On these instruments the plan is to choose very dissimilar waves and play them in an endless cycle, creating something between a melodic sequence and a drum pattern. The original early 1990s Wavestation, and now the Wavestate, differ slightly from either of these ideas. It swept through different waves by recording the movements of a joystick as it mixed between four different waveforms. The Prophet VS from Sequential introduced Vector Synthesis. Choose fairly similar waveforms and you get a smooth sound, maybe resembling an analog filter closing down (though the PPG offered real analog filters too). The PPG Wave keyboards from Germany introduced wavetable synthesis, sweeping through a bunch of digital waveforms during the course of a note. “Wave Sequencing Synthesis” as found on the Wavestate is fairly rare. Yet to come is the Modwave (featured in this year’s Believe in Music report), based on sound creation techniques of the DW8000 synth from the 1980s, while opsix is derived from the Yamaha DX7’s FM synthesis design, and Wavestate from that of the original Korg Wavestation and its two module versions. The Wavestate is one of a pair of lightweight, compact 3-octave synths launched by Korg, the other being the opsix (review published here earlier this week). I seem to come back to it time and time again for the deep samples and layering possibilities, as well as for evolving pads and some of the rhythmic stuff.Korg’s compact reissue of the ’90s classic packs a powerful punch. However, I have to agree with you that there is a lot there. The keybed on the Wavestate isn't the worst I've ever played but definitely isn't a premium feeling keybedI think most criticisms are of the complex, rhythmic patches that can be very hard to fit in a musical context like a band context. It's also infinitely better when playing it through Midi with a full sized keybed. Sure there's plenty of throw away presets but even just tweaking some things here or there or just using sections to splice together gets quite musical and certainly evolving.

There's so much here to pick apart and use musically. I thought it was interesting how so many say it's great for playing but relatively uninteresting to listen to or use in recordings. I've been reading through this thread while waiting for my Wavestate to arrive.

Korg wavestate reverb