AKAI AX80

Just picked one of these up on craigslist, not so great shape but all 8 synth voices work. The rest is just tact switches and rubber keyboard strips... also the encoder doesn't work but I'll get it figured out.



Anyway pretty cool find, a piece of AKAI history, being the first piece of equipment they created in the Professional music world.




from Vintage Synth

The AX80 has the privilege of being the first pro-keyboard produced by Akai, released in 1984. It's an eight-voice programmable analog synthesizer with a full 61-note keyboard and a series of techno-looking LCD bar-graph displays running across the top of the keyboard. Two analog oscillators per voice plus a sub oscillator provide the basis of its punchy analog sounds that can be described as similar to a Chroma Polaris or Roland Juno 106. Very good bass, brass, synth sounds, and effects are possible. However its strings are average at best.

The blue and orange florescent LCD displays use a simple and intuitive bar-graph format to show all its parameters and values, making for one of the best on-board displays ever! You have to wonder, however, with such a cool display, why couldn't they have included dedicated sliders and knobs for each parameter (see the AX60). A decent amount of patch storage and nice enough sounds make the AX80 a useable synth to have around, but it probably won't replace your Roland Juno. Other notable features of the AX80 include an angled rear panel for easy cable connections, chord memory, MIDI control, and pitch/mod wheels.


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So anybody else have one? Experienced one? It needs some work before I can program it. The presets are pretty lame as is lol

i used to have an AX-60, which was my first synth ever... ended up selling it since i've moved around a lot and that thing was way too heavy... but those AKAI synths are really well built... not like the crap they make nowadays.

crossings wrote:i used to have an AX-60, which was my first synth ever... ended up selling it since i've moved around a lot and that thing was way too heavy... but those AKAI synths are really well built... not like the **** they make nowadays.

Wouldn't mind finding an AX60 as well. Those things have actual VCO's with an interesting tuning system built in.

I have a good feeling I'll be able to get some pretty good sounds out of the AX80. I know it has great filters and very good amount of modulation options for an analog synth like this.

Knowing me I'll end up modding it and pulling out some more controls

^ man, if you mod that thing... I can't wait to hear about it. What type of thing do you suspect would be possible to do to it?


Sounds like a cool machine though, I watched a few vids on those a couple of years ago and thought they were pretty great sounding and cool for what you can do with them. I think in one vid a guy had the 60 and 80.. and he showed making stuff with both if memory serves me correctly.

Airyck wrote:Anyway pretty cool find, a piece of AKAI history, being the first piece of equipment they created in the Professional music world.

Not quite, the first was the MG1212, but the AX80 was close.

Real pity the real time parameter editing/control is so lacking, would be better with the sliders of the AX60 for patch editing, and all the AX/VX synths lack control of the parameters via MIDI, so you can't assign knob/fader boxes, or use a sequencer, to give decent external control or parameters.

I plan to pickup an AX60 and/or VX90 eventually, an interesting feature of the AX60/AX73/VX90 synths is that you can hookup an S900/S950/S612/S700/X7000 sampler via the 13pin connection, and use the sampler as a digital second oscillator for those single oscillator analogue synths.

There has been some early interest/discussion about someone writing a new OS for the AX73/VX90 to provide external MIDI control of parameters.

i have a ax60, its a nice and nasty synth. really bad filter, but I have many others.

Hi i found this while looking for some answers i need myself relating to the AX80. if you're still out there could you tell me how you fixed the encoder? i'm looking at one myself that has a broken data entry wheel and i'm not sure if i should go in or not.

Neat. I considered picking that one up a few months ago to compliment my AX-60, but only if he had come down on the price a little...and I stick with my ethos of no longer buying gear with menus or repair issues and decided I don't need anymore gear anyway and have been slowly selling off bits and pieces since, so it wasn't too difficult to talk myself out of snatching it up. That was definitely a synth I lusted after in my younger years. Content with the AX-60, though I might actually be selling off my AX-60 soon here when I wrap up some songs I've been using it on if you're interested in trying to collect 'em all, pokemon-style. Still just have too much stuff.