Korg DW-8000

Super easy. No manual necessary. All the parameters are written on the synth's upper case for you.

Primitive delay is just another parameter it isn't wonderous in itself but useful nevertheless.

I'm only filling out this form to say this to anyone who's seen one of these on eBay or somewhere - buy it - it's wonderful. Describing it's sound is so difficult to convey but I love it. I like Eno's "song" era stuff and you can coax out lots of little Enoesque sounds from it. Eno was using a lot of different kit but I've got a lot of sounds saved in mine that I think he'd be pleased with.

Bought mine in 1989 second hand. It's been gigged and she's still going strong.

Tried to get a battery from them years ago, perhaps the early 90's and they were useless and got reamed on the price. When it arrived it was a bloody ordinary coin battery. I've recently bought another one from Kodak. ??1. 1,50??? $2 delivered!

I keep having to stop myself from buying another one as I can multitrack mine anyway. May succomb if I see the rack one (EX8000)

Very easy to use, all parameters are written down on the front panel. If you know how to program an analog synth, there's no problem.
I did not even need the manual.
One slider to change parameters, very easy.

8 voices polyphony, I guess. Keyboard action: not soooo bad...
the digital delay fattens up the sound, especially good for leads
I don't use the sequenzer/arpeggiator

No piano, no strings, no natural sounds !
But: moog type leads, synth-brass, pads, oberheim like voices, etc.
This is a very strong synth, though 20 years old.
Fat sound ! I love this thing, it is something special.
Bought mine for 200 ? !!

Well, I would not gig with mine. Sometimes a single note stays forever
I use it more as a slave...

This thing is not produced anymore, I don't know...

I would definately search for another one if lost or stolen, especially for this price.
This is a fine synth, more powerful than any of the new ones...
nearly blew my monitors away

I used one of these boards in the late 80s and learned to program them pretty well. I just got another after a long hiatus (sold my 1st DW long ago) and still know my way around the board pretty well. A pretty easy board to program in my opinion.

8 Voice polyphonic, 2 oscillaters per voice. Two poly modes and two mono modes. Built-in arpeggiater (do real musicians use these?) and digital delay. The keyboard action is a bit flimsy, but still quite playable. I was thinking of getting the EX-8000, but I really like the DW for hands-on programming... Alas, yet another keyboard in y studio...

I'm rating this board for what it is -- not for how it compares to multi-timbral, sample-playback synths.

The sounds are... breath-taking! I have 10 other synths -- each with their own strengths and purposes... The DW-8000 is capable of things that none of the others can do. A must-have that I have gone without for too long!

Playing-wise, I will probably control the DW with my Roland A-70.

I intend to use it only in my studio, but you never know. Live -- I would have to have another keyboard only because the DW-8000, for me, is more of a Lead and Pad synth -- most gigs require a good piano, organ, strings, brass (meat & potatoes sound-set).

That being said, I have owned many Korg products including a DW-8000 several years back. I've never had problems before (knock on wood).

There is great aftermarket support thanks to the internet -- a yahoo users-group for almost any synth you can think of.

If it were lost or stolen, I would absolutely get another. It's easily worth what I paid -- I wish I would have gotten one a few years ago... They used to be much cheaper on eBay... apparently there were alot of them floating around. Lately though, the price seems to be creeping up (Along with the Yamaha DX7).

I have been playing for a long time. Guitar is my main axe, but I have played in a few national bands as a keyboard player. My collection is currently:

Alesis QS-7.1
Ensoniq Halo
Korg DW-8000
Korg N5ex
Korg O1w/Pro
Korg Poly 800
Roland A-90ex
Roland A-70jv
Roland U-20
Yamaha Dx-7
Yamaha QY-300

What I love: The sounds -- Leads, Pads, Synth tones.

What I hate: Not the greatest keyboard feel, but I wouldn't say I hate it. I have played on much worse.

Bottom line: I have many tools in my studio and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. The DW-8000 was a missing tool for a long time and I am elated to have finally picked one up again.

What is korg dw-8000?it's a yamaha dx-7 pianos + mini moog leads+ARPEGGIATOR+DELAY+AFTERTOUCH.SO EASY TO USE.

KEYBOARD action is bad but so what.If you want killer synth brass
than buy roland jx-8p,jx-10 or d-50,if you want killer strings and
sweep buy roland juno 60 or 106,but if you want warm analog dark and
soft lead buy korg dw 8000 if you can't buy mini moog.Price for second hand korg dw-8000 is 140 euro.Best waveforms on korg are 1 and 16 for leads.You can make so sharp leads like knife if you use
other waveforms.Strings are good only in arpeggiator mode.
Hammonds only good for background.If you want killer realistic sounds
buy korg t-3 or m1.

