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I still miss my old Trident MkII. There was something magical about the overall sound that no other synth has captured since. I've tried Full Bucket's Tricent VST, but it just doesn't do the original any justice

By great do you mean most popular, commercially successful, most innovative, or the machine that can do the most?

Most popular = Synth-wise, I'm guessing Triton series. (Otherwise probably a host of lower cost guitar tuners that sell in greater volume!)
Commercially succesful = Again I'm guessing M1/Trinity
Most innovative = Z1 (even though I believe it was not commercially successful)
Machine that can do the most = Kronos 2.

Greatest release? PS-3300. What I'd give to own one of those beasts!

[NB] I am about to ramble a good deal and may even go a little out of the bounds of the original topic rules. I apologise. Maybe try to imagine the things I describe below and think about how you might be able to get "Look Mum No Computer!" to do the last one for real!

LektroiD wrote:Greatest release? PS-3300. What I'd give to own one of those beasts!

I was going to mention that after doing some reading earlier today when nitecrawler reminded me of the Doncamatic. When a friend told me about it a couple of decades ago, I didn't believe him at first due to the utterly comedic name it had. SOS have a great article on the history of Korg and of course the PS3300 is mentioned.

Like yourself I instantly thought "this thing needs a reissue!". Then I thought about the cost; I came within a hare's whisker of dropping the money required to augment my eurorack setup to be capable of doing 4-voice polyphony with a digital waveform source (Quadnic) and the necessary analogue quad VCA's, VCF's and envelopes. I put in a nice dual LFO for good measure and realised that for a few dollars more I could buy a Novation Peak (8-voice digital/analogue) that was on sale for the annual stocktakes.

Now thinking about how much the Peak cost (on sale), how much Korg's own Prologue 16 costs, how much Waldorf's Quantum costs and how much a Moog One costs, Korg would struggle to pay for the tooling for the machines if they were to recreate a PS-3300 en-mass - they haven't got the market for it. They weren't about to take the risk of mass-producing the ARP 2600, so I would be foolish to think they could pull-off enough sales of even a mini version of the PS-3300. Even Moog and Waldorf have taken great risks to produce their behemoth polysynths, but I know from what I have heard over the years that there are musician who are willing to pay those prices for instruments from those companies specifically, to have instruments that not may others have.

The day before I bought the Peak, a mate bought a TD-3. The thought crossed my mind that I could have bought eight of them for what I paid for the Peak, poly-chain them and have a very silly 8-voice synth, I would have to set each of their cutoffs and envelopes to match. So looking at it that way, a Behringer clone of a PS-3300 would be close to FORTY EIGHT times the cost of a TD-3. Or for a closer comparison (with the same price), forty eight Craves and still be only a 3rd of the oscillator count. And to do the same extrapolation using an existing Korg comparison, forty eight MS-20's (still one ocs short per voice), the cost would be outrageously expensive.

M1 the origin of the WORKSTATION

TRINITY OASYS KRONOS the evolution

Broadwave wrote:I still miss my old Trident MkII. There was something magical about the overall sound that no other synth has captured since. I've tried Full Bucket's Tricent VST, but it just doesn't do the original any justice

It was an amazing synth. Sometimes, they're made just right, everything is where you expect it, getting sounds you want seems to be easy, and exactly as you hear them in your head, and it just felt "right."

Rick Wakeman loved his, I know.

Only drawback? Those damn particleboard end caps. I re-made mine out of Pickled Oak, and thought they really added to the look of the synth. That is, they gave it some looks- it was not attractive- looking synth.

..Joe

Sorry. Double-post.

.Joe

For me Oasis/Kronos, beasts of machines.

judging by the hits created it has to be the Korg m1 hands down

If I would need to single one product it has to be M1.

Look at its appearance and compare it to what was available in 1988. It was from another world. Big, sleek, minimalistic working area, with proper LCD screen and sound that has beaten everything else in that point of time; it was a revolution concerning the relatively young sample playback PCM technology, making it finally ready to play natural instruments with lots of reality. Sequencer and effector made it a first workstation, although saving was still bound to expensive RAM cards.

Stargazer wrote:If I would need to single one product it has to be M1.

Look at its appearance and compare it to what was available in 1988. It was from another world. Big, sleek, minimalistic working area, with proper LCD screen and sound that has beaten everything else in that point of time; it was a revolution concerning the relatively young sample playback PCM technology, making it finally ready to play natural instruments with lots of reality. Sequencer and effector made it a first workstation, although saving was still bound to expensive RAM cards.

Ah yes, but also the expressiveness of layered multi-timbrel programs. It was like no other; a composer's wonderland, a programmer's heaven and a musician's wonder instrument!

Oh I forgot to mention how I was last using mine (it's in storage until our new house is finished): Take a combi and recreate it in sequencer mode, then use the sequencer to animate the various elements of the combi in ways you can't when playing it. I have to have it serviced again as it's playing up when trying to select a program or combi, but in sequencer mode it has no issues, which is how I came up with the idea of doing combi's in such a way. I just wish that the sequencer had seamless looping.

I'd have to say overall - Triton.
Surprised nobodys mentioned first.

True the M1 set the stage, 1st board I could feel free enough to chance something close to an aileann pipe, but memory options were the drawback.
O1W changed that. Made the WS gigable as a 1man band.
But Triton paradigmed the genre imo.
Touchscreen, vast options for its day.
Most of my work was done in the Triton.

Still never forget messing with an M1 oboe in the music shop at dinner time in my student teen days, and being awestruck.

Aus.

PS: Anyone ever see a T3. I did.

ausser wrote:PS: Anyone ever see a T3. I did.

I *had* a T1. With Mod Wheels even.

T1 T2 T3, All in my studio.

Love them.