Korg Wavstation EX and Wavestation A/D brochure, 1992

 

 

 

Korg Wavstation EX and Wavestation A/D 8-page brochure from 1992.

I gotta tell ya. I'm all Wavestation-ed out. It's been a good run of blog posts, but I think my curiosity has reached its limit.

Actually - I thought I was already done with everything "Wavestation" on the blog. I even ended that last blog post with what I thought was a relatively witty Madonna/Britney Spears analogy that I was quite proud of. All wrapped up nice!  :D

But then I came across this brochure. Gah. Maybe it just looked too similar to the 1991 Wavestation/Wavestation A/D brochure I posted back in December, camouflaged, hiding from the world. Well, too bad. Like a crazy-assed Toddlers and Tiaras mother, I'm gonna shove this baby on stage whether it wants it or not.

Again - I'm surprised this brochure didn't get produced until 1992. I always thought the Wavestation EX came out *before* the A/D, as a response to customer feedback that the original Wavestation didn't include drums and other more basic sounds. The last sighting of the Jan Hammer Wavestation ad that appeared in July 1991 included additional EX ad-copy: "Now with expanded memory and more sounds". Also, the ad that followed in August 1991 featured BOTH the EX and A/D, suggesting they may have come out at approximately the same time. The Wikipedia page for the Wavestation includes 1991 production dates for both, and always seems to list the EX before the A/D in tables and such.

But then why did the Wavestation-Wavestation A/D brochure come out in 1991, but this brochure with the EX didn't appear until 1992? Also, why did the Spec Sheet for the A/D appear in March 1991 but the Spec Sheet for the EX didn't appear until November 1991.

Was it just that the additional awesomeness of the A/D, including an extra RAM bank and analog inputs, give it a leg up in getting promoted over the EX? Huh.

Hey - I seriously just noticed something on that Wikipedia page. Near the bottom of the page, it says that Korg's OASYS and Kronos also include wave sequencing and vector synthesis! I quickly jumped over to Ebay to check prices... oh. nevermind. The OASYS, released in 2006 still commands about a $5,000 price tag, and the Kronos is running at about $2,500.

I think I'll stick with my Wavestation A/D.

Okay, *now* my Wavestation curiosity has come to an end. And just in time - been getting a few requests lately - mostly for Oberheim stuff. Time to jump back into the 80s.

I'll end with a summary of my Wavestation posts. A good run.   :)

July 1990: Wavestation 2-page "Make Waves" intro ad
September 1990: Wavestation 1-page "Make Waves" ad
April 1991: Wavestation "Portraits" Jan Hammer ad (July 1991 version includes EX info)
August 1991: Wavestation A/D and EX "Top Ten Reasons" ad
November 1992: Wavestation SR "15 Sounds" ad
November 1993: Wavestation A/D and SR "5 And A Half Amazing Racks" ad

And, don't forget about the brochures!

1990: Original Wavestation brochure
1991: Wavestation and Wavestation A/D brochure
1992: This Wavestation EX and Wavestation A/D brochure

Korg Wavestation A/D and SR "Five and a half amazing rack systems" ad, Keyboard and Electronic Musician 1993

Korg Wavestation A/D and SR synthesizer "Five and a half amazing rack systems" 1-page advertisement from the inside front cover of Keyboard Magazine and page 79 in Electronic Musician November 1993.

Man - is it nice out.

*And* it's a long weekend.

*AND* I have a geek date to play Legend of Drizzt.  

*AND* I'm currently building a new table-top to fit onto my studio desk. I've had one of those Quik-Lok WS500 workstation desks for quite a few years. Not the most stable workstations (people can't dance in my studio because it makes my Tannoy's and computer monitor bounce), but very useful and serves my needs.  I used a Korg Z1 as a large master controller that sat on the upper arms, and then had a small wooden board on the table portion of the desk that held a keyboard, mouse, Mackie Control, and a various midi/audio in-out devices. Needless to say, it was getting very crowded.

