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This synth gave me something to play before I had my studio together and I must say I spent hours and hours programming the hell out of it. It sounds much better than it has a right to, the waveforms are all 8-bit multisamples fed through some custom Korg chips (waveform mixer, VCF and VCA on one chip) and then into a simple 12-bit digital delay. It *should* sound all grainy and aliasy (well the waveforms alias a little on the top end but not nearly as bad as something like a DX7) but it sounds very thick, warm, smooth, etc. I think the great sound comes mostly from the excellent filters (best I've heard anywhere) and the generous anti-aliasing in the delay. It's a basic mid-80's hybrid, 16 digital waves 2 6-stage envelopes, a single LFO (goes pretty fast though). So it's not terribly well featured but there's enough to keep it fairly interesting. The sound is very unique, very warm, not much top end at all, but the oscillators don't go low enough for really really deep bass, but this isn't so bad. The filters are amazing, not moog-ish at all, they seem to have a very unique character, usually smooth but with a lot of resonance they get really acidy, a bit like the SH-101. Overall, the synth is best at odd digital-sounding pads, smooth deep analog-sounding pads, and bass sounds. With unison mode it's almost too over the top to use. The pads it makes are almost comparable to those of a D50.
For the bad parts, the case isn't terribly sturdy (it's alright but the top is made of slightly flexy plastic), the keyboard sucks (very noisy and clunky...still quite useable though...and good velocity response), and it tends to get stuck notes, etc. It's also monitimbral, low polyphony, no knobs, etc. but that's just the nature of the beast.
Anyway, as much as I love it I'm going to have to sell it, I've now got a half-decent studio put together and now there's no room for the Korg. I got an ESQ-M to give me similar sounds. It does alright, much better features than the Korg but it's hard to get the same sound out of it. The filters aren't anywhere near as good.
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