The instrument
The Korg DW-8000 is an analog synthesizer. It combines FM waveforms with an analog filter and an amplifier, followed by a digital delay for echo effects. It has an eight-voice polyphony. The keyboard is equipped with velocity sensitivity and aftertouch. It expanded the DW-6000 with velocity sensitivity, a digital delay effect, extended eight-voice polyphony, an arpeggiator, an additional key assignment mode, additional modulation waveforms and an “auto-bend” function, and doubled the digital waveforms to 16. The DW-8000 has a five-octave keyboard with aftertouch functions that affect modulation, filter and volume, as well as 64 preset slots, a joystick, an arpeggiator and MIDI.
Details
The DW-8000 uses Korg's Digital Waveform Generator System (DWGS), which stores sampled waveforms on four 256 Kbit ROM chips. A separate sample is used for each octave. The waveforms are generated using additive synthesis. There are two oscillators, whereby detuning the second oscillator creates a chorus-like effect. Unison modes combine all eight voices for a monophonic sound. The DW-8000's voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) and voltage-controlled filter (VCF) are analog. Both the VCA and VCF envelopes feature a six-stage envelope with attack, decay, break-point, slope, sustain and release stages, which can be used to create complex envelope shapes.
The instrument has a digital delay effect. These settings enable a range of effects such as flanging, double tracking and echoes. The built-in arpeggiator includes controls for tempo control, octave range, pattern modes for up/down and assign as well as a latch function. It can also be synchronized with external MIDI clock signals. The DW-8000 can store 64 patches. With the optional MEX8000 memory expansion, four additional banks with 64 patches each can be used.