Korg • DSS-1

Korg DSS-1 Image

A wonderful early digital synthesizer. With eight notes of polyphony, two oscillators per voice, a noise source, two multi-stage envelopes, a resonant filter and auto-bend, the DSS-1 has much in common with Korg's previous flagship DW-8000. But it went much further, boasting twin digital delays, oscillator sync, an improved unison mode, a lush analog VCF switchable between 12 and 24dB, and more. Whereas the DW-8000 got its raw material from 16 stored digital waves, the DSS1's oscillators take their source from sampling, additive synthesis, or even hand-drawn waveforms!

It actually had a warm sound and was great for creating pads and textures, as well as deep basses and drones. The synthesis method is based on altering various waveform samples via 2 data sliders. It can sample and then treat the samples as its waveforms - that includes all filtering and envelopes. The DSM-1 was the expanded rackmount version. It was used by Jean Michel Jarre, Joe Zawinul, Michael Cretu of Enigma, Mark Jenkins, Hiro Kawahara, Paul Nagle, Shriekback, and Steve Winwood.


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Pepe
Posted 151 days ago
Hi, sealion! Could you please tell us where we can find the "entire library" you wrote about?
sealion
Posted 154 days ago
It is a fat mother. I use mine with a mo-fx to crunk the stereo out of it, and it sits nicely on the large real estate of the top. I would be comfortable doing a noise gig with just those two. The entire library is available online free and I copied it all. Plus it is one of the very rare few synths that let you draw a waveform (frankly an over-rated option) but it does that. And it samples in mulitple lo-fi modes under and more than 8-bit. Stereo outs, great great analog filters, internal efx. Personally I find the korg joystick modulator approach not my style compared with moog wheels, but that is minor. Great synth, played regularly in my arsenal. Very very underrated. Huge though.
sealion
Posted 154 days ago
It is a fat mother. I use mine with a mo-fx to crunk the stereo out of it, and it sits nicely on the large real estate of the top. I would be comfortable doing a noise gig with just those two. The entire library is available online free and I copied it all. Plus it is one of the very rare few synths that let you draw a waveform (frankly an over-rated option) but it does that. And it samples in mulitple lo-fi modes under and more than 8-bit. Stereo outs, great great analog filters, internal efx. Personally I find the korg joystick modulator approach not my style compared with moog wheels, but that is minor. Great synth, played regularly in my arsenal. Very very underrated. Huge though.
adam
Posted 162 days ago
Does it have a sequencer or an arpeggiator?
and is it definitely better than the dw800?
Douglas Cain
Posted 178 days ago
The first time I ever played this wonderful instrument, I immediately laid down a song. The filters sound like velvet and the tones can go from glassy to villainous. Also, this is my favorite keyboard to play. The after-touch and velocity sensitivity are quite expressive. The unison mode rules.
 

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