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 at 10:48 PM