Korg Lambda ES50 Vintage Analogue Synthesiser

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"This is a fantastic instrument. The Lambda is a fully-polyphonic (not paraphonic) synth with a rich analogue sound, made lusher still by a bucket-brigade-type chorus. The sounds are preset, but there's a much greater degree of tweakability than you usually find on typical string synths and preset machines: particularly useful is the Attack / Decay envelope control, which makes getting everything from thick stabs to slow atmospheric washes of sound an absolute breeze. The sounds are divided into two blocks – the Percussive sounds are Electric Piano, Piano, Clavichord, and a Harmonic tab for overtones; these can be effected by a very neat, rate-controllable Tremolo. Then there's the Ensemble block, where the real treats lie (or I reckon so, at least!) – Brass (fantastic), Organ (a surprisingly good tranny organ sound – put it through some overdrive for a Vox-y screamer), Chorus (beautiful rich, mellow, ethereal pad sound), and Strings 1 and 2 (same sound, an octave apart – very rich and organic, with a lot of motion when you switch the Vibrato into play).

The two banks can individually be set to run through the Chorus effect, which is a lovely old analogue sound – think lush, warm, full of movement. There's a joystick controller to vary the speed of the Chorus (this also acts as a pitch-bend lever), plus a whole load of little details that make this a real pleasure to use and play: the Electric Piano key-click sound can be trimmed individually; there's individual control over the filter sweep that creates the Brass voice (you can get quite a nice little "wow" going at the front of the sound with this); and there's a basic low-pass filter across each of the groups, so you can adjust the Tone of each. You can adjust levels, too, for each group; and, of course, switch the individual voices in or out. Looking at the pic of the front panel will tell you pretty much everything this machine can do, and it's a nice set of features compared to most late-70s preset machines.

Also... IT'S STEREO! Yes, the Chorus effect outputs on two quarter-inch jacks, and it sounds magical. The Logan, the Godwin... all mono. Not the Lambda :-)

The Lambda is kind of halfway between a preset machine and a more fully-formed synth: the envelope controls alone make it really versatile, and layering say Chorus with Strings gives you an instant vintage pad sound that's pretty much impossible to beat. The machine excels at pads, strings and tonal textures; the Brass is sublime; the Organ is nothing like as cheesy as you'd expect – turn up the Tone to max and it's harsh, aggressive, biting. It needs some effects to really get it going, though, whereas the Strings and Chorus are just perfect on their own..."