Vintage Synth Explorer

Akai • AX-73

The AX-73 is a surprisingly good analog synthesizer that is still considered to be widely underrated and deserving of some recognition. It's a six voice analog synthesizer with an almost identical architecture to Akai's AX-60 keyboard. It also came in a rack-mount form as the VX-90. It has one oscillator (VCO) per voice and allows for 3 playing modes: Poly mode uses one VCO per voice for six voice polyphonic pads, chords and strings. Dual-VCO mode stacks 2 VCOs per voice for a thicker three-voice sound. Unison mode stacks all six VCOs onto one monophonic voice for a screamin' lead!

The AX-73 has a simple 24 dB/oct VCF filter and it has an interesting feature that allows the cutoff to be modulated by the VCO. It also has a flexible LFO with many variable waveforms, chorus, portamento, and a standard ADSR VCA envelope generator. But unlike many other analog synths, this machine is MIDI equipped for easy integration and use in today's modern studios. The sounds are quite nice and are adequate for use in any style of music production. It also had special inputs for use with Akai's S-612, S-900 and S-950 samplers, allowing you to run those samples through the AX-73's analog filters and envelopes.

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

richard

Posted 113 days ago

Couldnt agree less with the previous post, easily my favourite synth by far, though I dont have Moog money- good luck finding one for 50 quid! its amazing what you can do with its single oscillator and savage filter, mine stays in tune perfectly and isnt thin at all, try lowering the resonance and the low pass filter- lush warm analogue goodness and six voices over midi, and no its NOT for sale on the bay! a programmers synth.

il

Posted 124 days ago

Not as 'good' as competitors, not even as good as Akai's own AX-60 and AX-80.. in fact quite a donkey of a synth only good as a cheap analog if you can't afford over £100. Do not pay more than about £50 it's just not worth it.

kekenalii

Posted 158 days ago

i have one. it was real cheap. and has some ok sounds.
I use it for basses and some of the weirder sounds to fill in on beats. but yo, it goes out of tune ALL the time. whats up with that? i auto tune it everytime I start it up. and then when you scroll through patches it'll go out of tune again. you'll use auto alot. but its a really cool synth.

Kit

Posted 322 days ago

I had an AX73 as it had a nice keyboard size and was cheep, sounded thin but useable and had a very classy look to it, but it was a nightmare to keep in tune on stage. especially open air gigs. never got to the bottom of it as it only ever did it to the top 3 octaves and auto tune would not sort it (but even if it did, that is no help if you are in the midst of a song as auto tune took over 7 seconds to do and the whole instrument went silent while it did it) Akai told me this was not possible and would not help. I did keep it in the studio for some time and have only recently sold it for pennies. The way my luck goes that will properly mean it is just about to go on the 'retro must have' list and will sore in value. Doh.

chrisNova777

Posted 330 days ago

Sergio i cant find your email brother please email my user profile on youtube"??!?

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