39 thoughts on “Korg MS-20 Mini First Look

  1. is korg paying synthtopia? when i check other sites there are so many cool synths and other gear out at namm….synthhead youre letting us down

      1. I’m not being snarky. I’m genuinely asking. What else is there that is non-korg besides the prophet 12, subphatty, and the buchla?

    1. “Too many plastic” (sic) is not a valid critique. If it’s similar in quality to the original, it’s a little monster.
      Surprising how synth makers ‘get it’ and guitar manufacturers, like Fender, don’t. Fender is making bogus crap for jerkoff non-players at crazy prices, mixed with Chinese slave-labor products for kids. With guitars it’s all about name brand recognition and ‘participation mystique’ (playing your idol’s axe of facsimile of it). Even Moog has gotten into fetish recently and it’s gross.

  2. the MS-20 is an awesome signal-processor for audio mangling… the fact that its also a cool synth in its own right is part of the “legendary” package.. but thats why its so widely loved, because of this double duty, and also the particular type of filters it has – which are unique, and highly characteristic

    1. I recall the spec sheet mentioning it being 1V/octave. If that’s the case, fantastic (unless you want to patch it to an old MS-20 for whatever reason).

  3. Korg Wins Namm
    I mean what more do people who want vintage analog synths want… than vintage analog synths with updated control and super affordable price.

  4. I want to meet Nick Batt!

    You know people are going to hack it once they get their hands on it so the VCF can be controlled by CV or MIDI, etc. (Like Devil Fish is to the 303; x0xi0, to the x0xb0x; Encore, to the Jupiter-8.) It’s gonna be fun to see what people come up with(!)

  5. Why are the Korg demo guys so shit? Korg should hire that guy from the Moog booth to come over and do the demos!

    Those 2 korg demo guys clearly know nothing about synthesis or the patchbay. One of them never uses the patch cords, the other just patches the mod wheel in 2 different demos. They clearly havn’t a clue. In the Sonic State demo is takes like 5 mins to find out the price, and this is after he’s shoved to one side for being so shit.

  6. Two questions:
    Will it “fully work” with the original SQ10 [got one of this beauty’s :)]? (I mean all the patching)
    Will it act as a USB/midi/CV converter between the computer and other analog synths?
    If the answer is yes to both I will be all over the moon!
    Thanks!!!

      1. SQ will work, but the pot taper will be “wrong” so adjusting to notes could be more tricky than with a vintage MS and could have pitch range limitations.

      2. SQ will work, but the pot taper will be wrong so adjusting to notes could be more tricky than with a vintage MS and could have pitch range limitations.

        1. That’s interesting, wonder can it be overcome?

          The logical next step from Korg to milk the development costs of this is to produce an MS50 mini. No point in doing an MS10 at this price and can’t see them pushing the boat out with an SQ10, too niche, although I’d buy it.

          MS20 + MS50 mini for $1200 would be a seriously cool bit if kit.

  7. The lack of LFO clocking isn’t a big issue really either, I was clocking an old MS-20 the other day with a click from within Pro Tools and it worked a treat. I’m seriously considering this thing

    1. If, as previous comments suggest, it will sync to a monotribe, then it should be possible to use the synckontrol app and an ios midi interface to midi sync with other gear…

  8. Got to play this today at NAMM. Great sound but felt “cheap”. At $500 ill bite. Cool lil fat sounding versatile all analog synth.

    1. That’s interesting. Can you expand on what felt cheap? Obviously the case is metal, so was it the knobs, the keys?

      Have you ever used the iMS20 controller? Did it feel like that?

  9. Well, the knobs are plastic and tiny. I believe the sides are plastic, not sure about the case. The keys are those tiny micro keys, which I am not personally a fan of. The mod wheel felt wiggly side to side for me and had no weight to it. I have never used the controller. Nonetheless it was fun playing with it and thousands fingers prodded it this this weekend, so perhaps this lil guy got a lil abused.

      1. you’re right, they aren’t micro-keys. they are smaller than full-size, bigger than micro-size. As I believe Brian said, they’re midi-sized.

  10. I haven’t seen where anyone has noticed that this thing looks like it was taken from the leftovers bin at the Korg warehouse. Isn’t this the EXACT same enclosure and keyboard that the Legacy Cell VST came with as a controller when Legacy Cell was first released? I had one of those controllers when I bought Legacy Cell, it was exactly the same as this “new” synth. It even had the same yellow patchcords, and the same 86% size and the same ~mini keys~ keyboard. It’s like Korg just dug up those old Legacy Cell controllers and stuffed some analog circuitry in it. If that happens to be true, don’t expect like super good construction. And of course, I could be mistaken. I haven’t read everything there is to read about this new synth, so what I’ve said here may be old news.

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