Once Ensoniq got in the game, things changed. First, they brought decent sampling power to a price point where it was feasibly marketable to "the masses" as well as adding analog synthesizer modules.
However, most digital synthesizers offered two waveforms and that was it, with the square wave being pulse-wdith modulated. in '78, Sequential Ciruits created the first fully polyphonic Synth but that was analog The Polymoog was paraphonic. The CZ-101/1000, in '84 used a digital system but generated tratidional waveorms and no variable filter It was still a good unit and you could synthesize a hell of a toy piano on it
I've been unable to find out which came first, the Korg DW[s or the ESQ-1 But even then, Dorg had an 8 choice wavetable and Ensoniq had 32 single-cycle waveforms to choose from and 3 oscillators with an analog filter After that, we were off to the racesw culminating in the KS/KT seiries in a large scale market and the FIZMO which name is almost too funny to take seriously. I have a PDF of the KT Musicians' Manual and frankly, I was intimidated by it. If I had one with the print manual, it would take me a loooong time to figure it out. I had the SQ-80 down in a week. I bought it at a music store at which I looked at the manual, specifically at the piano sound and strings. It took me about 10 minutes to get the piano where I wanted it and I bought it on the spot for cash. Amazingly, it was selling for $395 USD second-hand. It quit on me in 2000, I still have it and would love to get it up and running. Actually I would like to see an KT or KS emulator. With the fourth folder of sounds, Arturia has turned it into a partial VFX. If the put a user sample folder, that would add EPS-16+ functions. It might aso render the Emulator II obsolete. The only thing the SSQ-80 lacked was pulse width, though I am told that there were ways to fake it. I wonder if there are any issues of theTransonic Hacker online
Ensoniq really scrambled the deck when it came to synthesis. Just why Creative Labs blew it and E-mu up, I do not know
