$1,800 · Waldorf Micro Wave XT10

The Microwave XT is a great big orange polyphonic rackmount synthesizer. While combining the power of the Wave and the compact design of Waldorf's Microwave II, the XT adds a bit of knob-laden heaven. At first glance the top section completely resembles the 2-space rackmount version of the Microwave II. And then there are three more rack-spaces full of knobs and lots of knobs means lots of control. Polyphony - 10 voice (expandable to 30), Oscillators - 2 oscillators per voice of DSP wavetable synthesis; 1 Ring Mod; 1 Noise Source, Memory - 256 internal patches, 64 external card, Filter - 6/12/24 LP/HP, FM Filter, Sin (x)-LP, Dbl LP/HP, 24/12 BP, Band Stop, Waveshaper, VCA - 1 VCA, VCA ADSR, 1 Free Envelope, LFO - 2 LFO's, sine, tri, square, random, S&H, Effects - Chorus, Flanger 1 & 2, Autowah BP, Autowah LP, Overdrive, Delay, Amp Mod, Keyboard - none, Arpeg/Seq - 16 steps, 128 patterns, Control - MIDI (8-parts), Date Produced - 1998