Anyway, the sound is rich and bassy overall but sharp at the same time. Nice. There's a high pass filter to trim the bass out though for pads. Someone said it's pads would eat up bandwidth in a mix, which is true, but just use the HPF. Also, I think the comments on the lack of punchy basses might be propaganda. I think they're fine. Nice deep, round bass is a snap on this one and it rattles my windows.

The chorus is perfect, the chase play function can save notes in your sequencer, and the velocity feels really expressive. I definitely want a pg-800 now. OS was last updated in the late 80's and it's 2.30

A smooth and classy synth and it's even bi timbral.

Okay, soundwise: this thing is a monster! Best DCO based analog synth ever. 24 oscillators, 12-note polyphony; basically two JX-8P's in one keyboard with performance options, bi-timbral, can transmit on 2 MIDI channels at once, high quality 76-note keyboard with velocity sensitivity & aftertouch (though it takes quite a bit of pressure to activate the aftertouch). I disagree with someone who said that the factory patches really show the instrument's capability: they're all (mostly) cheesy 80's sounds and don't come anywhere close to showing what's really inside this thing. After noodling around with the alpha dial & changing tones on the default A1 patch (the one that comes up when you power up the synth), and editing resonance & cutoff, I created an analog brass patch so rich and full it blew me away; 10 times better than any of the factory presets (very Prophet 5 -like in fact!). Like the first reviewer said, do not doubt the power of this synth. Great digital-sounding electric pianos and bells too, not bad coming from a synth with analog architecture; I suspect this is because of the advanced cross-modulation and frequency modulation capabilities.

I will be getting a PG-800 programmer soon (just ordered on eBay) which will make editing tones a lot easier and give me some live real-time control over tone parameters - cool! This synth, with the programmer, will put you into serious analog world, and will blow away your Juno 106, Korg Polysix, etc. In fact it's the next best thing to an OBXa, Jupiter 8, Memorymoog, etc. but with stable oscillators (maybe not quite as warm a sound as those, but that's debatable; all depends on how well you program it). All analog signal path except for the DCO's, but these are essentially "analog oscillators under digital microprocessor control" which means stability, and not digital waveforms or PCM samples.

We all know about the limited sysex capabilities so I won't go into it in detail. But with the M-64C cartridge you can still load or dump whole patch banks - just no realtime control of parameters using a computer based editor, so you have to shell out for a PG-800 for that. Nice one-track realtime sequencer (no big thing, but great for scratchwork or live performance - sort of like a glorified arpeggiator). You also need the M-64C cartridge for the sequencer to work.

All said, this keyboard has pride in my home studio - I am beginning to incorporate it into my sound and it fits in just nicely. A very professionally-built, great sounding analog synth with advanced features. Best suited for live & studio use for professionals, not bedroom mozarts looking to show off knobs/sliders & woodgrain paneling to their chums. More for work & less for antique collectibility.