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The Korg Polysix is a six-voice analog synthesizer. Korg produced it in the early eighties, just before digital technology in synthesizers became the new standard. It has voltage controlled oscillators and filters. These 4-pole filters are the closest thing you'll ever get to a Moog filter on a chip. It has two LFO's and one envelope for both volume- and filtermodulation. The unison and chord modes in combination with it's simple but effective fx make for a truly big analog sound. I'd say the Polysix has exceptional character and sounds really filthy in a good way. Reviewers on Harmony-Central gave this synth a 8.4 for its sound.
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The Access Virus can be seen as a living legend among modern Virtual Analog hardware synthesizers. It's 16 voice polyphony with too many features to delve into make it a great all-round synth. That and of course it's excellent oscillators which give it a full, rich sound with lots of presence. It sounds warmer than many of it's competitors (Waldorf, Nord) however it won't bring the earthshaking bass analog synths are capable of. The midrange sounds of the virus are truly outstanding and can be heard in virtually every modern Dance record. Reviewers on Harmony-Central gave this synth a 9.6 for its sound.
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The Clavia Nord Modular is a digital modular synthesizer that comes with pc software to build and edit it's sounds. It has a vast library of building blocks which make any known and unknown type of synthesis possible. On top of this, Clavia also added audio inputs. Nord is well known for it's hard and sharp sound character. This is not a smooth sounding machine, it's sounds really stand out in a mix and it's at it's best in more agressive music styles like techno. Reviewers on Harmony-Central gave this synthesizer a 9.8 for its sound.
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The Roland Juno 106 is even nowadays quite a popular synth among producers of electronic music. This 6 voice, digital oscillator, analog filter, beast has a much more sweet, feminine sound than for instance the Polysix. This synth's strength is providing quality analog sounds that blend well in a mix. The Juno 106's famous userlist is absolutely huge and it's sounds can be heard in many, many well known dance records. There is obviously a good reason for that. Reviewers on Harmony-Central gave this synth a 8.1 for its sound. codevio.nl
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The Akai AX-73 is a relatively underrated synth from the era of the Juno and Polysix. It has 6 voice polyphony and voltage controlled oscillators and filters, dual and unison mode, good PWM, FM and quite a lot of lfo waveforms compared to it's competitors. Although the higher pitched sounds of the AX-73 are quite thin and ugly it completely makes up for this with it's bass sounds. These are the fattest I've ever heard and sound smooth, deep, earthshaking and beautiful at the same time. Great DnB synth. This doesn't really come as a surprise as the filters come from the same chip as many of the Sequential Circuits synthesizers of that time. Reviewers on Harmony-Central gave this synth a 8.6 for its sound.
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