Released in 1995 and only 600 made, this one is quite an obscure rarity.

Here's a review from its release:
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/technics-sx-wsa1

I was configuring a colleagues studio last week and began to delve into this thing. I'd never paid that much attention to it previously, as whenever he would fire it up and play it, the sounds that came out of it were very much standard workstation style sounds (he's a pianist/songwriter that doesn't get too involved in production aspects).

Anyhow, as he has a new PC in his studio and wants a new template, I was invariably working my way through the hardware to get everything communicating correctly and reached the WSA1. As I investigated its inner workings (simply to enable useable multitimbrality) I discovered that this thing is a pretty astounding instrument, particularly given its age, capable of infinitely more than it first appears.

It seems that Technics, in their infinite wisdom, decided to imbue this instrument with a GM soundset as default. That, along with incompetent marketing, a huge price tag ($5000 in 1995 money) and a lacklustre sound set (imagine going in a store, demoing keyboards and you hit this $5000 GM machine - "No thanks, I'll take a Korg Trinity please" would be the obvious response) meant it was a complete failure so they ceased production.

Rick Wakeman had this to say about it in an SOS interview a few years later:
"Rick likes to use gear that may cause other people to raise their eyebrows. "A good example is the Technics WSA1. When I first saw it one year at Frankfurt, I told the guys then that the machine was a real winner, but they had to take the name Technics off it! It turned off a lot of buyers simply because of the manufacturer's name. The machine could have turned into something very special, but then they gave it to the home‑organ salesmen to sell — what a disaster!""

The specs themselves are pretty impressive:

• 64‑note polyphonic.
• 32‑part multitimbral.
• 32 MIDI channels.
• 61‑note keyboard, Velocity & Mono Pressure sensitive.
• 2 Modulation Wheels.
• 2 Real‑time Controllers
• 256 Preset ROM sounds.
• 16 Preset Drum Kits.
• 128 Preset ROM Combinations (Combis).
• 256 User sound memories.
• 4 User Drum memories.
• 128 User Combinations
• 3 MIDI Program Change remappings.
• General MIDI Program Change map.
• 12 Digital Effects, 44 DSP Effects,12 Reverbs.
• 16‑track Sequencer: 47,000 event capacity, 96 ppqn resolution, 10 Songs (chainable).
• Built‑in DD/HD 3.5‑inch disk drive.

What is more impressive is what happens when you delve into the sound design potential. It's actually very deep and can produce some crazy sounds which are very much useable in a modern context.

Here's some examples:

So, finally. Anybody here familiar with this instrument, or even own one? I'm looking for any resources that may be available for it - patches, editors, etc (already grabbed everything from http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/logs/technics/technics.htm but unfortunately some of the links to external resources are loooooong since dead).

 

I have just watched the eBay listing of it (£850) and looked for reviews of the device
And I have found the manual https://www.deepsonic.ch/deep/docs_manuals/technics_sx-wsa1r_basic_functions.pdf

 

Last edited: Feb 10, 2025

Cheers for the link, it may be quicker to find stuff than reading the paper version.

£850... Appears that they're still going for a fairly hefty price tag. Apparently, when they didn't shift all the stock at the original price, they slashed the price to £800 to get rid of the last of them - that's when my pal picked one up.

I've had another look at the inner workings this week and cracked the communication setup - now 32 channels of MIDI (that'll never all get used at once in practice but good for a template) communication with the PC. Delved into the drum kits and was quite surprised at their usability. Very typically 90s but some decent stuff in there. Think I'll be borrowing this synth at some point in the future and bending some twisted noises out of it.

Also come across this guy who seems to have plans of interstellar travel using a couple of them...



https://www.brassee.com/instruments.html#starship_one

 

I think I'll stick with my z1 which was half the cost. I'd totally pick up a wsa1 if they were as cheap as they should be tho

 

"Anybody here familiar with this instrument, or even own one?"

Yeah right here, I got one. Just got it so im in the same boat right now. Picked it up for $150. i know i know, I got another Technics board free with it too. lol
So far I see MIDI Quest / Squest just added it in version 13 recently.

 

To be honest I'm more interested in those janko adapter gizmos.
BTW how many people in the world are able to play fluently on them?

 

When will Arturia or Behringer do something with this treasure?

