Korg MS-10

I've been told it's one of the more basic synths of the time. I wouldn't really know. It is the first one I've ever really worked with. All I can say is that I can find the type of noises and beeps I'm looking for pretty easily enough. Nothing mind boggaling about it.

I love using this machine with a delay and Big muff. It captures that old industrial (SPK, Coil, MB) sound to the T. I don't use it as much as an instrument as i do a layer of noise or percussions.

There is nothing realistic about this machine. The tones it can make are deep as hell though and can be manipulated to no end (With the right effects)

This machine is from 78. It laid dormant in the basement of a squat in Germany for over 10 years, then made it's was to a NYC squat for another 10. Needless to say it was in ROUGH shape. I had it serviced and "americanized". This cost me about $175. It's been running perfect ever since.

I use it for all my experimental/noise albums.

This synth is fantastic, I bought it having tested out a VST emulation of it. I found myself using the emulation more and more, but wishing it had more punch to it. The MS-10 itself arrived and I found I was able to dial up sounds pretty easily due to my familiarity with the VSTi I had been using, but in all seriousness this synth is childs play to program. In this age of manufacturers constantly putting essential I/O on 'back pannels' it's refreshing to go back to an 'everything on the front' patch pannel design.

1 VCO, Triangle, Saw, Square and Noise

Filter sounds great, most people talk about the MS 10 as a bass machine, but it handles leads really well too and both have really rounded sounds that cut through the mix when needed.

Mono-synths rule! I like the way they react to your playing especially with highest note priority like the MS-10 trills and other fun things become really easy. With my DAW I can create giant sounding pads with this synth too. Theres no velocity or aftertouch, but the pitch bend and pitch modulation have always been my fave expressive tools. Sadly the MS-10 only has one Mod Wheel, but the pitch modulation has its own dedicated knob for adding cool touches of vibrato. I send this synth through some outboard effects too, a chorus, phaser and delay pedal add interesting colours to the sound. I've also used a digitech whammy pedal to immitate a second oscilator. As a sound generation device this has my microKorg beaten hands down, its analog sound interacts with the guitar effects pedals I use in a much more natural way. And with the external input the thing is an effects box in itself! Value for money or what?

It was made in 1978 and has surrvived a trip half way across England by courier to get into my studio. So yeah I'd say these little brutes are pretty reliable.

I love this synth, if it were lost or stolen I would search another one out on ebay instantly, and in all probability be buying my stolen machine back! They are becoming more scarce as people often pick them up do to lack of MS-20s on the market, however they are a different animal to the 20s I'm sure (I haven't had the pleasure of playing a 20, but if my 10 is anything to go by im sure it's great) but they have an equally relevant contribution to make. Gotta love the external input!

well...if analog synthesis is something new for you u will have to spend some time just sitting in front of....otherwise it's plain easy. it's very hard to get any bad sound out of it but if you turn the PWM after 14:00 there will be only one sound...maybe my baby is a lil bit broken? dunno.....
nice patching possibilities-it's a so-called semi-modular ;)

I use it with some nice semi-vintage echo (boss dm-300) on mm-25 (it's a korg lil' monitor/speaker/combo or whatever. sounds very breath-takingly ! the filter is one of the best that i heard in my life!!! only one VCO and one filter....but it will blow your head off! BEWARE! :)

i DO depend on her! no problems yet. i bought her before 2 months from germany. backup? kidding? i got no money for any backup. i am from serbia. saynomore. but i DO gig with this baby. it's nice to have a case for her transport.

dunno

dub, trip-hop, abstract hip-hop, ambient, experimental, post/space/noise/drone-rock...suits everything IMO. i have been playing from '95. i own/owned a novation KS4, juno 6, micromoog, rogue, poly 800 and JX-8P. only the micromoog is close to this baby soundwise but the ms has a more ballsy filter!
definitely helps me in making music. add a lil echo, reverb and that's it...SUPERB!
i would definitely buy it again if i had the money. i got it relatively cheap (with the mm-25, a nice case and a casio expression pedal-huh:)
the external audio input with this filter is a bless! i run almost everything thru it! :)

Well, it is an ANALOG - that says it all. So you have to play with it for a while, tweek a bit these knobs to get the sound that you want, but ... it is such fun!

Polyphony, effects, MIDI? Hell, no. But it is the small brother of modulation synths (and the patching is fun). You can also run through it some external signals, but it is not as great as if you used modern filter, but also gets some really cool sounds his own way. I ran once some classical piano music through it (using the bleeping) and the sound was just awesome ...
Also - if you have a delay, you could play for hours with it ...

This IS the beast!!! Squirls, beeps, growls, screams, thunders, psychedelic machine. The legacy software (there is a soft-version of MS-20, MS10?s bigger brother) comes close, really close, but nothing beats the original.

