A 6-voice multitimbral analog synthesizer with a 49-note keyboard. Produced between 1984 and 1986.

The Max uses CEM 3394 chips. There is one VCO per voice. Available waveforms are sawtooth, triangle and pulse. Each voice also has its own filter, which is a 24dB/octave low-pass VCF. The single LFO is switchable between square and triangle waveforms. It can control the VCO picth, the VCF or the VCA envelope. All three main components have their own ADSR envelope generators.
Two 6-track sequencers with real time recording and looping are included. They hold up to 500 notes and 2 songs.

MIDI support on the Max is good for its time. It can send and recieve on any channel. Also featured are a mono mode, MIDI program and sequence dumping. A MIDI thru is not included.

The Max is a severely limited synth. There are 80 preset sounds and only 20 user programmable patches. Furthermore, the sounds can only be edited using a Six-Trak, a Prophet-T8 or a Commodore 64 with the Model 920 software, which can also boost the sequencers' note capacity to 3400. No real time performance controls are available, not even a pitch bend knob. To top this, the construction and parts are very cheap.
The Multi-Trak and Six-Trak aren't nearly as limited and make a better choice for serious musicians.


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