Company: Elektron
Released: 1999
Price: SEK 5025
The SID Station is the first synthesizer made by the Swedish company Elektron.
Remember the SID chip (AKA MOS6581 Sound Interface Device) from the Commodore 64? The sound chip that people like Rob Hubbard could play like Jimi Hendrix played the guitar. It only had a few channels and trying to get a sample out of it was difficult, but it excelled at being a warm analogue synth. If only it was a MIDI synthesizer, it would surely be as classic as anything by Roland or Yamaha.
So in the late nineties, the Sid Station was produced. Sure, it has limits by today's standards: It featurs a mere three-note polyphony with one programmable filter, ring modulation and oscillator hard synchronisation; it uses triangle, sawtooth, square, pulse width modulation and noise waveforms. It is, however, more charismatic than Steve Jobs. It's capable of sounding kind of broken in that really good way, or producing warm basslines, or just remiding you of your misspent youth by playing chords in an arpeggio style.
As SID chips weren't extremely well produced, each one has a unique sound, meaning you can now rummage around car boot sales to get some old C64 and salvage its sound chip to add another sound to your studio.
Besides, Trent Reznor probably has one. | 