And now that I've recently upgraded to a laptop, I need to make room for that. So, I took out the Z1 and put the 17" laptop on the open arms. Nice fit. And my master keyboard has now become a much smaller Korg MicroKey and sits on the desk now - closer to me than the laptop keyboard. Figure I input notes a lot more than I use the laptop keyboard. We'll see.

But, that small board was now really crowded with the addition of the keyboard. So, off to the store to buy a much larger 44"x30" piece of wood. Now everything fits nicely. The less cluttered look really makes me want to be in the room and create music again.

 I'll post a pic or two on my Retro Synth Labs blog in the near future.

Anyways, point is this will be a short blog post for all the reasons above. And ptobably my next blog post too. :)

Okay... time to be honest. I'm getting waaaaay past my comfort zone as I venture more into the early-90's. And I'm not just talkin' synthesizer ads - that includes many synthesizers as well.

I found that by this time, more than a few of the big synthesizer companies were just pumping out too many of what I considered to be just derivative versions of previous synths (if I'm using the word derivative correctly?!?!). Sure they would add a few new features, more ram/voices/etc... but nothing really "new". E-mu was in full swing pumping out their Proteus series, Roland with their JVs, Yamaha with their SYs (actually, not too shabby), and of course Korg with their 0x/Ws.

Don't get me wrong - they were nice sounding machines. They were workhorses. They were powerful. But I just didn't find them fun.

Sure, there were a few interesting things popping onto the market - the Wavestation stuff, Roland JD800, E-mu Morpheus, Kurzweil K2000 and the Waldorf Wave - but they were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Luckily there was more fun to come. I just had to wait for big and small companies a-like to get their butt in gear and release things like the Korg Prophecy, Doepfer A100 gear, QuasiMidi Raveolution, and Access Virus... it would just take time.

Until then - we got this. Korg's 1993 holiday push for it's five and a half racks.

It got good play in the November and December 1993 issues of Keyboard Magazine appearing on the inside front cover, but then got kicked into the back-half of the magazine in the January and February 1994 issues when Korg decided that their new Korg X3 workstation needed inside-front-cover attention. In Electronic Musician, the "Five and a half amazing racks" ad ran for a similar length of time, but never hit cover status as far as I can tell. Boo.

At least Korg had the courage and respect (hee hee) to list the Korg A/D and SR first. Even before the newer X3R and 5R/W. Makes me happy.

Korg was using the shotgun approach this holiday season - spraying pellets of rack-goodness at all types of musicians from the professional musician with a six-figure advance to the amateur home recordists in need of an under-$1000-all-in-one-box solution. And when I say all-in-one-box, I mean it. That little 05R/W had a built-in MIDI interface for MAC and PC. Okay, maybe the synth-gear world wasn't as stagnant as I made it out to be earlier.

I'm not too sure how long the SR and A/D  remained in production after this ad was released, but the Wavestation's Wikipedia page gives the Wavestation series an end date of 1994.

Almost hurts to see the Wavestation brand end with this ad - sharing advertising with an X3R. Bah!

It's kinda like Madonna sharing a stage with Britney Spears.   :)

Korg Wavestation EX and A/D "Top 10 reasons" ad, Keyboard and Electronic Musician 1991

Korg Wavestation EX and A/D "Top 10 reasons" 1-page advertisement from page 1 in Keyboard Magazine and page 23 in Electronic Musician August 1991.

My brain doesn't always work properly. Names are a good example. Once I start using the wrong name for something, I can't shake it. Humans. Gear. Magazines. And even when I correct myself, its like I'm reinforcing the wrong name, not the right one. This may be why you will often read "Computer Musician", when in fact I'm referring to the magazine "Electronic Musician". I equate "Electronic Musician" more with computers, and as I write quickly, I'll often flip back and forth between the two names. Gah. I think I've cleaned up everything now.   :)

Anyways, you will remember that the last time the Jan Hammer "Portraits" ad ran, it included a small band of text that referenced the fact that the original Wavestation now had expanded memory and more sounds. I suggested that they were referring to the new EX version of the keyboard, and sure enough, a month later Korg came out with a new ad that promoted both the Wavestation EX AND the Wavestation A/D.

