Casio released their XW-P1 performance synthesizer, along with the XW-G1 groove synthesizer, in 2012 as they re-entered the professional synthesizer market. As the name suggests, the XW-P1 is aimed at performing musicians and comes with a range of useful features. Casio incorporated their exclusive Hybrid Processing Sound Source for the XW-P1, which gives players access to virtual analog monophonic leads and basses along with drums, stereo pianos, drawbar organs and much more. This combination of sounds and real-time control was a big draw for the XW-P1 when it was first released.

The XW-P1 features a step sequencer that has nine tracks for drums, basses, chordal parts, and synths, as well as four controller tracks that can be used for adding filter changes, panning and more to existing parts. Each sequence is made up of eight patterns and the XW-P1 allows you to transpose live from the keyboard.

Performing musicians will appreciate the stereo pianos, vintage electric pianos, basses, drums, strings and other gig-ready sounds offered by the XW-P1. Another nice feature of this synth is the inclusion of dedicated controls for key percussion and rotary speaker. This in addition to the ability to provide vibrato, distortion and other effects makes for a great drawbar organ experience when using the XW-P1.

Monophonic synth fans will like the Hybrid Processing Sound Source of the XW-P1 as it delivers a six oscillator monophonic solo synth for classic analog sounds. Players can create a single solo synth tone from the two virtual analog style oscillators, two PCM oscillators, a noise oscillator as well as an external oscillator via mic and line inputs. Even better, each oscillator has an independent filter, envelopes, independent key track and much more.

Another highlight of the XW-P1 is its support for HexLayer tones. These are single sounds that are made up out of up to six components, so complex layers, splits and velocity switches sounds can be created. Musicians can mix sounds on the fly using the sliders on the XW-P1. This synth has a 61 key keyboard along with 4 real-time controller knobs, both pitch bend, and modulation wheels as well as 9 sliders. It can also be used as a controller for other instruments as it has standard MIDI ports along with a class-compliant USB port.

The fact that the XW-P1 offers a step sequencer, phrase sequencer, and arpeggiator while being portable enough to run on batteries made it a great choice for performing musicians. It was also competitively priced considering the number of features it had to offer.

Casio released their XW-P1 performance synthesizer, along with the XW-G1 groove synthesizer, in 2012 as they re-entered the professional synthesizer market. As the name suggests, the XW-P1 is aimed at performing musicians and comes with a range of useful features. Casio incorporated their exclusive Hybrid Processing Sound Source for the XW-P1, which gives players access to virtual analog monophonic leads and basses along with drums, stereo pianos, drawbar organs and much more. This combination of sounds and real-time control was a big draw for the XW-P1 when it was first released.

The XW-P1 features a step sequencer that has nine tracks for drums, basses, chordal parts, and synths, as well as four controller tracks that can be used for adding filter changes, panning and more to existing parts. Each sequence is made up of eight patterns and the XW-P1 allows you to transpose live from the keyboard.

Performing musicians will appreciate the stereo pianos, vintage electric pianos, basses, drums, strings and other gig-ready sounds offered by the XW-P1. Another nice feature of this synth is the inclusion of dedicated controls for key percussion and rotary speaker. This in addition to the ability to provide vibrato, distortion and other effects makes for a great drawbar organ experience when using the XW-P1.

Monophonic synth fans will like the Hybrid Processing Sound Source of the XW-P1 as it delivers a six oscillator monophonic solo synth for classic analog sounds. Players can create a single solo synth tone from the two virtual analog style oscillators, two PCM oscillators, a noise oscillator as well as an external oscillator via mic and line inputs. Even better, each oscillator has an independent filter, envelopes, independent key track and much more.

Another highlight of the XW-P1 is its support for HexLayer tones. These are single sounds that are made up out of up to six components, so complex layers, splits and velocity switches sounds can be created. Musicians can mix sounds on the fly using the sliders on the XW-P1. This synth has a 61 key keyboard along with 4 real-time controller knobs, both pitch bend, and modulation wheels as well as 9 sliders. It can also be used as a controller for other instruments as it has standard MIDI ports along with a class-compliant USB port.

The fact that the XW-P1 offers a step sequencer, phrase sequencer, and arpeggiator while being portable enough to run on batteries made it a great choice for performing musicians. It was also competitively priced considering the number of features it had to offer.

The Nord Wave by Clavia was released in 2008 and was seen by many as the logical successor to their popular Nord Lead 3 synthesizer. What the Nord Wave did was include sample playback thanks to its quick-booting sample RAM. Clavia designed the Nord Wave to be a performance instrument and it offers 18 notes of polyphony. The Wave also allows you to quickly swap between two related sounds or layer your sounds using the two slots that are available to each patch. Although reverb, tube simulation, and delay are global, you can adjust the EQ and chorus settings for each slot. It is a system that should be familiar to Nord Lead users, although the Nord Wave two has two fewer slots than the Leads. Control is handled via the Slot A & B buttons that are situated close to the pitch stick, mod wheel, and octave-switching buttons. Clavia clearly intended these buttons to be as much performance controllers as programming features.

When it comes to patches, the Nord Wave offers 1024 of them spread across eight banks of 128 patches each, three of which are filled by Clavia. To cut down on time wasted searching through these patches you can sort them via categories or alphabetically. You’ll find the usual selection of strings, choir and organ samples, but the Wave also has pianos, pads, leads, basses and more. Since the sample data is stored in Flash memory, it gives users the ability to easily and quickly replace whatever they want. Also, the use of Flash memory also means faster loading times. Although the 180 MB sample memory of the Wave is tiny compared to more recent synths, it does make use of a lossless compression algorithm that allowed for samples up to three times the size compared to other standard linear sample players of the time.

