Korg Wavestation Digital Synthesizer. The Korg Wavestation has been described as “the end prodcut of California dreams and Japanese sobriety” (http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/korg-wavestation/424). When the Sequential Circuits company collapsed, Korg picked up their R&D into vector synthesis, including Dave Smith and his research team, leading to the hugely successful Wavestation Synthesizer. The Wavestation incorporated the 2-dimensional vector joystick of the SC ProphetVS which allowed the user to alter and animate sounds.

Korg added to this a second innovation in synthesis: wave sequencing, by which short segments of sampled audio waveforms could be played one after the other and cross-faded into each other for some complex and unusual tones, pads, textures and rhythms.

The Wavestation had 2MB of ROM-based samples and was easily upgraded and expandable with PCM cards (Source: Vintage Synth Explorer)

The Wavestation was very popular with musicians and composers. Users in the early 1990s included Jan Hammer, Phil Collins, Gary Numan, Keith Emerson, Genesis, Depeche Mode, Michael Jackson, and Dire Straits. Mark Snow used the Wavestation to score X-Files episodes. Its sound was most commonly heard in the 1990s in the startup chime for Apple Mac computers, which was created by Jim Reekes on a Wavestation.