Korg 800 DV

so long as you want a growling naaasty noise, its very easy to get what you want, knobs and sliders are all easily accessible and clearly marked.

no midi, no sequencer, no arpegg, no expansion. but it does have a `mode` switch which changes what happening but who knows how, it has 5 positions...maybe its random, i cant see any pattern to it but i like it.

if you wanna scare small children, its 10/10. i love the sounds that come out of this unit. the closest synth would be rolands sh3a, but that is very refined and nice in comparison. the korg is by far the roughest dirtiest sound ive found

got mine very 2nd or 3rd or 4th hand, its had a hard life but no probs at all, i usually give it 30 minutes to warm up.
it often has a mind of its own and sounds change without any input from me...that is why i like it

tried to replace 2 broken switches but n/a
only have a japanese manual.

i bought it cos it was cheap and i love old synths, i make experimental electronic music/noise and it suits me fine.
its useless for regular music

Well, it is an old analog beast, therfore everything is right there at your fingertips. Having said that though, figuring out how to get just the right sound can be frustrating, some little tweak and all of a sudden you're sound changes drastically. I find it particularily difficult to smooth pads with nice decays.

See the review above for all the technical specs. This is what is called a "duophonic" synth, meaning that there are 2 completely seperate monosynths built in, each with seperate settings and outs. So even though it's mono, you can create some interesting effects by modifying the attack and repeats and effects of each layer seperately. The combined effect can make it sound very full.

This thing growls like nothing I've ever heard. If you are into really balsy analog, this thing kicks. The ring modulators are pretty sweet too. The first time I plugged it in, it was set to sustain, meaning that the thing just sounds for ever (even after you turn it off), so it was a bit of a shock, I turned it on and it just went BLAAAAO00OWWWWW!!! Since then, I have had endless fun with leaving the sustain settings on and playing with low and high pass filters (called "travellers"). You can get it so pulse hypnotically, and just tweak till the sun comes up.

Being analog and being old, the thing wavers, but not too bad, seems to stay in tune pretty well.

N/A

I haven't played other analogs that much, but I've heard them. As far as really biting agressive bassy sounds, I haven't heard anything like this daddy. I have had a hard time fitting it into songs though, the damn thing is just so powerfull. It's a fun toy though.

a two voice analog synth with many knobs

2 VCO : saw, square, triangle, "chorus": modulated saw
2 LFO : hardwired to one VCO
4 VCF : 2 lowpass, 2 highpass, all with resonance
2 VCA
2 ADS envelopes : only two sliders to controll one, but a large
variance of possible values (fast/med/slow selector)
1 ringmod
1 noise generator: white/pink noise

pre Midi

A good synth for solos: many knobs, sliders (!) for the cutoff
frequency make it easy to controll the sound

Once refused to work on stage, some kobs are old and twisty

Sometimes it's a beast you have to fight, sometimes it's a wonderful
little piper. If you like analogue technic, you should take it.