The FX section of the Wavestate Life in the fast lane The synth casing and fascia are made from black plastic, and the front panel is intelligible, with its white legends and smattering of illuminated buttons. The pitch and modulation wheels are located above the keybed, in the upper left. Regrettably, it’s a little underwhelming. It’s nice to have a full-sized keybed but this one isn’t particularly reassuring to play. The keyboard, on the other hand, feels a little unforgiving. Being a digital design, it’s not terribly heavy but it feels solidly built, with a degree of lateral movement in the pots if you apply pressure. It does, however, offer velocity release. The keys on the Wavestate are full-sized, as opposed to the slimmer variety found on the Minilogue, and the keybed offers velocity, but not aftertouch. Though there is still some menu navigation involved, Wavestate largely simplifies the process. Thankfully, in 2020, Korg has mostly learnt from its mistakes.

Many instead programmed the synth via presets or a computer-based package. Its dainty display made manual programming about as easy as painting your interior hallway by pushing a paintbrush through your letterbox. The original Wavestation was the epitome of early-1990s synth technology.

Can the Wavestate possibly live up to its predecessor? Despite the model’s minor inconveniences, news that the Japanese manufacturer is reviving the wave sequence was met with tremendous surprise and anticipation upon its announcement at NAMM in January. The Wavestation wasn’t without its issues, however – often, its sequences wouldn’t trigger properly, which meant having to sample them to ensure that they played nicely timing-wise. Shipping in full-sized keyboard formats, alongside the now legendary A/D and SR rack-mounted alternatives, the Wavestation synths gave rise to the wave sequence, a form of live-loop that could be triggered via MIDI to provide a hypnotic, if not mechanical sounds.

Sensing a shift in the waters, Korg caught a huge wave and rode it all the way to the bank with the introduction of its Wavestation series. Back in the early-1990s, analogue was dead, sampling was big and everyone was searching for the next big thing in synthesisers and audio programming.

Korg synthesizer wavestate