Time for some more inane mouthing about my favorite subject….vintage analogue synthesizers. Next up the mighty Akai VX600.

As touched on in my previous post about the Akai VX90 Module, Akai were not really known for their synths. Most people associate them for making sampling affordable and bringing it to the masses. This is a shame because they made some lovely machines like the AX60, AX80, and the last in the line, the VX600.

The VX600 is a bit of an enigma. It was released in the Netherlands as a prototype by Akai back in 1986, which is quite late for a machine based around the Curtis 3340 VCO chip-set that had been doing the rounds since the late 70′s.  It’s the same VCO that you’ll find in things like the Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, Oberheim Matrix synths, Roland Jupiter 8 and so on. Due to its complexity, and reports of its tuning instability, it never actually went into full production. Because of this, good examples are becoming harder to find. I got mine about 6 years ago from the Netherlands and it is in full working order thankfully.

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