It’s inspiring to play and has piqued my new interest in ambient musical styles. The librarian also makes it easier to visualize your programs. Korg recently provided a firmware update and a librarian for Windows and iOS that, together, allow you to load your own samples. The onboard samples by themselves won’t all blow you away but they’re generally good and work well together.

If you need a more sturdy build you may want to wait on the next revision which will also provide 61 keys. But it’s built well enough for home studio use which is all I need. The main drawbacks to the instrument is that it really needs more than 37 keys and I’d be afraid to take it on the road. The more you explore these the better able you become at designing your own. Not all presets utilize these, but the ones that do show the power of the design. When exploring, be sure move up and down the full virtual length of the keyboard and twiddle the mod wheel and performance knobs. The factory programs, though not all my style, still provide an excellent overview of the possibilities and are useful to study.

So I took the chance and made the purchase. I knew that I liked the paradigm and the Wavestate seemed much easier to program that the old Wavestation interface. In the realm of virtual instruments, Korg offers the iWAVESTATION app, which I’ve used and enjoyed.

I was drawn to the Wavestate because I believe its combination of wave sequencing and vector synthesis is unique among currently available hardware synths (certainly true at its price point).

Korg wavestate