That’s how the Hammond organ works 
And I think he might be using an optical detector, which would also not be the first time that has been done – I saw this same thing in the Toronto Science Museum in 2002. I had actually thought about creating something similar to the new motor synth for a long time. I guess that ship has sailed now 
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Te made some analog things. Pocket modular system.
Oh right! Totally forgot about that! Thanks
I didn’t say they were PCM, I said they could be based on PCM wavetables. They probably aren’t; I was just guessing.
I already mentioned that the AIF files on the OP-1 contain metadata that the synth engines use to set their parameters, they don’t use the AIF wave data at all, apart from the sampler engine. This isn’t opinion, this is the actual way it works.
AIF files on the OP-Z are only used for the sample based engines (all of the drum tracks, and the sample engine that can be assigned to the bass, lead, chord or arp tracks).
Sorry if I’m appearing hostile, it’s just getting a bit frustrating. I’ll try not to reply any more 
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a definition requires what are called necessary and sufficient conditions. the only things that can be defined in this sense are generally natural kinds – like being an electron. but even then things can be tricky.
the problem with defining what a synthesiser is is that a synth is not a natural kind. there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for being a synth that are shared by all and only synths – we can’t say x is a synth if and only if it meets certain requirements.
rather, synths have what wittgenstein termed a “family resemblance”. there are a group of qualities or properties that synths have, but these qualities are not shared by all synths and only by synths. what can we learn from this? stop trying to define “synth”. you’re not going to get anywhere, there is no definition of synth.
as to the sampler question asked earlier. there are two types of samplers – phrase samplers and non-phrase/fully featured samplers. an SP is a phrase sampler (i think, i’ve never used one), an s3000xl is a non-phrase sampler. phrase sampler aren’t particularly synth like, while many non-phrase samplers have synth features.
That’s what So-crates (that’s a bill and ted joke, for those that aren’t gen-x) would have probably said about synths.
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Whoa… That was a most excellent reply