Korg DW8000 vintage refurbished

Korg DW8000 vintage synthesizer (refurbished)

The DW800 is shown in the foreground of the image above. It is an 8-voice hybrid synthesizer and is actually quite powerful. A good description is here Korg DW-8000 | Vintage Synth Explorer . The front panel mentions it is a digital synthesizer, but really it is mostly analogue with digital control. The main digital part of the synth engine is the oscillator section that give you 16 digital waveforms. These can be selected as the main oscillator waveforms. The synth allows two oscillators to be combined. This is very useful and can radically change the timbre of the patch. Also included are sophisticated envelopes for the filter and the amplifier, that go beyond simple ADSR and add extra sections to the envelopes. Most of the parameters on the synth can be modulated by the LFO. There is also an onboard delay section that can be modulated. An arpeggiator is included that has an assignable mode, so it can be used a rudimentary sequencer (sort of).

Initially the synth seemed a little daunting to program. There are only a few buttons and sliders, along with a printed numbered parameter list on the front. However, when you get used to it, it is relatively easy to program. I think a lot of the parameters can be altered using MIDI as well

Finally, the keyboard has velocity and aftertouch capability. The aftertouch seemed to require a lot of pressure, but I got used to it (not sure if it is a feature or I need to look at it).

Anyway, I acquired the synth on loan, to have a look at. Initially it was in a pretty sorry state......

It would only make a horrible squeaking sound on any of the patches.

Some of the keys seemed to stick, or be unresponsive and some of the sliders and buttons seemed to be erratic.

I immediately thought , internal memory battery change , key key and button clean and possible patch corruption.

I started off by looking at the internal memory battery and then the patches.

Note: After looking at the service and user manual I found out the the coin cell (2032) used in the DW8000 was stated as being rechargeable. I'm guessing the synth would have been left for a long time with no power, so the battery would have lost its charge. Also, I was doubtful whether an almost 40 year old rechargeable battery would still work, although, as memory retention uses so little current, it might be worth a try to still use this. (the battery did seem to be visually ok, and held charge when looked at later on).

I left the synth powered up for a few hours, whilst monitoring it for any signs of smoke etc and it all seemed OK. This was really just to see if the internal battery would recover a bit.

So after a while I went back to it, and after a factory reset the synth seemed to be a bit more responsive in terms of buttons and keys etc. At this stage it could have just been wishful thinking on my part though.

The synth still had horrible sounds on all of the patches, however it seemed that I could modify them to get more useful sounds. Progress !?

The next step was to try and obtain the original sound banks in SYSEX format and try and upload them to the synth. I managed to find these online, along with some other sound banks. (I'll try to put them here when I get the chance).

I managed to upload the sound banks using BomeSendSX and an M-Audio usb to MIDI interface......

And all of the patches I tried seemed to work really well. The synth was alive !

Note: After leaving for a while (>2 weeks) the synth still seemed to work, indicating that the memory battery may still be working OK.

Finally, I took the synth apart and gave the keybed, sliders and buttons a good clean, every thing else seemed to look OK as well.

I've recently put some demos on YouTube of me trying the synth out on its own, just using the arpeggiators and also using it alongside some old Korg Electribes and a newer Novation Peak (in the background of the above image). The links are below. Please Subscribe to my YouTube channel.