KORG Z-1: The last synth I worked on with Korg was the rather amazing Z-1, the polyphonic follow up to the Prophecy. It was the second and last time I got to go to Korg Japan so it was special. The team was awesome with Jerry Kovarsky (Casio, Ensoniq, Korg), John “Skippy” Lehmkuhl (Plug In Guru), John Bowen (Sequential, Wavestation, Solaris) and a killer team from Japan. We assembled at Korg’s headquarters and worked endlessly creating new sounds as fodder for the internal presets, asking for new features and functions that would often show up the next day. Little did we know that the main designer was suffering from stomach cancer as he worked day and night. There were many sessions demoing and critiquing sounds that would be voted up or down and dropped from the candidate list. It was very cordial and professional but you needed a strong backbone to see your hard work be removed. The synth was and is of course amazing with a beautiful industrial design, features, functionality, controls and arpeggiator. The top photo is the team with a prototype unit and the bottom one is me playing for the team and Katoh-san the President of Korg who was either listening carefully, or taking a cat nap. It was a truly wonderful experience and we were all really proud of the final sound selection. A brilliant synth that also became available as a plug in MOSS board for the Triton (I believe). Great memories. #korg#z1#moss#physicalmodeling#virtualanalog#triton#japan#abunai#sequential@pluginguru#solaris#pluginguru@jsb3333#mistersynthi#keysandsynthmasters#synthzeit#synthesis#electronicmusic#synthesist#synthwave#synth#synthesizer#analogsynth#vintagesynth#modularsynth#keyboards#musician#music#sounddesign#electronica#recording#sounds