Akai • AX-60
The AX-60 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 AX-60 is a programmable six-voice synth with a nice LFO, lowpass VCF filter, envelope sections, and more. An eight-voice version, the AX-80, 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 AX-60 a worthy alternative to Roland's Juno 106. The AX-60 may have been used by Bjork.
I have mine hooked up to the S-612 sampler and often double the tone with the sampler and also arppegiate and loop other samples thru the filters, blending them with the presets.
I've had it for 3 years and still havent scratched the surface on its capabilities!
Also, it works great with my Akai S-900. It's a great way to treat your samples with real analog filters. The filters on this offer a much different treatment than my Emax. I didn't say it was better...just different. The massive resonator on this machine will warp your samples until they are barely recognizable anymore.