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Average rating:
4.2 out of 5
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the vx 90 is a realy good synth , the sound is built around six CEM chips,(one per voice) these chips are also used by sequencial on some prophet series... an d also in some oberheim synths.. the filter is a real good one!! the keyboard version ax-73 is also very interesting because it can be a good master keyboard...
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I bought this synth some days ago for less than 60$... Am I a robber ?;-) - Well, it sounds very fat, as you could find in an analog synth. The only things are not very good is the monotimbrality and the cassette-save feature (I solved it saving all the 100 presets onto MD or CD-R audio) - If you find one, pick it. But don't think you could do all your music with this; it will be a good instruments, but couldn't do everything!
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This synth just got way cooler with the addition of the 13-pin cable, which lets you run any of Akai's S-xxx (pre-1000) or X-7000 samplers through the filter section... someone in the UK has also offered to build me a breakout box with a 13-pin connector (snagged from old Atari parts, I believe) on the back, and 6-each 1/4", 1/8" and banana jacks on the front in a 1U panel (one per voice, six voices, three different types of connectors)... this synth will rock once I get my shit together and pay him to build the box for me - processing external signals through the nastiest (in a good way) filter you've ever heard (which, by the way, self-oscillates at 50% resonance)... oh yeah.
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Now that I finally have one in my rack, I understand how it earned the nickname "Juno Killer" on some websites. Editing and feature-wise, it's not all that much better than a Juno - you have your VCO's (4 Waveforms: Saw, Triangle, Square and Combination) w/PW and PWM, 6 voices in Poly, Dual or Unison modes, Pitch Envelope, Resonant Low-Pass Filter w/Envelope, High-Pass Filter, VCA/ADSR, LFO w/ 5 Waveforms (+/- Sawtooth, Triangle, Square, Random) which goes to VCO/VCF/VCA (one at the exclusion of the other two, or none at all)...
Soundwise, however, this stomps all over a Juno (at least to my humble ears). Warm, fat, etc... a lot closer to a Jupiter in that regard. Within 5 minutes of booting this unit up and doing a bit of editing, I had a nice PWM/Square wave thing going w/mild resonance on the filter and a random LFO modulating cut-off... my roommate walked in and said "sounds like something off a Pete Namlook record"... right then and there I knew that good things were in store for me with this synth. Only gets a less than perfect rating for two reasons:
a) the VCO's don't go down to the 32' octave (so no deeeeeeep bass sounds... but hey, it still goes pretty low)
b) you can't tweak more than one parameter at a time (unless you choose the option to assign PitchBend to filter cut-off - then you can use that and the data-entry slider to, say, modulate cut-off and res. simultaneously - assuming you don't need hands to play the notes).
But hey, for what you can steal these for, it's a nice addition to a varied synth rig. I wouldn't make it your only analog synth, but it will certainly compliment other ones nicely.
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Very fine addition to any analog rig. Kind of rare. Completely underrated. Very convenient to rack and tweak and compliment other synths. I've got patches if anyone wants to trade. I also have a manual. No, it doesn't do sysex dumps. But the tape interface works just fine for me.
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