Rock and pop and disco and jazz rock and eletronic dream.
Detune mode make a nice chorus to thick sound.Genius 64 patches no
1640 like new korgs.Progressive rock music weapon.
Every synth lead is full of life no like korg is-40 cold and dead leads and new korg stuff leads.Dw can emulate tony carey moog sound
remember RAINBOW ON STAGE.ENOUGH SAID.

Sometimes problem with sound if you can't play you can hear the sound.

I am roland man but i ADORE this 1985 korg product.

KILLER ANALOG LEADS WITH DELAY AND PORTAMENTO
ULTRA MAGIC ELETRIC PIANOS WITH DINAMICS
DARK WARM HAMMONDS GREAT FOR BACKGROUND
STRINGS,PADS AND BRASS SWEET AND LOVELY BUT THIN SOUND
BECAUSE ONLY TWO OSCILLATORS AND NO PWM.
GREAT FOR ROCK,PROGRESSIVE ROCK.SOUNDS LEADS BETTER THAN NEW KORGS.

Very easy to use. Parameters are right there in front of you, and has a very easy to read display. The presets were a mix of the originals and some sounds created by a professional sound crafter. The manual is very clear, and tells all about the features. If you take the time to read the manual, this synth should give you no problems.

At 16 osc with 8 voices, I couldn't ask for more from a synth that was from an era where FM was the hip thing to do. The osc section has sounds that are generated by a cool digital synthesis system, similar to FM, by reading the sample data, and replicating it. There's one sample per octave for each waveform. Not exactly sampled, but close!

The keys and joystick are awesome, the keys have aftertouch and veloicity, and the Korg joystick is always a joy. The aftertouch has perfect sensitivity.

Not really much in expansions provided by Korg, but there is an expansion by an outside firm, the Angel City Turbo mod.

The arpeggiator is really basic.

Very expressive, can do many types of music. Want fluid filter pads? Done. Thick brass? It's got it. The bass isn't all that, but with a lot of work, you can make a bubbly decay bass.

The effects are excellent, but it would have been cool if they could have had a chorus/flanger->delay instead of just the delay.

Solid Korg construction. The most solid synth I've ever owned. I wouldn't depend on the all-metal construction of the D-10 as much as this buddy. Korg's synths always hold together well.

Never dealt with Korg, don't plan on it. They probably deny that they ever produced such a machine.

Great synth. If I started selling off synths to buy one of the new multi-timbral supersynths, I'd still keep this puppy around. Great synth, classic Korg sound.

I bought this new in early 1986 when it first came out. At the time I wanted a Mirage or a DX7 but couldn't afford one. I was impressed with this and it was in my price range, so I bought it, and never regretted it. Funny, everybody at the time was into digital keyboards and putting down analog, and people told me it was an analog keyboard, but my how things change. I knew it had digital waveforms for oscillators but knew it had an analog filter & audio path. Sure it's not a collectors item or anything, but it's a very powerful machine for its price range, perhaps the very best of the mid-80's DCO analog/digital hybrids second only to the Roland JX10.

The thing that really makes this synth great are the warm resonant filter and the built-in digital delay. The best analog filter Korg ever put in a synth except for the DSS-1. 8-note polyphony, 2 oscillators per voice, dedicated 6-stage envelopes for the VCF and VCA, an LFO (called "MG" by Korg), and very expressive aftertouch and velocity sensitivity - all programmable. What more could you want? This is a very capable fully-specified polysynth. It only lacks a few features commonly found on analog polysynths such as oscillator sync and pulse-width modulation. But portamento and built-in arpeggiator also are great features missing on some of its competitors. MIDI spec is pretty complete, including ability to use a computer-based editor & patch bank librarian. Editing from the front panel is not that difficult, though. I have the original ROM (never got the upgrade), and it has been known to occasionally stick on a note when using it as a MIDI controller, but I haven't had that problem in a long time. No problem using it as a MIDI slave, though. Keyboard quality I always thought was good even though it's a bit clunky/noisy due to the stiffer spring-back action; no problem doing fast solos. I always thought it was weird of Korg to include a dedicated slider for tuning (you could accidentally bump it during a performance and there goes your tuning!) - they should have used this slider as an additional data slider, that would have been cool. The joystick is not quite as good quality as on the M1, but I still prefer it to pitch bend & mod wheels because of the 4-way direction (you get LFO modulation pointing it southward!), much easier control device in my opinion. You can also turn off pitch bending and use left/right movements for filter cutoff. Very cool.

