Inocybe Studio

Akai VX 90 - sorry for the louzy picture quality, I'll try to put a better one up if I'll can take one.

This was the first synth I bought of which I couldn’t find any decent documentation of on the web. It was pretty cheap, and after all, a 6 voice polyphonic analogue synth. So I took my chances and bought it. Analogue polysynths are hard to come by, they are either old and expensive or new and expensive. And to make things worse, they are also subject to all problems analogue synths have, times the number of voices present. The Akai VX90 is pretty much an exception on the typical analogue poly. It doesn’t look sexy with loads of sliders and it certainly doesn’t have that synth stardom flavor to it. Nobody will be drooling over this in your studio, like people (well, fellow home studio enthusiasts, normal people don’t seem to care that much) would do over something like a Roland Jupiter 6 for example .. but it’s cheap, sounds pretty good and has a few nice tricks up its sleeve.

The user interface

The interface is pretty straightforward. It looks like any other akai product, a white 19″ rack with Akai written in red on front. It has a digital menu driven user interface, which may scare some people off, but it’s a simple affair and you don’t even need to get the manual out to operate it. Simple up and down buttons take you through the pages, one parameter a page, no global settings or branched menus or anything else that can confuse you. Most of the descriptions are directly understandable to anyone who has used a synth before. It’s as simple as a menu driven system can get. So, on the UI part, there is nothing to bitch about if you can live with this way of editing. It’s not all that bad, such a menu driven system also has its advantages. It’s easy to see the current values, you can ‘name’ your sounds and there is enough room on the unit to save lot’s of them (100 to be exact).

The midi implementations is about as basic as it gets, which is not really a shock given the unit’s age. It reacts to notes, velocity, program changes, bending and modulation .. and that’s about it. No sysex or controllers. But, at least it does have midi, and it works just fine. If you really wanted to create a backup of your sound, it can backup to tape or well.. soundcards in these days.

Can it play the boogie?

so, what everyone probably wants to know is how it sounds. The pre-sets (if you happen to come across them) don’t really do it any justice at all. they’re mainly emulations of classical instruments. But even the  professional sound designers at Akai weren’t able to make one oscillator sound like grand piano. But I don’t suppose anyone would be interested these days in such a unit for such sounds, and if you do, you should immediately stop whatever drugs you’re on.

After diving into the menu’s and poking around a bit some decent sounds came to emerge and it proved to be a pretty decent all round analogue synth. It doesn’t really have anything it can’t do, but, at the same time, also not something which makes it really shine. You can do the typical acid leads, techno basses, screamy syths, pads, etc.. the lot. In fact it really has a stunning sonic range and, with a bit of work you can get some pretty decent sounds out of it suitable for any style. It’s not an emulation of other designs (Roland, Korg, Moog) so it does have its own sound to it. To my ears it can do pads and soft sounds best since you can play chords, but you could as well use it for industrial sounds. If you do happen to need to compare it to some other synth, it would be the Roland Juno 106.

So what makes it tick

Although it’s a simple one voice one osc setup, akai has really put in a few tricks to expand the sonic possibilities. It has the predictable poly, dual, unison modes with a detune option to fatten things up. But that’s the least interesting thing. There is also a nice chorus, which seem to me to be more or less exact copy of the Roland choruses , not surprisingly also found in the juno series. It has the same basic controls (off, 1 and 2 ), sounds very noisy but is really useful and warms up the sound considerably.

There is yet another thing which indicates they got some inspiration from their Roland friends (apart from the fact of building a 6 voice analogue poly to begin with). It’s the implementation of a HF after the LP . It’s was not really a new idea, not even at that time, but it really broadens the sonic range and is a feature well worth having. Apart from the HF, you’ll find something else in the filter section called VCF OWFM (which stands for Oscillator Waveform Modulation) and it, as it’s name indicates, modulates the cuttof frequency with the selected VCO. This opens up quite interesting FM type sounds and a shitload of unpredictability.

The Osc it selves features some little interesting facts. Apart from the usual square, saw, triangle modes there is a saw+tri mode which gives you a richer waveform which has become my favourite. The pulse width modulation isn’t only limited to the pulse wave either and is usable on all other waveforms as well. So, even since it’s a one osc affair you still can come up with some interesting source waveforms.

That’s about all interesting stuff to say about it. Maybe I should mention the auto-tune function, it’s a nice thing to have on an analogue synth. Apart from all the stuff mentioned above, it still has an LFO and 2 ADSR’s and controles for velocity, pitchbend and everything else you’d expect from a synth. You can take a look at the manual (find it here, it’s the same as the AX73) to find out how everything works, but they are pretty much standard what you expect from any synth.

one more thing.

If you have read the manual, you have noticed it also has a pink noise oscillater which can be swapped for a sampler input. On the back is a female DIN-13 connector which lets you attach an S612 or some other early Akai sampler. Some searching on the internet provided us with little information on how this cable was build. But it seems possible an analogue input could be build with as little as a DIN 13 plug and a soldering iron.. so if anyone has some scematics around on this unit or on the cable, please contact me, that could be very helpful.