1) a glorifed (and slightly dated) Rompler

2) an incredible pad machine

3) a virtual musique-concrete workstation (with a nod to Antilife ;o)

If you choose #1, you'll *probably* be disappointed with the instrument emulations, but might like it for those "spacier" sounds, if you have a place for them in your music.

If you choose #2, #3, or both, you're in for a treat.

The whole thing is essentially based on PCM samples. What sets it apart are the Wavesequencing and Vector mixing capabilities. The graphic interface in Sound Diver for Wavesequence editing, is literally a "virtual musique concrete" design - you choose how many slots (ie. small snipets of tape) you want, the length of each, and the crossfade value between them. You can also set individual levels, as well as fine and coarse tuning for each segment. And the whole thing looks like a strip of analog tape with multiple splices/edits.

Then you move up to the Patch level. A Patch can contain 1, 2 or 4 oscillators. An oscillator can either be a single on-board PCM sample - which is how you use it as a Rompler; or a Wavesequence - which how you use it to do something interesting. Each oscillator has it's own sections for defining pitch, filter, envelopes, LFOs etc. If you use 2 or 4 osciallators, they are routed into either a 2-way or 4-way vector mixer, respectively.

There is also a Performance level, in which you can combine up to 8 Patches and define Global FX settings. There are two FX slots, which can run either serial (both on the A/B outs), or parallel (with one routed to the C/D outs). And there are Multi-Sets, which use 16 Performances for a multi-timbral set-up. Given that there are only 4 outputs, and that polyphony is 32 notes, multi-timbral operation isn't really a practical use.

I personally use it as a mono-timbral sound source, even if I'm layering Patches in a Performance.

In short, this machine is capable of some amazing sounds, thanks in large part to the Wavesequencing. There are several waveforms from the Prophet VS (the machine which, in a lot of ways, gave birth to the Wavestation series) included as PCM samples here, as well as some PPG-like tones - the Wavestation does a pretty good impression of PPG wavetables as well, if you use the appropriate tones while putting together your Wavesequence (I'm paraphrasing Antilife again, because I couldn't have said it better).

The effects are standard Korg fare, some great, some not.

There has been a fair bit of debate at the Gas Station over the lack of resonant filters in the Wavestation. Quite frankly, I think the lack of them gives this module a unique character. If you want a resonant filter for it, run it through an external one. The only way resonant filters would have been useful, in my opinion, is if they were implemented at the Wavesequencing level - with individual type, cut-off and resonance parameters for each slot in the Wavesequence.

I mentioned the Sound Diver interface for editing Wavesequences above: for editing the Wavestation SR, Sound Diver is absolutely necessary, as the front panel interface is horrendous. Two things I dis-like about the way the SR (and presumably the whole series) handles sys-ex: 1) the fact that you can only transmit entire banks and not individual Patches/Performances when storing this way, and 2) the fact that the Wavestation likes to "link" Wavesequences to the Patches they are used in, and Patches to the Performances they are used in. In other words, if you attempt to save a newly-edited Patch in place of one that is used in a previously-stored Performance, it will ignore your new Patch in order to keep the previous one intact for the relative Performance. Both very annoying traits. It can be worked around if you're careful, but I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

All in all, the Wavestation SR is an excellent synth which, in spite of it's age and sys-ex quirks, still stands up today - at least when used as a pad/sound-design machine.