There is not thing to break or to crush. One knob goes out if I pull too hard. And you have to use tuner, to keep it in tune, every time you move the tuning knob a bit (well, as I said - it is ONLY analog synth).

It is really vintage gear, but there are lots of fans on the web. You can easily get all the info you need to keep this animal healthy. And Korg has great customers support anyway.

Yes, I would definitely buy it again. It is the instrument that never gets old, is unbreakable and ... just cool.
I have been playing it for 4 years, I also own Roland Alpha Juno 2 (shitty, but good for a MIDI keyboard for my PC), Alesis Air Synth (good toy), Fender Rhodes and Clavinet. Plan to buy Microkorg or Waldorf Micro Q.
I love all about it, it stilll surprises me. Last week I created some really weird sounds running my clavinet through MS10.
MS20 has 2 oscillators instead of one in MS10, but I do not like the sound of them, so MS10 is just enough for me. For the price, it is one of the cheapest, yet really powerful analog synths with a hell of a soul in it.
And there are great news - You can also buy MIDI modules for it! It is one of the more inspiring tools I?ve ever touched.

very intuitive interface. I can't bother mouse to change parameters so I always end up using any stupid preset in a virtual instrument. MS-10 you do a different sound every time you turn it on

if one VCO and one Filter can do all of this I wonder what happen when you get 2 of them ( ms-20). anyway, I'm happy with the single occillator.

This synth sound FATTTTTTT! #150 for this sound ?and there are people spending #250 on a ms2000. Who cares about MIDI, realistic sound waves and vocoder... vocoder is for pussies! I'll never sell it!

out of tune some times.

if you have a chance, buy it, The same for MS-20

Very easy to use as far as mono's go, just has a charater that implores you to play with it! Dont come much easier than this.

Simple one osc monosynth with some interesting patching capabilities that would be ideal for someone starting out who fancies a bit of patching fun.

There is not much to say about this synth that hasn't been said below, the one osc limits this synth to make any real interesting tones, but the pulsewidth does a good job at fattening it up. Has an ability to modulate the pitch with it's envelope that if you are not aware makes this synth an analogue percussion dream.

One other reason to consider this synth is for it's incredible external input that has the ability to allow young, clean/fresh audio to pass through it's dark chamber and then emerge out the other end as a trained fighter.
I run everything through it, whether to just gently warm up a signal, or to totally and utterly terrorize and.........you get the picture!

Also the filter can talk, it's even growled at me on may occasions and is probably one of the best analogue fx processing filters around for my money.

All in all, this synth can do good basses and some very nice leads to boot, but you will soon hunger for an additional oscilllator for sounds with a bit more depth.
Well suited to the standard wacky synth fx sounds and great analogue percussion, trick here is the pink noise, not too many monos in this bracket with pink noise and it makes all the difference. I've made some fantastic snares on this thing.

Overall this makes for a fantastic first analogue synth, that you will probably never get rid of, at least i haven't yet, as it worth hanging on to for the filter and external input alone.

And it one of those synths that has something that a lot of modern day synths of today lack...........character!!
And this thing has bags of it!

Since writing this review i have been searching for a reference that would best sum up this synth and i have come to the conclusion that if someone were to ask me how i would describe this synth in one word..........i would have to say........the Korg MS10 is - Yoda!!

Just recently had this thing restored to it's former glory, paid a lot of money, but now i have a fantastic sounding 70's mono with many years of playing time left, and you know what......these things are worth it, it feels like a child to me now!

These synths have a good reputation for being stable, and apart from the usual crackling pots they are very easy to get repaired as they use very common parts........except.......for the filter!!!

The filter is a sealed component that are no longer in production and if this goes........bye bye MS10, as all audio has to pass through it!

I'm not sure how easily these filters blow and i am not saying this to put off any potential MS10 owners, as there seems to be a hell of a lot of MS10's still floating around, but it's something to be aware of, and hey.........these things were made in the 70's and have lasted this long already so who's to say they won't last another 20 years if they've made it this far???

If you get one try phoning Korg and ask them if they will service your MS10.....lol! :)

Has an ability to make you feel an attatchment to it, now that's a synth that has character!!

Total analog construction means total human user interface! After just a bit of trying you can produce sounds intuitively! Of course - nothing for the synth beginner.

Almost no feature at all - just plain simple monophonic analog sound. CV only! But one rare feature: the envelope has a Hold parameter added! PWM gives great sounds

Following the basic principle of VCO-VCF-VCA +ADSHR +LFO, there's nothing else to say. But working yourself through all the knobs, you can produce very good sounds though!!

Nothing seems to be able to harm this thing. It's 23 years old and still working!

Too old for that stuff!

Great! Absolute analog fun for a small price! If you find one - buy one!

