K5synth

Just got a very lightly used K5m from a friend of mine.  I was really surprised at how different it was from my expectations! With hardly any examples of it to listen to in advance, I was expecting something like a Lo-Fi sampler sound, and when I plugged it in, it almost caught me off guard to hear some classic FM synthesis timbres coming out of it! Not necessarily a bad thing...but different!

The patches on my board are currently not reflecting the original factory sounds, and are probably not the best examples of what it can do, so soon I will reload the factory set and look at the other libraries as well, but this is what I think so far:

GOOD: Wonderful early digital and FM-like textures! Actually a lot easier and more fun to program than I expected! A lot of promise for ambient music soundscapes and space music.  I used to own a Korg DS-8 FM synth, and I really missed those sounds!

BAD: Frustratingly noisy, and I am disappointed with the digital filter, but, hey! This is additive synthesis...maybe I can make up for the filter by some additive programming.