Introducing the Korg 4 Voice Analog Synth. Buy now.
If you are like me, you might look at your audio engineering friends’ analog synth collections with a little drool at the corners of your mouth, listening to them tell you about how they somehow got their Prophet 6 at grandma’s favorite pawn shop in Little Rock, Arkansas for twenty dollars, and wonder to yourself: “Why, oh why must these fat juicy sounds cost so darn much?” Even used eBay prices for Dave Smith’s four-voice Mopho X4 are over a thousand bucks, and you would be hard pressed to find a decent new analog synth anywhere under $800 – and if you do it is probably mono- or dual-phonic at best (aside from the Akai Timbre Wolf).
Without further ado, allow me to introduce the Korg Minilogue. Christopher Petti, who was representing Korg at Adorama’s pre-NAMM event in Manhattan last night, said that Korg’s mission was to design a brand new synth for under $500 that is 100% analog, with 4 voices (2 oscillators per voice), with no digital submenus to scroll through, that borrows concepts from some of the major players like Roland, Sequential Circuits, Buchla, and Moog to create a completely new design.
Woah.
Here is a general walkthrough of its capabilities, with a focus on the features that are really hard to find anywhere at this price point.
VOICE CONTROL
The Minilogue has five octaves selectable via a short metal spring-loaded rod, with LEDs to show you which octave you have selected. Each oscillator has four octaves as well, so the full range is enormous. There are three selectable waveforms per oscillator, with knobs for pitch and “shape”, which allows you to finely adjust to intermediary wave shapes. Additionally, there’s a switch to sync the waveforms which yields a harsher sound that is harmonic-rich. Another engages a ring modulator, and a third allows three tiers of velocity sensitivity. AND there’s a white noise generator!!!
Ok, nice. But the feature I love that you can’t find at this price is the cross modulation. This is the feature on some of the other big players in the analog domain that really gives it, you know, that special something. Not only that, you can see the shape of the waveforms you are designing on a designated digital oscilloscope that is always running.
Cross-Modulation. $499.99 Just saying…
VOICE MODES
Sorry, did I mention this thing has 4-voice analog polyphony? Well it also has different voice modes, selectable with the row of 8 buttons at the bottom right of the instrument:
Dual-phonic – stacks two and two voices to give you two pairs of oscillators per voice, which is great if you want to detune each voice for added fatness using a knob called “voice mode depth”.
Unison – stacks all 4 voices, great for really rich or crazy sub-bass applications.
Mono – does the classic monosynth thing, and the voice mode depth knob also adds a super deep square wave sub!
Delay – each voice is played one after another when you strike a given key.
Chord – play a chord, then any single note will build that chord on top of it.
Arpeggiator – 14 mode arpeggiator, syncable via MIDI.
Side Chain – This is a really cool and unique effect! You can hold a chord in one hand, and play lead lines over it that will duck the volume of the chord. Essentially it allows you to sidechain a pad to a lead line within the same patch.
FILTER, SEQUENCER, DELAY
These tools are definitely happening.
The filter has all the necessary parameters, Cutoff, Resonance, a switch for 2-pole or 4-pole.
The sequencer will quantize whatever you play when it repeats. A very cool additional feature – using the “motion sequencer”, you can record something, then tweak up to four different knobs on the repeats and all of your moves will be recorded into the sequence. Also key, the sequence will be stored within the preset, which is just lovely for live situations where you want more things to be adjusted than you can really do with your two hands. and nose. and toes.
The delay has a hi-pass filter to keep the low-mid mud out of the delay (this filter can also be applied to the actual synth tone via a switch). Also, if you want to get weird, you can use the feedback and time parameters to change the speed and pitch of the delay sound simultaneously, giving you that tire-spinning wind-up or wind-down effect.
QUALITY BUILD
This baby has a wood-panel facing the audience, and an aluminum face-plate with chassis-mounted rubber coated knobs. It looks great and feels great – it has small keys like the ARP which allows its small footprint, and everything you need is visible all the time and lives where you want it to live.
The pitch bend is interesting, it isn’t a wheel but a spring-loaded metal rod, which lives above the bottom few keys on the board. It is also assignable to 29 other parameters on the board.
As for the rear end, it accepts USB and 5V sync I/O to allow connection to compatible devices.
OVERVIEW
As you can see, this synth seems to represent a tremendous step forward in affordable, accessible, analog synthesizers. It is competitive with newer synths that cost much more, and is just so intuitive. My favorite features are definitely the fully analog four-voice polyphony (none of that paraphony like the ARP Omni), the cross-modulation, and the motion sequencer (and the fact that it may be subsequently stored with the user preset). The sidechain Voice Mode is a cool idea, and the tonal opportunities with the voice modes and waveform flexibility seem inexhaustible. Aside from two minor qualms which are that the USB port cannot transmit audio (only MIDI) and the fact that there isn’t a drive stage pre- OR post-filter, this is a seriously exciting instrument for the affordable synth market, and I expect that it will do exceptionally well for itself on the shelves.