This synth is very easy to use. It has a knob for every parameter.
The only bad thing is that you can't save a sound.
That's why I gave only 8 points.

>> BAD <<
No MIDI.
No polyphony.
No FX.
Just 1 VCO/ VCF / VCA/ LFO/ Noise Generator.
The keyboard is very bad and has only 2,5 octaves.

>> GOOD <<
Patch Panel to expand modulation possibilities.

You can change all knobs while playing and
the synth sounds dirty and powerful.
Works well for Techno, Hip Hop (with portamento), Industrial
and anything related.

It is a stable analog machine.

Never needed customer support. But this synth is from 1978
so I don't think that it has support from the manufacturer after this time.

Well it was my very first synthesizer (got it in 1993 as a present)
and I would never sell it!!!
The filter is much powerful than the one in my Doepfer MS-404
(moog style filter) and I like it's dirty/ noisy sound.

I've heard from other people that they think the MS-10 has not
a fat sound compared with the Minimoog or the Arp Odyssey.
But e.g the minimoog has 3 VCO's! So this is not comparable.

It's anyway fatter than the sound of the Doepfer MS-404.

MONOPHONIC PATCHED HEAVEN,PLAY AND LEARN!

WITH THE KENTON PRO SOLO U HAVE ALL THE FEATURES WITH MIDI!!!!!!
LINE IN WITH THE BEST LOW PASS FILTER IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE KENTON AND THE LINE IN TRIGGED VIA MIDI, YEAH
WITH SYNC LFO AND ADSR LPF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOUND LIKE A MONSTER OR AN EXOTIC MERMAID.
NO LIMITS

OUT OF TUNE SOME TIMES.
THE BABY HAVE PERSONALITY.

I will never sell it
ONE OF THE BEST LEADS AND BASS IN MONO SYNTHS
THIS THING CAN TALK AND SING.

The MS-10 is the little-brother of the MS-20, and as such it does of course not offer the wealth of routing permutations of is bigger brother. However, you still have the familiar non-obligatory patch panel, and the layout is virtually identical. It only carries a singel VCO/VCF/VCA, and no ring mod. Sorry.

One benefit of less features, is of course that it's a bit easier to learn, and it can produce a number of very good sounds, without too much hassle.

All the knobs are clearly labeled, and on the patch panel you can see how the signal is routed through the synth. This is a good idea, and makes it a lot easier to learn. In this respect, the MS-10 is an ideal beginner's synth (as it was for me).

Apart from the patch-panel, the MS-10 is fairly low on features. You got your basic mono synth, a single VCO, VCF, VCA, LFO and a single ADSR. The good part is that the ADSR and LFO can be routed (patched) to control the VCO, VCF or VCA, or even the pulse width. There is even an inverse output to play around with.

The big pain is that it's a bit tough to trigger the synth from external sources, because it uses a short-circuit gate, rather than the more accepted voltage type. The CV is also different from the standard (based on hertz, rather than voltage), so you cant simply hook it up to another synth... well you CAN, but the results are likely to be highly unpredictable (but sometimes fun, as I've found). There is a way around this, but it involves tracking down the MS-02 converter, and you probably won't bother.

The synth is of course strictly monophonic, and the rather clunky keyboard has high-note priority. Pressure and after-touch belong to another era altogheter...

There is also an external input, that you can route through both the VCA and VCO. This way you can add all sorts of strange noises to your sound (for instance some pink/white noise, which is readily available from the patch panel). With a bit of practice, you can use this to double your solo on vocals or another keyboard and send it all through the same filter. Sounds extremely cool at times, terrible at others.

Try this: Plug a standard open/closed circuit foot pedal (a sustain pedal, for instance) into the trigger in-jack. Connect another synth (or guitar or whatever) to the external input, and press the pedal whenever you strike (or sing) a note through the external input. Play around with the ADSR and VCF to get a good result...

For solo work I find the MS-10 indespensable (or irreplaceable if you like). It cuts through just about everything, and has a vibrant, warm and almost accoustic sound when add some outboards and tweak around a bit. My personal favourite is to use a fairly thin 4" pulse waveform, slight vibrato, a bit to much resonance and one hand on the filter-knob.

There is only a single (centre-detented and but not spring-loaded) pitch bender, but you can assign it to just about everything through the patch panel. Beyond that, play around with the knobs on the control panel.

Well, the tuning is a bit of a pain (as always on gear like this), but other than that, mine has served my well over the 10 years I have owned it.

I will never sell my MS-10. Even though it is the first synth I've ever owned, it still an integral part of my sound, and I've never quite found anything that could replace it.

If you're a beginner, the MS-10 will be a good help to teach you classic subtractive synthesis. But regardless of experience, I would recommend that you give it a chance.