THE TECHNICS WSA1 IS SO WEIRD

Acoustic Modeling Synthesizer
First delivered: January 1995
Retail price: 5,499 DM

"...Acoustic modeling offers one decisive advantage over the physical modeling of other manufacturers: It's extremely affordable, yet offers a myriad of innovative sounds that aren't available anywhere else. It's easy to understand, and after a certain amount of familiarization, the results of parameter changes are predictable, with a few exceptions (interaction). The sonic strengths, in addition to the well-sorted and truly convincing standard palette of a workstation, lie primarily in the area of pads and other modulation-intensive sounds..."

 

Ha, I don't think my aging brain could handle that kind of reprogramming. I'm not the best keyboard player to start with (guitars primarily) so any more confusion isn't gonna make me any better.

 

Good price.

I may keep my eye out for one myself if they're going cheap as I really like certain aspects of them. I've pretty much learned the system now and discovered some pros and cons. Biggest con appears to be some serious bugs in the OS that are frustrating, crashes, losing edits, etc. Can't for the life of me get it to do a full system dump to built in floppy (ridiculous as it's reading its own saved data) . Will save some patches and recall them but fails recalling combis with a "not compatible" message. Internal saving etc seems fine. It could be this specific unit however and hopefully you have a different experience with yours.

Keep us informed of how you get on and we can share notes.

 

Service manuals / schematics

WSA1R
https://archive.org/details/WSA1R-service-manual
SY-ES1
https://archive.org/details/Technics-SY-ES1

 

Crazy. I bought mine only 1 year after its release new from a store for only 2000 DM. And I still have it. But havent used it far a long time. Maybe time to reactivate it, because it is able to produce some really good and wierd sounds.

 

These pop up every now and then. Theres 3 currently on reverb for sale: https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=technics wsa1r

 

Wow, congratulations! It's currently selling for around 1,000 euros used.
You could make some samples for the masses if you're ever bored. I hope it lasts a long time.

 

The thing that makes these modeling synths special also does not lend them that well for easy sampling. Or at least in a manner that adequately demonstrates whats neat, imo. It's the expressiveness baked into the synthesis that makes them interesting, be it real world emulations or batshit crazy pads/textures.

I've got yamaha's modeling 'before its time' synth from that same era the EX5r. Has their standard sample amw2 engine, but then also the AN1x engine ripped straight from its namesake, the VL-1 engine which is 95% ish identical to it's namesake, and the FDSP engine which is unique and uses the amw2 samples and is kinda the electronic pickup counterpart to the VL-1. Unlike the vl, it's polyphonic and can apply a unique effect to each note played as well as each velocity. Hampered by its CPU though. Best thought of as a monotimbral device.

WSA-1, EX5, and Z1 were all rather different, but also shared in pushing modeling oscs within the same 5 year span. I think the real problem with them was the masses had finally started to recover from years of stress induced dx7 programming. With DAWs and interfaces for the everyman now becoming a reality they took one look at physical modeling and ran for the computers. Thus Technics died (as far as synths are concerned), Yamaha would release no more synths of interest beyond 'yep, that'll get the gig done' and Korg... Korg is just manic and all over the place.

 

Thanks @Usr4321, I appreciate your expertise!

As we know, you have to sell very large quantities of hardware synthesizers to make the business worthwhile. The competition wasn't sleeping and invented many virtual software synthesizers. Analog is becoming digital! What did Yamaha (Reface CS) do to save production costs? They eliminated the preset memory. You now have to log in and then you can load your presets individually. I know this because I created 200 presets for the Yamaha CS.The keyboard has been reduced to miniature keys.

Behringer is leading the way. This company has brought a truly top-notch device to market with the ASM - Hydrasynth Keyboard Synthesizer/Explorer. www.ashunsoundmachines.com/hydrasynth-key

 

Last edited: Jul 11, 2025

BTW...Does anybody knows if there is a Version 13 of SoundQuest MidiQuest available on the market (not to buy...you understand what I mean)
I know R2R cracked version 12 but in version 13 they included an editor patch for the WSA1 and WSA1r. But these v.13 patches cant be load in v.12. The developers somehow changed all the editor files (including all the old ones that already existed in previous versions) by made v13 files unusable in v.12 and also thge other way round. Its even impossible to load the v.12 versions in the new v.13.

 

last week i was checking this https://www.jrrshop.com/jrr-sounds-wsa-collection-technics-sx-wsa1-sample-set.html