Akai AX60
The AX60 is among some of the last true analog polysynths of the mid-eighties. It was Akai's answer to the hugely successful Roland Juno series and Yamaha's new digital DX-series. The AX60 is a programmable six-voice synth with a nice LFO, lowpass (VCF) filter, envelope sections, and more. An eight-voice version, the AX80, was already available.
Programming this synth is easy using dedicated sliders, knobs and/or buttons for its parameters. It also has a useful noise generator and some other cool functions that include auto-tuning, chorus, a multi-mode arpeggiator and a keyboard that can be split into two key-zones, making it somewhat bi-timbral. All six voices can be stacked in unison mode for a powerful and thick lead sound. Its features and sound make the AX60 a worthy alternative to Roland's Juno 106. The AX60 may have been used by Bjork.
- Demos & Media
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Audio Clip 1 - Hear some sounds by Garren Morse.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 6 Voices
- Oscillators - 6 VCOs
- Memory - 64 Patches
- Filter - Lowpass analog filter
- VCA - Standard ADSR
- Keyboard - 61 keys
- Arpeg/Seq - Arpeggiator
- Control - MIDI (2 parts)
- Date Produced - 1986
- Resources & Credits
Images from Perfect Circuit Audio.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
It should be added that there is also a highpass filter, and the filter section has a VCO mod function that can produce some nice growling sounds. There are also 8 additional split keyboard programs. The two key-zones send and recieve MIDI on separate channels and the split can be set to 0-6, 2-4, 4-2, or 6-0 voices, making it possible to use the AX-60 as a rudimentary MIDI master keyboard when set to a 0-6 or 6-0 split.
The only thing missing from this keyboard is a portamento function, and perhaps a velocity sensitive keyboard.
That, and don't underestimate this machine. It's durable, it's got real sliders, and sonically it blows most everything else in my studio away.