Now that I see the timeline ( ) it looks good. I see what you were aiming at.

A few thoughts...if this was a more detailed account.
Kawai K5 is missing, and it was a real landmark synth, more so than the K5000. Also Korg Karma and Trinity deserve a placement. The former due to the Karma system, and the latter due to the pioneering touch screen and perhaps the multitimbral effects. These two definitely deserve a mention in the workstation paragraph. Korg Z1 is also absent, and this definitely deserves a mention as it was the first polyphonic Physical Modeling synth (VL1's duophony notwithstanding).

By the way, I thought that D50 does not belong in this sentence:
"The workstation can even be seen to have gotten it's start many years earlier with the D-50, M1, and SY77 respectively.". It does not have a sequencer, thus can not be taken as a 'workstation'. In fact Ensoniq ESQ-1 can take its place.

Anyway, it's great to see something like this so thank you for posting this (expand teh 1970s section though! ).

edit:typos
Last edited by himalaya on Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

Perhaps you need to do more research. The OSCar is not DCO - it is all-digital except for the filter. It can even be used to build your own additive waves:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep99/articles/oscar.htm

Not bad for a synth born in 1983.

And "Nueron" is spelled "Neuron". Just wanting to make your article look more professional.

Bringing it up to date I would include John Bowen's Solaris too.

I thought the same. Good call on the Oscar too.

Himilaya, thanks for appreciating this.

My response to your comments:

K5 - agreed that it should be added to timeline (rack version looks cool too)

Korg Karma - not sure if landmark but agree that it deserves a mention

Trinity - plain old workstation to me, touchscreen important maybe on a timeline of synthesizer UI

Z1 - that's interesting about polyphonic physical modeling, agreed it deserves a mention but the Prophecy is the timeline landmark


About the D50... hmmm. I think the D50's influence is complex and from a certain perspective, could easily be considered one of the precursors to the workstation. First off, it was the first successful synthesizer featuring sample playback, high quality effects as part of the sound, and a sort of mixed synthesis method with LA synthesis. So though it lacked a sequencer, which I agree is a main feature of a workstation, I think these other elements add up to making the D50 important in the development of the workstation.

At the same time, the D50's direct descendant is the JD-800 which is more synthesizer than workstation. This trajectory ends up today at the V-synth which in my view is the modern day D-50 (not just because of the D50 emulation). So the spirit of the D50 is more synthesizer than workstation. Still, it has something workstation-like about it, I think it's mostly the sample playback.

I would go so far to say that the D50 is the crossroad between the old world of synthesizers (with analog mentality) and the modern world of synthesizers (with digital frame of mind). Another, though more existential, reason on why the D50 could be considered the precursor to the modern workstation.
Last edited by vmachine on Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:16 pm; edited 3 times in total

Oscar sounds like it's similar to the SID chip.

Thanks for the info.

Perhaps, but it should never be confused with a 'workstation'. You simply can not make a complete track on the D-50, which is what a workstation allows. That's all that counts here. The real precursor is the ESQ-1, which has always been neglected in this context.



That's a nice way to put it, especially if you take the optional controller into account.



Also the first workstation with multitimbral effects. A no mean feat! Taken with the screen, it is a special instrument. I mean, take it into a larger context: today everything is about a touch sensitive user interface, from iPhones to massive LCD screens. The Trinity was there way back in the mid 90s! A bold move on Korg's part. A milestone in music instruments user interface.
Last edited by himalaya on Sun Jul 22, 2012 11:11 am; edited 1 time in total

Sounds a bit better than that.

Sorry for getting uppity, but I own a real OSCar and I get sick of reading that incorrect VSE article that then gets repeated over the intrnet as fact.

Other than that (apparently wrong) entry in Vintage Synth that says DCO, it's hard to tell exactly the OSCar is. Most internet sources I've come across just say call it digital, and then go on to describe a design that's pretty close to the stereotypical analog synthesizer. The only other digital subtractive synthesizers around that time seems to be the SID chip and it's kind of hard to tell what that is too since it uses the same waveforms as most analog synthesizers.

Nowadays wavetable synthesis is known to be it's own thing, more associated with complex waveforms rather than simpler analog-style waveforms. So from today's perspective, these early wavetable synthesizers (guessing the OSCar is wavetable as well) don't really look like what most consider wavetable/digital synthesizers today. Maybe that's why some label it as DCO.

As well as the main 'standard analogue' wavforms on the OSCar, you can build your own waveforms with 24 harmonics, so not super complex but quite FM-sounding sometimes (although it is not FM synthesis). As well as these custom waves there are five extra non-standard waveforms built into the OSCar. From the manual:



Next.



I always though they should be called DOs (Digital Oscillators) as really the term wavetable isn't right here.



No, that's just repeating what they've read on the internet. And then that gets repeated in articles and the cycle starts again.

The reason I feel this is important is that not only is it a very early digital example, it carries over the analogue mentallity of knobs, unlike the DX7 of the same year. This knobs idea would then disappear and eventually come back with the JD-800 and VA synths. Also the designer, Chris Huggett, went on to design the OS for the AKAI S1000 and design the Novation Supernova (OK I realise you're not dealing in samplers per se, but he is an important figure and the Supernova is in your timeline).

This. I think the TS10/12 were the most advanced synths Ensoniq ever made. It had it all (sampling, transwaves, wavetables, hyperwaves [wave sequencing similar to Korg Wavestation] and PCM samples). Excellent synths these were.

If a history of a company can be considered to be tragic, then it's the Ensoniq's.

I love my Fizmo and back in the day used an ESQ-1 loads. Such a shame that the name was bought but never really put to good use.

Sounds like it could be table lookup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavetable_synthesis

The difference between table lookup and wavetable is pretty small.

That's an interesting point about the hardware controls of the OSCar.

OSCars were pretty landmark synths IMO. Especially considering they were right at the start of the (commercial mass-produced) digital synth era. They are often lumped in with analogues simply because of the superb analogue filters, and that they were essentially the last of the great monos of that time (I know they were duophonic, but for most people they were basically big powerful monos). So monosynths are still associated with analogue - and OSCars were one of the greatest, most flexible and powerful sounding monos. End and biggest of the line. But they really had gazillions of digital tricks up their sleeves - the additive part of the oscillators - really not much competition when they came out. And big fat digital oscillators that it took years to catch up with. If you set the filters to flat, those oscillators are still sumptuous. Compare against almost all of the following FM stynths and the workstations - which all sounded very thin and trebly, and it's only in recent years that you get any purely digital oscillators that on their own sound as big.
Then you have the arp and the sequencer. All things that are associated with analogues, but think about how long it took for things like VAs to get those. Those weird and wonderful cyclical envelopes - I don't remember seeing those on any h/w synths - plenty of plugins do nowadays, but again it was way ahead of its time.

OSCars still put most modern VAs to shame - it could even be considered as a VA that was probably 20 years before its time. VA's intent is to give everything analogues have but digital and hence cheap. OSCars gave everything we wanted in analogue and sounded like one of the best ones, but was mostly digital (unfortunately quite expensive...). VA manufacturers would kill to learn how to make their synths sound even close to an OSCar. Really.