Tony Banks (Genesis) keyboard question

[hephiroth]

So, I was watching the Genesis "The Way We Walk Live" DVD, and Tony Banks has like 4 keyboards (including a Roland JD-800, like the one Alberto is selling!), but there was one I couldn't identify. It's a Korg keyboard, and it's red, like the color of the Karma, but it's definitely not a karma. It has a pitch and mod WHEELS, not a joystick, and it has another little joystick on the main control surface of the board that sort of looks like the vector joystick thing on the Oasys, only it's not lit up in blue. I tried checking the Korg archives on their website but couldn't find anything, and I can't seem to see any model number. He plays it a lot, and I was just curious as to what board it was. Like I said, an older, RED korg keyboard that isn't the karma...anyone know???

-Jeff-

[Luca_Capozzi]

perhaps a Wavestation painted red?

Luca

[Stimpus]

hmmm i think i know the one you mean. I never worked out what it was so i gave up.
I went to see NightWish and the keyboardist there had the same keyboard, a red korg. I'm 99% sure it was, because it didn't look anything liek a Karma and it certainly wasn't a Nord. meh, the mysteries of life are such.

[Tusker]

A Korg Wavestation I believe. I recall his being black. The wavestation has the additional joystick to crossfade dynamically between the four samples. He used it mostly for pads (it played the role previously played by the mellotron, the roland VP string machine/vocoder etc.). And yes, when the Oasys sets out to do wavesequencing, it is bringing this technology back.

Check out TB's equipment lists here:

http://www.tonybanks-online.com/index2.php?lang=en


Jerry

[hanton]

Actually, the synth the keyboardist of Nightwish(Tuomas) uses is a Karma.

[hephiroth]

interesting! what are the strengths of that synth?

thanks for the info, btw

-jeff-

[Scrap]

When Sequential Circuits finally went belly-up, their research and development into vector synthesis was picked up at Korg. This led to the hugely successful Wavestation Synthesizer which was based on Sequential's ProphetVS. The Wavestation incorporated the 2-dimensional vector joystick of the ProphetVS which allowed the user to blend, alter and animate sounds.

Korg added to this a second break-through form of synthesis: wave sequencing, by which short segments of sampled audio waveforms could be played one after the other and cross-faded into each other for some complex and unusual tones, pads, textures and rhythms. The Wavestation had 2MB of ROM based samples at your disposal. Programming is not exactly easy but this great digital synth is capable of lush ambient sounds and strange effects. It has the obligatory lowpass filter, though it is non-resonant and digital sounding. Also on-board are some multi-effects which are pretty nice. This synth is easily upgraded and expandable with PCM cards too.

The Wavestation was a niche product and the first model of it didn't even include a piano sample or any acoustic instruments. This was later added to the EX model.