Clavia has ensured that users have a vast pallet of sounds to choose from by combining analog, wavetable, and sampled waveforms as well as FM synthesis in one package. It also gives users the freedom to combine virtual analog with samples for interesting effects. Of course, the Wave is compatible with the Nord Sample Library, which is available online. The Wave was released along with the Nord Sound Manager, an OS X and Windows compatible program that allows users to back up and rearrange programs, as well as transfer Sample Instrument files.

The Nord Wave incorporates six different filter types, ranging from the standard low-, high- and band-pass filters, to the Wave features, a multi-peak filter and more. In addition to modulating filter parameters with the dedicated ADSR envelope, velocity or the LFOs, you can make use of the Modulation Envelope or even modulate the modulators using Morph Grouping. This is a technique where you can adjust the setting of almost all sound-related parameters in real-time using the modulation wheel, control pedal, note velocity or note number.

As much as the Wave has to offer, it is unfortunately not perfect. The lack of arpeggiator is a concern and only 99 instruments can be loaded at once, which will be a deal-breaker for some. Finally, it has no split-keyboard functionality and also no MIDI Thru. Overall, the Nord Wave is very much a Nord Lead with the added ability to play samples that is perfect as a performance synth while shifting the more complicating things like sample editing and multi-sample creation over to its external software.

E-mu Systems had a string of successes in the ’80s, but the E-Drum was unfortunately not one of them. It was released for the first time in 1984 in the wake of their Drumulator but was not destined for the same greatness. Of course, all the blame can not be leveled at E-mu as it was actually Clavia DMI in Sweden that developed the actual hardware. E-mu Systems experienced issues with the E-Drum right off the bat as they needed to perform considerable work on the electronics as well as the mechanical tolerances before they could officially start with production. This was a big setback for the already cash strapped E-mu Systems as they were relying on sales from the Drumulator to stay afloat after delays in getting their Emulator II on the market. Unfortunately, even after the E-Drum reached the market, it failed to really find its target audience due to the price as well as relying on keyboard distributors to try and sell something aimed at drummers.

In terms of hardware, the E-Drum consists of a single, touch-sensitive drum module. It offers 40dB of volume range and all its internal sounds stem from a removable cartridge. This cartridge holds up to four 8-bit samples that are stored in 16kB of EPROM. There were actually a number of different sound cartridges available and these could be swapped out for new sounds. The E-Drum also supported optional hardware assembly, which allowed users to construct their own modular drum kit.

Notable features of the E-Drum includes a pitch control as well as a Decay control. With the pitch control, it is possible to tune the pitch up or down or leave it in the middle position for no effect. The sensitivity of the pad can be adjusted and the loudness depends on how hard you hit the pad. The idea was to make the E-Drum suitable for any style from light finger taps to heavy sticking. Finally, the front panel also has controls for adjusting the bass and treble content of the sound. The back of the unit holds the slot for the sound cartridge as well as connectors for audio output. In addition, it has a multi-purpose control input, which allows the module to be triggered from synthesizer gates as well as audio signals. Although the E-Drum is powered by two 9-volt batteries, it also has an optional AC power adapter on the back.

The E-Drum was interesting for its time, but it is obviously very outdated compared to decent drum machines and never found its niche as E-mu expected.

The Jupiter-XM by Roland was designed to continue the legacy of this range that started with the Jupiter-4 all the way back in 1978. The series has built a reputation for being top of the line products with premium builds and advanced sound technologies. For the Jupiter-XM, Roland has opted to use this classic design and premium build quality, but merge it with a powerful new synth engine. The result is a synthesizer that manages to faithfully recreate most of the sought-after instruments in their product history. Best of all, Roland was able to fit all of this into one relatively light package. The Jupiter-XM can be powered using eight AA batteries and has its own stereo Bluetooth speakers.

Although the Jupiter brand is quite well known, it’s been eight years since Roland made use of it for their Jupiter 50 and 80. There is very little to fault about this synth in terms of build quality as it has aluminum ends to match its black brushed metal panel. The design also incorporates the iconic orange stripes of the range and it has a 37-key slim keyboard with responsive keys and three full octaves. The only drawback of this keyboard is that it doesn’t have any aftertouch. Those looking for a bigger keyboard will have to wait for the Jupiter-X, which will have 61 keys. The Jupiter-XM has a graphic LCD that is 128 x 64 dots and plenty of knobs, sliders, and buttons that feel comfortable as well as durable. It is worth mentioning that the small size of the LCD can make it a little cumbersome to tweak a lot of parameters. A lot of menu diving is required to get things just right, so a larger display would have been a boon.

Roland boasts that the Jupiter-Xm has a sound engine flexible enough to reproduce the sounds of everything from the Jupiter-8, and Juno-106 to the SH-101, XV-5080, and even modern RD pianos. Also, it offers all the sounds of the classic Roland drum machines, like the TR-808, TR-909, and CR-78. Just as impressive is its I-Arpeggio, which makes use of artificial intelligence to create complementary drum parts, chords, basslines and arpeggiated lines from your input. These are a big step up from canned backing tracks as they are intelligently generated.

Overall, the Roland Jupiter-XM is not cheap, but it does offer impressive emulation of all their classic analog hardware in one portable design.