This synth is at its greatist for Keith Emerson style leads in unison mode (16 oscillators stacked) - in fact Keith used it himself! Very agressive, nasal, brassy leads like in Brian Salad Surgery, etc. The VCF purrs beautifully at the low end of the keyboard - very Moog-like, in fact. But it's also very good at strings and punchy Prophet 5 brass pads, and also gets that Van Halen "Jump" Oberheim OBXa sound to good effect. Because of the digital waveforms (16 of them), you can also get some digital-type sounds like bells, elec piano, etc., but these are not as good as on fully-digital synths like the D50 or DX7 - the envelopes are too slow to do them justice. As for solid punchy basses, the DW8000 can do them very good - better than on some other more expensive analogs.

This keyboard has never seen the business end of a screwdriver since I bought it 17 years ago, that's how reliable it is! The original battery is still going strong, but I suspect one day it will die & have to be replaced (time to get out the soldering iron because the battery I understand is soldered to the motherboard). I can't say the same thing for some of my other synths, so this thing is A++ in the reliability department. Great job, Korg!

As I said, never needed it because the machine just will not die.

If it were lost or stolen I would be heartbroken. I know there are other synths that could do this sound, but then again I'm not quite so sure of that. This synth does have its own unique sound and character, and I know I would miss it in a heartbeat. I know they go for real cheap these days ($130-$180 usually), but I know how good it is, and I get way more use out of this synth than the small amount of money I would otherwise get for it; so I will never sell it.

Mine came with a professional soundset which sounds awesome but i replaced most sounds with with own creations. Well editing patches is cool: Only one slider, but you exactly know which value the parameters have so editing goes on very fast! Just set pitch bend to +/- 12 and VCF Bend and start playing :)

Manual is cool! Every paraneter explained!

Polyphony is 8 voices, or only one voice in Unison Mode (all 16 Ocs stacked together). They keyboard action is noisy BUT I love it! It feels very piano like with metal plates under the keys, very good feel and it has velocity and Aftertouch! I use it to control Waldorf Pulse and an M1 Rack. I have an expansion by Musitronics which allows Splits and layers. It has an Arp which is ok, it has Assignable Mode where the notes are played in the order you tocuhed them. Very cool for loops!

Since of it's digital waveforms it can make some unique sounds. E-Piano and Organs sound cool with a little weird touch. Saw and Square leads kick ass as well as strange effect sounds. The Analog filter bites!

I use it for classic rock leads together with a Waldorf Pulse.

The joystick is cool for playing around.

Well rock solid! Would gig without backup!

The Korg guys are cool people, always there for an equipment talk!

Mine came with case and MEX-8000 Memoryexpansion. I would buy it again, because of sound & keyboard action! I own not so much other gear, Korg X5d, Korg M1 Rack, Korg S3, Waldorf pulse. The DW has an unique sound. They are so cheap, so go out and get one :-)

Programming is not as time consuming as I thought. I got a patch programmer from the dw8000 page and an instruction booklet from divinemasquerade.com. The syth is not punchy like a dx7 but creates some evil sounds.

8 voice, excellent yet noisy keyboard action, and the mod joystick is very simple. I miss it after a failed attempt to convert it to a pitch/mod wheel. pressure, aftertouch standard, and you can use the arpeggiator as a sequencer in assign mode.

Sounds range from obvously fake to somewhat convincing. Wavetables for this beast were made on the Synclavier. You could use it for whatever you want, it fails to dissappoint. sounds dark and mysterious at times. 12 bit fun!

Original battery was recently (2003) replaced though it still worked. cheap plastic everything saved on initial cost, but I wouldn't stand on it, or kick it out of frustration. the keys never stick or drop out and it is perfect.

never tried

If I lost it, the only thing I would ever replace it with would be an akai ax-73 or ax-80 and a digital effects processor.

This is an update to my review below. The arpeggiator will sync to midi - you have to make sure the master is set to transmit midi sync, and the arp clock set to external (param 87, 4,5, or 6). You can for instance record notes on a sequencer (I use Cubase). Then enable the arpeggiator in assignable-latch mode and start the sequence. The notes will be added to the arpeggiator pattern as they are played back. CAREFUL that you record the notes in proper time to the music, as the DW arp re-triggers each time it gets a new note, so the timing will go off by whatever your quantize error happens to be. (The Korg Poly6 has a fixed clock so the note plays in time with the next clock cycle...never tried this with external sync though.) Try it, it's good for interesting effects, arpeggiating chords etc. Remember in latch mode at least one key has to be held down while you assign other keys to the sequence. You can sustain the first note in your sequencer and add others using any duration, but remember the trigger rule. Also, you can take the arpeggiator in and out as you like during the sequence, and play the notes one at a time. No way to eneable the arpeggiator via midi that I know of. The sysex of the DW is not very extensive.