But Korg seemed to be running out of steam with the Wavestation brand in terms of advertising. Or maybe it was just the fact that the Wavestation was so different from other synths that it was selling itself at this point. Either way, Korg didn't push the EX and A/D as much as the original Wavestation. The ad ran off and on between August 1991 and November 1991 in Keyboard Magazine, and only seems to have appeared once in Electronic Musician in August.

A shame too, because I really like this ad. There is *a lot* to read - but it still seems short and snappy. And there also still feels like it has room to breathe. Good layout and design.

Plus it includes a few surprises. For example, Reason #5 includes a 1-800 number you can call and LISTEN to a special phone demo. Brilliant. I don't recall see this when I originally saw the ad back in the day, and am kicking myself that I never had a chance to call that number. Another great surprise is Korg's promotion of 3rd party sound designers in Reason #10. Always good to give 3rd party developers some props. But the best is Korg's offer of a free video demo of the Wavestation. Again, never took advantage of that opportunity. Still kicking myself.

Like the original Wavestation before it, regular readers of Keyboard would have found out about the A/D waaaay before the ad appeared. This was most likely due to its appearance at the January 1991 NAMM show. Although this time, the Wavestation A/D had to compete with a lot more new exciting gear for attention. The darling of Keyboard's NAMM article, titled "Retro Mania", was the new JD-800 and it's 59 sliders. And that opened the door to get Roland's other gear to the front of the line in the article too, including the JX-1, S-750, S-770 and Studio-M. Still, Korg's Wavestation A/D managed to get third-billing after Roland's Rhodes division. Not too shabby.

The Spec Sheet for the A/D appeared a month before the NAMM report in the March 1991 issue, coincidentally right at the beginning of the Jan Hammer Wavestation ad-run. It is interesting to see that even as the latest A/D is being hyped at trade shows, the original Wavestation was still being hyped in ads.

The Spec Sheet really gives a good introduction to the instrument:

"Korg rack-mount Wavestation synthesizer. Korg's Wavestation A/D is a two-space rack-mount version of the Wavestation keyboard. It features 32 digital oscillators, 32 digital filters, and 64 envelope generators and LFOs. Wave sequencing allows each oscillator to play up to 255 different sounds, or waveforms, in sequence. A programmable and constantly varying mix of up to four different sounds, each of which may also be a wave sequence, is available within each patch. Up to eight of these patches can be layered across the keyboard with velocity switching. A stereo pair of analog inputs allows external sound sources to be processed through the Wavestation A/D's built-in effects. External sounds can also be used as waves for processing through filters, amplitude envelopes, and pan control. Each input can be independently controlled using MIDI volume data. new effects that have been developed for the analog inputs include two vocoders and a combined compressor/limiter-EQ-noise gate. About $2,400.00. Korg USA, 89 Frost St., Westbury, NY 11590. (516) 333-9100. Fax (516) 333-9180."

Now, here is where things get a little out-of-step. Even though the A/D made it into the Spec Sheet in the March 1991, issue, it would be a full eight months before the EX upgrade would be announced in the Spec Sheet section. A full three months after this ad started to run.

This promo also included some good reference info including prices for both the EX model and the upgrade for the original Wavestation:

"Korg Wavestation upgrade. Among the 119 new sampled waveforms within the Wavestation EX are piano, drums and percussion, guitars, basses, flutes, and alto sax, bringing the total number of waveforms to 484. The EX comes with a program card containing 50 new performances, 35 new patches, and 32 new wave sequences. Also new are eight effects algorithms, including vocoder, pitch-shift, and stereo compressor/limiter with gate. $2,333.00; upgrade for current owners $110.00. Korg. 89 Frost St., Westbury, NY 11590 (516) 333-9100. Fax (516) 333-9108."

I think I've mentioned it before, but if I haven't screamed it from the highest mountain top, I'm a big fan of the Korg Wavestation A/D. I've had one for quite a while, and while other rack gear has been moved from my main rack to the secondary "grave yard" rack, the rack screws on the A/D have never been unscrewed. I still spend hours online looking for new information on this synth, but one of my favorite stories appears on the Wikipedia page for the Wavestation, and explains how the A/D prototype was first developed using a hacksaw and a Prophet 2000 sampler.

