The instrument
The EK-44 is an 18 voices synthesizer with 8 oscillators and FM based sound structure very similar to the Yamaha DX 7. He has a five-octave velocity and pressure sensitive keyboard, 64 presets, 32 programmable memories plus a cartridge option, split, layer and multi-split facilities, multi-timbral MIDI operation and single performance wheel / button for pitch-bend and modulation.
Details
The EK-44 has a single data entry slider in place of separate controls. Each sound uses two Digital Control Generators (DCGs) numbered 1 and 2, and these allow to create two elements of a sound at once, which can be mixed using two sliders on the right of the panel. All 8 oscillators can be edited simultaneously or adjusted separately. The first 12 parameters are presented on the LCD screen. A second set of editing parameters deal with the overall sound of the instrument. Some parameters are Pitch Envelope and LFO Vibrato. A chorus effect rounds out the sound shaping section. A feature in the editing portion is an overall level control for matching volume levels between programs. MIDI section: Omni Mode, Modulation Transmit / Receive, System Exclusive, Program Change Transmit on / off. The EK-44 has eight multi-split memories. There are organ sounds, a flute suffering, basses (slap, pluck and synth) and one special effect (Spatial).