Back in 1987, this rackmount beast brought 16-bit sampling to the masses with a twist—additive synthesis and hand-drawn waveforms that let you craft sounds from scratch, long before most gear caught up.
It's a digital powerhouse with 2MB RAM for up to 29 seconds of sampling at 36kHz (or longer at 18kHz/9kHz rates), 8-voice polyphony, and space for 64 samples across 8 banks. Front-panel goodies include a 96x64 pixel LCD for visual sample editing, numeric keypad, value sliders, mic/line inputs, and headphone out, while the back packs balanced XLR/jack outs (8 individual monophonic + mix), full MIDI In/Out/Thru, and SCSI ports for speedy hard drive loading. Sound shaping shines via a resonant 24dB/oct lowpass filter, poly aftertouch/velocity sensitivity, one LFO, and killer 8-point DCF/DCA envelopes with sustain loops—plus tools like sine-wave additive stacking, sample snapshots for oscillator use, and loop optimizers.
Vintage players still dig its gritty character and deep editing, though the nested menus and low individual output levels take some getting used to, much like its FZ-10M sibling but with that SCSI edge for bigger libraries.
