Korg DS-8

The Korg DS-8 is a 61-key FM synthesizer produced by Korg in 1987. It is a 4-operator 8-voice, 8-part-multitimbral synthesizer with a 61-note keyboard that has velocity and aftertouch sensitivity. It has no filter and only the basic delay, chorus, flanger, and double effects. It was released to compete against synthesizers such as the Yamaha DX7 and TX81Z. At the time, Yamaha probably didn’t care that they had a competitor in the FM synthesis arena – After all, Korg licensed the technology from them.

Sound (3) or (5) in Glitch Mode

While this synthesizer is capable of all of the sounds that FM is known to excel at – bells, basses, synth brass, electric pianos, organs, and noises – it really does do a mediocre job at best. Even though it has 100 internal patch memories there really isn’t a need for more than 10 since that’s about how many different sounds this machine is capable of.

If this synthesizer is placed into “glitch mode”, which happens when the synth experiences buffer overflow errors during a MIDI sysex dump, it is capable of some of the strangest, freakiest sounds, many of which are reminiscent of old modular synthesizers. Playing MIDI files and sequences through the synth in this mode can result in either the strangest, most amazing sounds, or a useless wall of noise and frequency aliasing.

Since no mortal Human could program these sounds naturally and it requires quite a bit of effort to achieve this mode, I’m using the “normal” rating of 3 in my rating calculations.

Versatility (4)

As mentioned in the “sounds” section, this synth is really only capable of doing about ten sounds well. This doesn’t really lead to a great versatility rating. You can use it for things that lend themselves to “FM sounds” and not much else.

Playability (5)

Even though it’s just your basic plastic keyboard, the keys are comfortable enough and the aftertouch and velocity sensitivity make it useful as a controller if nothing else.

Control (4)

It has no filters, minimal effects, and not much in the way of fancy modulation, but it does have some nice envelope generators and the pitch stick can be used to great effect. It has no knobs, but the timbre and envelope sliders are handy.

Features (4)

Since this is just “your basic FM synthesizer” there’s not much to report in the feature area beyond what was mentioned in the “Control” and “Sounds” sections.

Simplicity (5)

FM synths are notoriously un-simple. However, the real premise of the DS-8 was giving a clean, user-friendly interface to FM. In that respect it does well enough – its far easier to edit a patch on the DS-8 than on a Yamaha DX7. Even so, there’s only so much you can do for the inherent complexity of FM.

Reliability (7)

At the time of this writing, I have two of these synths. They’re fairly sturdy and the lack of protruding parts (i.e. knobs) means there’s not much that can be broken off. They’re pretty plastic-y and flimsy, but rather sturdy considering their materials.

Class (2)

This synth doesn’t really have any class or coolness. The only thing it has going for it is the nice shade of blue used for the LCD backlight.

I really can’t recommend this synth to anyone, even in glitch mode. It is quite possibly the most useless piece of gear I have ever used. If you have a desperate need for FM but don’t want to deal with the hassle of actually doing to calculus involved in figuring out how to program sounds this might be for you, but probably not. What FM does well can be done better with a sampler – they’re often easier to use and more versatile than any FM gear you’ll run across.

If you get one for free, go ahead and play with it, but in general this synthesizer belongs in the dumpster. It is easily outdone by modern emulators and VSTs.

-Xangis