Finally got my mits on one.. WOW. i have a jp8080 and read that it was the same synth, wrong… the jupiter 6 is warmer, sharper, fatter, rounder, squaerer, nicer, and beautiful. I cannot believe people think that virtuals can even touch the smoothness of real old analogs. makes me wonder, i think those who say the opposite or that the super nova is as cool don’t have a clue or don’t know how to use analogs. i can in minutes make the strangest, fattest, weirdest and musical sounds with this thing, not good for high bpm bass sounds, but great at everything else. amazing. i cannot believe that more don’t worship this synth as if it were one of the gods of synthdom. sound suffers when not in unison mode. CEM dullness. This does suck at strings, and the 8080 kicks this thing in the ass for strings, but for arps, leads, and aggro bass, jupiter 6 is amazing. Used on Dial8 single.

Got this synth with the pg200. I dig it, cool swells, nice pads, cool plucked type sounds, same filter as the juno 106, but man, it sounds much different, i think it makes better pads and plucked sounds than the 106, but cannot make fat bass, can squelch decently tho. Put some nice reverb, delay, and even flange and phase fx on this pup, and whoa, blows the shit out of most modern synths for pads etc.. Great for a cheap rack synth that is midi. very cool, and you can edit without the pg200, but its annoying.. very cool.. Used on Twisted Thought Generator.

Wicked. Man just picked this one up for dirt cheap with a vintage synth expansion board. amazing, blows the jv’s out of the water, so clear, so warm. and the price has fallen. great digital for pads and strings and ambience, amazing. Much better than the jd-800. Used on Dial8 single.

Agressive resonance, cool for acid. I prefer the sh09. makes wicked 909 and 808 like kicks and percussive sounds. The envs are super fast, in my opinion the fastest and most music for being the fastest. CEM osc ruins this for me, the tone is tweedy and kinda CEM like in that not so great way, but the filter is absolutely amazing, pure LSD! Used on Twisted Thought Generator.

Great for leads and bass. much warmer and smoother than the sh 101. Snappy envs, great bass shape. Can be fat as hell. it is one of my favorite mono synths. makes wicked 909 and 808 like kicks and percussive sounds. Pure analog! Used on Twisted Thought Generator. you can tell the cure used this and the sh2 on the old faith and seventeen second records. Nothing beats old roland mono synths. They are my favs.

Amazing. Don’t let the presets fool you. You can make this thing moog like. I got a killer moog lead out of it by fooling around with it. Filters are way cool for a digital, and man the FX are top notch, throw distortion on, boom, industrial, throw delays, phaser, boom techno. the S**T!!!! now for 400 bucks, if you by roland jv/xp, or any rompler, kick yourself. Buy 2 of these and get the poly you need, they are versatile, get a mono synth (analog, sampler, 2 of these, and you can write amazing tracks. Not gear for dumb preset people. Learn to program sounds. Yamaha did us all a favor.. Used on Fun With Knives and Twisted Thought Generator.

The touch screen makes editing your sounds and effects a breeze. I use this synth in its SEQ mode for use with cubase. In My opinion, I think Korg knows how to make the best workstations on the market. The stock sounds are typical. This keyboard was designed for many different uses. The combi mode is impressive, very powerful sound layering can be set up here. I have never once used it in combi mode, but now that I have much more gear I am considering it. I use it in SEQ mode. I do edit sounds a lot on this thing. The filters are great, even though this is a pcm digital playback system, the filters can make it sound good. The efx are where this board really stands out against other workstations in this class. 8 insert, and 2 master. they can be routed anyway, on any sounds. But it uses a block system for its effects. the more blocks for the effect you choose the more powerful the effect. 4 block phaser is amazing, but a 2 block will suffice. Phaser, Doppler, Amp Sim, Overdrive, & all kinds of delays are just a few i really love. There are many more effects than the ones i just listed.

People have told me that this synth is far to pretty sounding to make industrial music with, but i just laugh, because if you play with the filters and effects you can make this synth growl like no other. It does have a very bright sound to it over all. Nice High end and decent low end. The Trinity I own has the Phrophecy built in to it. And this mono (moss) analog modeling synth is a decent for sweeps, sound effects, and bass sounds. It also can make guitar and wind instrument sounds very well. There is a Z1 add in, but doesn’t sound as good as the prophecy.

The stock sounds range from techno, jazz, country, trance. It has some nice vocal synth sounds, some nice guitar sounds, some bass synth sounds, killer string sounds, & tons of ethnic & ethereal sounds. Nice sound effects as well. It is a great workstation. But one thing I must note is that the poly is 32(pcm) 1(moss). This combined with its 2 outs(effects) and 2 sub outs (no effects) makes it limited. But professional music composition requires many synths. I only run 5 to 6 sounds at once out of it. If you run anything more out of it, it gets hard to eq and ends up sounding muddy. Buy some 3rd party PCG sounds! The dance one from korg is great! Or edit the hell out of the stock sounds! you can get some killer sounds out of this synth! Used on Calling ov the Dead and Fun With Knives. And the triton doesn’t even come close, the filters on this are vastly superior as are the fx.

To me, the xp50 is a JD-800 without all the knobs. Complex sound layering system, and a huge library of sounds to choose from are what make this and its sister (xp-60, xp-80, jv-1080, jv-2080) boards/modules so attractive. I do not like roland sample play back a whole lot, but the filters and the ability to customize and layer 4 sounds on top of each other really makes me like this synth. I find the effects to be a bit weak but useable. This in no way compares to the trinity. The trinity is a much better workstation. But this board has much more 3rd party sounds to choose from. Stock there are 4 banks 3 kool ones and a general midi. I find that there are a lot of sounds to choose from just stock. It has some analog sounds, but they sound way to digital and the filter helps but I would never pump bass sounds out of this thing. But for strings and acoustic type sounds it is really great. It does have some nice sweeps and sound effects that would fit in techno, industrial or ambient really well.

I find that if I pump more than 3 sounds out of this at once it sounds way to muddy so I never go above that at once. This synth also sounds bright. But I think the Trinity has it beats hands down sound wise. If you want to get a synth to start on I recommend the trinity, but if you pair the xp50 with with other synths it works great. Buy some of the add in sound cards, this makes it useable. Otherwise its just a decent sound module. Only having 1 midi drum track is a bummer. The trinity has way more drum power. But if you buy the techno or hip hop cards, the drum limitation disappears a bit. The poly is 64, but I find to make any sound sound good you must use 4 voices layered in 1 sound which kills your poly. Used on Fun With Knives.