"The Wavestation A/D was the brainchild of Joe Bryan, then-Senior Design Engineer at Korg R&D. A guitar player, he wanted "something that worked with a simple midi guitar that would merge the guitar, synth and effects, and could be controlled from one or two buttons on the guitar." The idea was of little interest to his colleagues at first. Nevertheless, he found a prototype of a Sequential Circuits Prophet 2000 sampler and literally hacksawed the analog-to-digital converter circuitry from it, soldered that and a digital interface to the Wavestation's ROM bus to create the first prototype of the Wavestation A/D. The prototype convinced Bryan's colleagues of his idea."

After this ad appeared, the Wavestation brand would go silent for exactly a year. Just enough time for mommy and daddy Wavestation to do what comes naturally (in the presence of engineers)...

...give birth to baby.

Korg Wavestation & Wavestation A/D brochure, 1991

Korg Wavestation & Wavestation A/D 8-page brochure from 1991.

Christmas is getting closer and time is running out. Added on to the regular pressures of work are the pressures of buying gifts (I dislike the whole obligatory gift thing), holiday get-together events (I have a general hatred for all humans), extra food eating (too many calories) and the extra exercise that has to follow (recipe for injuries). Bah humbug!

I get even more tired just thinking about it. Need to de-stress.

And lately, what are best ways to de-stress during the holidays? Well, if it isn't kicking a feral troll's ass or stompin' a goblin cutter while adventuring through "The Legend of Drizzt" board game with a few select geek friends, then the next best thing is mindless scanning. It takes me about ten times as long to scan any given ad or brochure because as soon as I start scanning one, I usually end up lazily paging through related reference info in other magazines and promo material. Good times... good times... the only thing missing is a hot tub and bubbles (not good for paper. Or scanners  :)

So, what starts with a Korg Wavestation 2-page intro ad, quickly turns into page-flipping/ebay-buying/scanning marathon sessions that could well provide blogging fodder well into mid-February.

And so it continues with this 1991 Wavestation & Wavestation A/D brochure. Flipping to the back of the publication, it looks like it might have been printed as early as March or June of that year, depending on how you read the print date/code on the back. It reads "1991 0306C0CGH". So, that 0306 could be either the month/day or day/month.

Either way, its still a fairly long time after the original Wavestation brochure came out (date code is 1990 0203CFOTH), and yet you have to give Korg creds for keeping to the original design while also making positive improvements. And, if it's unclear, I'm talking about both the brochure AND the Wavestation A/D itself.

Much like the A/D kept to the original synth design with all the same functions and capabilities, so does this brochure keep to the original by using a similar textural background. It also uses a very similar writing style and includes a lot of the same charts and diagrams. Recycling at it's finest!

The A/D also improved upon the original Wavestation through additional waveforms and effects algorithms, as well as adding those awesome analog/digital converters. Aside: A trademark sound from my main set included using a Dead Can Dance vocal riff (shush!) sampled into my Emax SE. Then, I would route the sample through the Wavestation's inputs with the vocoder effect, triggering both the sample and the wave sequence at the same time. Re-sample and repeat. Spectacular!

And this brochure definitely improves on the first brochure. The first thing to be noticed when looking at this brochure is that it is oriented vertically, while the first Wavestation brochure was horizontal. I have a love/hate relationship with horizontal brochures - from a design perspective it is creative and fun, but it doesn't always feel natural and is sometimes uncomfortable to hold. This second brochure is definitely easier to hold, open, and read. Also, readability is enhanced significantly in this brochure now that the textured background is removed from pages with actual information. Nothing beats black text on a white background. So much easier easier to read, especially with such a small font.

Well - I just thought of another one of my great stress reliefs. Watching Survivor! Time to hunker down in my pre-xmas-gift snuggie and watch Ozzy take victory! Go Ozzy go!