Cheapest Romplers are available on iPad: Korg M1, Korg Module, Audiokit D1, Synthmaster 2, etc.
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This is an awesome thread 
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Some new patches for that, not mine (all their videos are good)
Comeon, JD800 is a monster!
Sheep in wolfās clothing 
Very inspiring stuff. A great demonstration of how a cheap piece of gear can turn into something quite special with a little help.
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meanwhile, in the UK
might be a bit late for that bargain. (Racks are weirdly a third the price tho)
I did see a Triton rack go for 190 pounds on ebay this week though, which is definitely a lot of bang for little bucks.
Yeah, they stopped being cheap just before and (especially) during the pandemic. Itās really too bad, they used to be underpriced (my Alesis Wedge and K1m combined cost a little over half what Iām seeing people ask for the wedgeās power supply on its own now, and it wasnāt THAT long ago) but it has definitely gone too far the other way.
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Racks donāt have the joystick so are much less desirable. That price is insane though, I paid about ā¬200 for mine iirc, and that was after I missed one for ā¬100 in the local classifieds
The funny thing about that is that the joystick is really basic, and it seems like it would be a lot more useful than it is. If I was going to do it again at todayās prices Iād get a K1r and one of the controllers mentioned earlier in the thread that already has a template available. The only really special thing about the joystick is that itās apparently pretty easy to mod it for CV control. But itās not like the Wavestation or TG33, where the joystick is pretty integral to what makes the synth so good.
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assumedly itās two CCs anyway?
(he says in no way tempted to buy a rack version)
Sysex I believe, (EDIT: no it is not, see reply) thereās some conversation on other forums on how to deal with it so prob worth a look around
The joystick on the K1/K1m doesnāt send or recieve MIDI at all. Itās nothing but a 0v to +5v control voltage passing through a pot for each axis and then be careful to never send it more than +5v or add some kind of protection circuit). I donāt know if the K1r implements something similar via MIDI, but since all itās doing is blending between the four layers (āsourcesā in Kawai terminology) in the current patch (or entering values in edit mode) you could definitely replicate it with CC.
I donāt have the manual handy to get the specific messages, but you would need to adjust volume from 0-127 on source 1 and 127-0 on source two simultaneously for the Y axis, and the same for sources 3 and 4 for the X axis. Iām pretty sure there are CCs assigned to source level, if not youād have to use sysex but it is definitely possible.
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Ah, thanks for clearing that up, Iāll edit my post to avoid confusion!
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It took me by surprise when I got mine, I assumed the joystick would be able to send and recieve MIDI but nope, it really is just a pair of manual crossfaders.
EDIT: you canāt even save the joystick status with a patch - you have to manually turn it on every time you power up the synth. Even though itās controlling balance rather than pitch and mod, it has more in common with the joysticks on Korg keyboards than it does with the joysticks on vector synths. Itās fun to have but not a dealbreaker for the K1r IMO. Not like a Wavestation SR, where not having a joystick makes it a lot less interesting (I have the SR and itās handy but Iād really only recommend it for price reasons or for someone who already has an original or an A/D - I went with it back when an SR was around $125 and an A/D was around $200 and the main reason was that the A/D was too deep to fit in my rack case - absolutely the wrong decision).
The K1m and K1r are basically identical otherwise - the UI is the same other than the joystick, but the K1r has the advantage of taking up a lot less space. If I had one instead of the K1m Iād probably use it a lot more often.
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K1m + TG33 into OT inputs was a fun setup for me for a while. Color-coordinated, dual joystick madness 
Anybody rocking an NS5R? My friend loaned me one for a minute but I didnāt spend much time with it. He made some pretty creative patches with it; it seems very flexible. And itās small.
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/korg-ns5r
A lot of the XG devices seem to be among the cheap ones on the piles of used rackmount gear at local stores. Iām covered by the flexible & modulatable XG soundset in my QY100.
But if I ever get bored, I can go back to this store down the streetā¦
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Iāll take the SR and the SPX990 plz 
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Just spent an absolutely fantastic couple of hours getting deeper into the Digitakt/K1m/Syntakt combo, used five midi tracks to sequence and fed into the FX track. I was occasionally looking at the collection of unused things sitting on the desk and imagining the whole setup getting fed into an Octatrackā¦ 
The K1m is really something very special, Iāve really gotten the feel for patch programming and looking forward to learning multis next. The joystick on mine isā¦ janky tbh, but itās just part of the character.
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Itās actualyl pretty fast and fun to program, you wouldnāt think from looking at the front panel.
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