King Korg Synthesizer First Look

2013 NAMM Show: Here’s an overview video of the new King Korg – a new analog modeling synthesizer, that Korg says is ‘based on the design philosophy of classic Korg analog synthesizers’.

While a virtual analog synth, the King Korg offers many ‘analog’ features, including a knob-heavy design, vacuum tube drive circuitry and control voltage + gate outputs.

It’s expected to be available in Spring 2013 for $1299 street price.

via sonicstate

13 thoughts on “King Korg Synthesizer First Look

  1. yeh this is really a strange product in light of ms2000 and radias.. i really cant get over that actually

    1300??? damn this thing must have serious polyphony or something

  2. I like all the knobs and I like the tube, much like an Electribe (though presented in a gaudy, sideshow type of way). I also like that you can identify some classic analog waves from “MG” and others. Certainly better than a standard digital synth. The silver color and the King Korg name are almost a deal breaker though. It would definitely turn me off it it was side by side with a Yamaha Motif variant in black.

    1. Isn’t that a gold color? I also personally don’t have a problem with King as a name considering the other names out there like “Massive” and “Omni”. Seems to be a trend of sorts.

  3. Looks like a somewhat specialized rig to give more realtime control to kids who want a mostly analog keyboard experience without “feature-bloat”. And with the MS-20 thing, they are satisfying the purists. Pretty clever of Korg to be hearing the current zeitgeist of the retro-analog lovers and the desires of the current electronic music world. It’s not very future-proof, but seems to be a reasonable short-term strategy– especially given the success of their Kronos line.

    Having cheap little LED’s glowing inside the tube vents is pretty funny, and probably a fairly inexpensive way to indicate all that “warmth”.

    1. Actually, the LEDs are an easy visual way to know if the tube is engaged in the signal chain at a glance while performing. Tube filaments can be hard to see.

  4. Released side by side the Korg roll-out makes tons of sense. Will I buy one… nope I am not into analog. I like romplers from the 90’s.

  5. You guys never heard of the Triton Extreme? That’s what this is, right down to the power valve, with Kronos technology instead of Trident and M1.

  6. The King Korg looks very interesting. The sounds seem much more authentic and satisfying than those put out by the Prophecy, MS2000 and MS2000R I once owned. I don’t do much home recording, so computer-based plug-ins aren’t a lot of use to me. However, I do play lots of gigs in a classic rock covers band. I could really do with some handy signature analog sounds without too much mucking around. I am a hopeless programmer, and need good sounds progammed in from the get-go. My live rig is like this: most of the time I play a Hammond XK1 (through an old analog phaser and a ring mod for extra filth), but for everything that isn’t organ – piano, synths, strings, pads – I use my trusty old Korg TR61. I am always twiddling those performance controls to get the sounds of filter sweeps and so on. A King Korg would do the analog pads and leads I need much more convincingly … and the fact that the King Korg has a few decent piano sounds too might swing it for me.

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