Korg MS-20

It's very easy to use,just tweek those knobs,
only the patch-bay it a little harder to obtain.

Features are the biggest dissapointment,there are almost no features
on this korg synth,you just get a very basic synthesizer.

The filter sounds like no other analog synth that's for shure but I doubt you must buy the synth only for this must say 'great' filter.

It's oscillators are very stable and my guess is that this
synth is one of the more stable analog synth's out there.

Korg is still out there so I guess there is still
kind of support on their old synth's.

I did buy the korg ms-20 at a very high price,and it's my biggest dissapointment untill now and I owned quite a lot analog synth's,so I suggest you better buy another analog synth for your money so I traded my korg ms-20

Tres facile d'utilisation, ergonomique et vraiment tres pedagogique.
A premiere vue aucun probleme. Mais des que l'on s'aventure sur le panel de droite, on commence a percevoir sa relative simplicite : Et c'est bon signe! Des assimilation de la synthese et de ses possibilites de modulations (il est vrai bien aides par son ergonomie), on envie de pouvoir moduler independemment la resonnance des filtres...
Le manuel est bien foutu et en plusieurs langues. Neanmoins, en parcourant le chapitre anglais, j'ai decouvert des annotations absentes dans la partie francaise!

Vraiment il y a tout ou presque!
Il manque un PWM, separe sur chaque osc et quelques mods (resonance, mod LFO, ...)
Une merveille sur l'ENV2 : la fonction hold et le processeur d'entree ext.
Mon MS20 est parfois utilise avec un convertisseur Prosolo, lorsqu'il est asservi au sequenceur de mon SQ80)

Les sons sont tous sauf realistes. Remarquez que je ne l'ai pas achete pour cela.
Rien que jouer sur l'autoscillations des filtres (vraiment geniaux ces filtres 12db/Oct resonnants en serie, chercher les synthes qui le proposent aujourd'hui... Q, etc...) prends 50% des sonorites tirees du MS20.
Le clavier est bon et couvre 3 octaves, ce qui est ideal pour un Mono

RAS

RAS

Un synthe a garder, non pas a collectionner, mais pour en jouer.
Et en plus, il est stable!
je m'en paierai presqu'un autre pour doubler ses possibilites ou pour le faire modifier.
Un bijou et mono vraiment polyvalent servant a faire autre chose que des basses et synthe lead

like a guidebook to analog synthesis; very intuitive, yet at the same time very deep. it takes a long time to get into the guts of this thing, but it's so worth it.

not many features except straight up fat analog sounds. no arpeg., no seqeuncer, no midi, just incredible sounds that no VA could ever touch.

speaks for itself. makes some of the most ungodly noised i've ever heard, along with incredible filter sweeps and beautiful soft lead lines.

has never crapped out on me, although i'd be hard pressed to bring it to a gig.

they stopped making these in the late '70's so no chance of customer support from korg unless you've got an electribe or something.

i couldn't live without this synth; like it says above, it's basically a japanese minimoog, but with some ice-cold sounds that can't be touched.

ok, obviously there is no much in the way of a software version in this ol' hump-o-technology. no presets either.
It came in a nice flightcase with the manual patch sheet and patch cables and looked just near perfect, paid about $500.
editing patches is a breeze if you use the pre-wired modules to the left, the right hand side features the seperate modules and you have to experiment with these but thats where the fun is !!!!
the only reason im not rating this as a ten is because i havent quite figuered out how to patch the thing, but hey i only got i two days ago so...

its monophonic, keyboard action is well...... its not a steinway a bit plastic but who the hell gives a ..... thats not why you have this instrument. no effects, expansion capabilities are the ms 10 or the ms 50 which are respectively weaker and stronger feature wise. some people prefer the ms 50 oscillators.

okay, dont expect that you can compare it to a korg z1 or yamaha vl1 its something totally different. the way i use it is by patching other synth in the ms 20's modules to give them a different character or just tear their sounds to smitherines. the ms20 excels in strange weird sounds and gut wrenching screaming filter squeels, im not kidding if you turn the resonance way up you might get VERY scared if you have the volume turned up high. but its just a wonderfull sound, irreplaceble. the cool thing is when you patch a bass in you can play the oscillators either their pitch , or pitch and filters or just the filters it really is something you must try !!!!! if you patch it up in the right way you can get something like a electro harmonix q tron envelope follower.

as of yet i've had no problems but i only had it for 2 days now so....

i own several instruments:
korg ms20, korg z1 exp., rhodes mk1 73, roland vk7, roland hp 550, korg polysix, yamaha ex5, roland mc505 (hardly use it), and i record to a roland vs 1680, i mostly make reggea- ish kinda funk retro thingies and the korg ms20 is just what i need for those spaced out sounds. if it were stolen i'd declare a jihad against the thief and buy a new one.

Like a Japanese Mini-Moog, the Korg MS 20 features great spacey synth sounds with awesome filter sweeps and siren-like modulations. Patches are made with the quarter-inch jack patch bay for plenty of possibilities. I do not have the manual, but I don't really need it.

Made in the late Seventies, the MS 20 is mono, no midi, no arpeggiator, no sequencer, nothing but cool electronic sounds. It has a budget little brother called the MS 10 with fewer features and an expander module without the little three octave keyboard called the MS 50. Korg's VC 10 vocoder is also in this series. They're all pretty cool machines if you can still find them out there.

For pure electronic music the machine can hardly be excelled. Synthesizers like these deserve their own niche and applications, not just as leads and basses. It is for musicians who want something completely different than the usual bread and butter sounds. Use it to get freaky and wild like nature intended!

What's not to like? It is solid and reliable and has never had a problem or needed repair.

KORG no longer supports the MS 20. This year the synth turns 20!

The MS 20 is probably the best synth deal I've ever made. I just wish I had a few more of them. Maybe I can find another in the dusty basements of my town's local mom and pop music stores. I'll keep looking.