Interestingly, only 4 companies, Korg, Yamaha, Roland and Alesis manufacture the best and most popular 88-key synthesizers that are used by professional musicians today. The companies, flaunting rich histories in the business, produce 88-key synthesizers with a wide variety of features capabilities and price range.

The oldest of these companies, known today as Yamaha, was founded in 1887 as Nippon Gakki Company Limited by Mr. Torakusu Yamaha. The name was changed to The Yamaha Corporation in October 1987, on the eve of their 100th anniversary. Yamaha produces some very popular 88-key synthesizers among which are the Yamaha Motif XS8 88 Key Workstation, Yamaha MO8 Production Synthesizer and the SO8 88 Key Programmable Synthesizer.

The SO8 88 Key Programmable Synthesizer is a full size synthesizer and has a compilation of Yamaha’s best 700 voices. The SO8 contains a complete XG and General MIDI Level 2 voice and has a very realistic sound. The Motif XS8 88 Key Workstation is yet another of Yamaha’s 88-key synthesizers.

It’s brilliant sound quality is complimented by a huge recording facility and mixing controls, which are of studio level and scope of effect processing. Korg, founded by Mr. Tsutomu Katoh 1963, like Yamaha, is a very reputable name in musical instruments and is one of the leading makers of synthesizers.

Their first musical instrument was the Disc Rotary Auto Electric Machine (Doncamatic DA-20). Today, Korg has some very popular synthesizers in the market. These include the POLY-800 Synthesizer (reputed to be the first polyphonic synthesizer that cost below $1000), the M1 Music Workstation and the TR88 88-key weighted synthesizer workstation. The Korg TR88, with 64MB ROM packed up with a variety of new sounds, is a very popular brand of 88-key synthesizers.

It features USB MIDI capabilities, portable SD card data storage and also has a brilliant sound engine. Roland is apparently the youngest among these 3 Japanese manufacturers of musical instruments. It was founded in Osaka by Mr. Ikutaro Kakehashi in 1972 before relocating to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture in 2005.

Roland has a varied range of very popular synthesizers including the SH3A, SH1000 and the very powerful Fantom X8 88 Key Sampling Workstation. The Fantom X88 has approximately 1G.B of wave memory and 128-voice polyphone. Alesis is the only none Japanese, and American, manufacturer of musical instruments to show up in this roudup. Its range of 88-key synthesizers is favored by professional and semi-professional musicains for live and studio performances.

Though inexpensive, the Alesis range, which includes the Nano Synth, Nano Bass, Nano Piano, Andromeda A6 as well as some brilliant gadgets, is not suitable for beginners. The fabulous looking Alesis FUSION 8HD 88 Key Weighted Keyboard has four synthesizers, expandable RAM facility, effect processor and many other useful features.