets and bossanova backbeats the chances are you are just like Paul Farrer, but as he takes the wraps of Yamaha's new baby and rotates his baseball cap by 180 degrees he is astonished to find that he was completely and utterly wrong...

Gordon Reid is bitten by the memory of a brilliant, but deeply flawed trio of Italian synthesizer designs that could have been the last word in affordable analogue.

The high quality converters and resonant filter imbue the 16-bit Emax II with a musicality and sonic character second to none.

Korg's latest i-series keyboard is the new flagship of the range, updating the i3's spec and adopting the Trinity's touchscreen graphical display. Simon Trask gets in touch with the i30...

It's true; the Minimoog's back! Manufactured in Cardiff by a new company, they're designed to resemble the original as closely as possible. Long-standing Mini owner Steve Howell attended the UK launch.

A synth company that produced as many classic and well-loved instruments as did Moog Music is surely allowed the odd turkey! Gordon Reid waxes critical over one of them.

Yamaha's new flagship workstation mixes 'n' matches several of the company's existing synthesis technologies and throws in a new one for good measure. But have they over-extended themselves? Simon Trask spends some time with the EX5 to find out...

Paul Nagle concludes his look at Clavia's groundbreaking new Nord Modular.

It was 1973 and everyone was playing Minimoogs, and ARP Odysseys. So why did the Keio ORGan company produce a little synthesizer with the most unorthodox controls imaginable, call it the MiniKORG 700, and try to convince the keyboard cognoscenti that it was worth buying? Gordon Reid explains...

Clavia's latest product is something else; an affordable modular hardware synth whose selection of modules and signal routing is user-definable in software, offering the synthesist staggering scope for sound design. In the first of this two-part review, Paul Nagle cross-modulates his joy input with Rapture envelope and goes into self-oscillating ecstasy...

Technics' new flagship keyboard is the company's most sophisticated offering yet — and the first keyboard to provide a full-blown colour LCD screen. But is it really an instrument for today's musician, or has the 'home' keyboard concept had its day? Simon Trask colours in the dots with the KN5000.

Martin Russ looks at Korg's affordable new synth and finds it takes him back a few years...

The S3 was Korg's 1991 attempt to apply the M1 workstation approach to rhythm and sequencing, but it never attained anything like the success of its more famous keyboard sibling. Paul Nagle explains why.

While Roland's A70 in its basic form is a well-equipped but dumb controller, it can metamorphose into a Roland JV-style synth, a General MIDI synth, or a piano at the drop of an expansion board. Paul Ward has a controlling interest....

Spectral Audio's internet homepage includes a large graphic, stating, rather menacingly, 'Rave or Die'. Christopher Holder meets the new Syntrack monosynth and decides death can wait.

Paul White returns from the land of the rising Sterling with tidings of a whole new range of Yamaha hi-tech and pro audio products.

Roland's Jupiter family yielded one or two shining examples of what an analogue polysynth should be.

If you'd love a modular synth, but couldn't possibly afford a real one, it's possible that virtual salvation is at hand.

For the synth afictionado, the ARP Odyssey is up there with the Minimoog in terms of its power and sonic quality. Gordon Reid explains why he loves his Ody...

GeneralMusic are perhaps best known for their home keyboards, but this powerful new high-end instrument is aimed more at the synthesizer workstation market, though is still includes keyboard auto-accompaniment features. Are the company mapping out a brave new world? Simon Trask explores the SK76.