In this video, Tatsuya Takahashi, KORG’s Manager and Chief Engineer of Analog Synth Development, offers his take on the new ARP Odyssey reissue.
Takahashi served as the product planner for the new ARP Odyssey.
In this video, Takahashi shares his insight into the revival of this iconic synth, answering questions about the challenges the team faced during development and some of the historic information that helped guide key decisions, ranging from cosmetic design to internal components.
His name is spelled Takahashi- you dropped the ‘h’.
Interesting vid, I’ve been curious about some of those design points.
Thanks for the feedback. The error came from copy provided by Korg with the video, and we didn’t catch the error. We’ve updated the post!
It’s too bad that he doesn’t explain the thinking behind the @$!#/ mini-keys.
Probably more re of a marketing call than an engineering one.
We should all be thanking companies like Moog, Dave Smith and Modal for making serious synths for players. You know they could make some quick money doing a ‘mini-Minimoog’ or something like that.
“It’s too bad that he doesn’t explain…”
It’s clear socko will comment on this since he comments on every non-piano layout.
Not surprised that “socko” commented without watching the video where Takahashi explains this. Socko is a one-theme commenter with little variety and offers no insights other than attacking anything other than the horrifically bad 6.5 inch per octave standard, which was an artifact of obese piano mechanism size centuries ago, and is totally obsolete these days. An ideal and optimal finger spacing such as the Odyssey has is simply beyond his comprehension because he has never written any music or played any instrument in his life. His only universe is to attack key spacing that deviates from the inferior and backwards key spacing of modern pianos. So sad! Oh well. Not my problem.
LOL. Nice bit of inductive reasoning. Funny, but wrong. I actually make about $5,000 or so a a year of my annual income playing in clubs in Chicago. The rest is made working at a a major pharmaceutical company as a quality assurance tech.
Dude, you said “It’s too bad that he doesn’t explain the thinking behind the @$!#/ mini-keys.” And yet lo and behold the size shrink topic was one of the specific things he addressed in the video. That means you didn’t even watch the video before putting in the comment. You post about this key size obsession in countless threads, even on many threads about instruments that don’t even have them. Why not at least look at the video or think about what the instrument actually is before posting this stuff over and over. Target your point in a more relevant way rather than spamming it indiscriminately. Perhaps your ad message will be more effective.
MIDI in .sheesh.
I hope he does a vco poly next, whether reissue or new design. Hope we see the monotribe monotron volca new analog family continue.
minikeys on a synth of this caliber are beyond ridiculous.. i have no clue why korg is so in love with them, but its retarded
The slim keys topology is vastly superior to the historical aberation of the highly inferior 6.5″ per octave “modern” piano spacing, an unfortunate side effect of overly elaborate and poorly designed hammer mechanisms.
The slim keys key board size is vastly superior in every possible way to the obese, slow and troublesome archaic piano spacing, which was meant to be at best a transitional technology.
I understand the needs of special needs persons with unusually fat fingers, or who are physically disabled and unable to play music properly. Certainly there should be special handicapped instruments for these unfortunate persons.
However, it is beyond obscene to think that all instruments should be crippled and cater to this archaic and unusable key spacing.
Slim keys are superior in everyway, excepting only the requirements of “special needs” folks.
I agree that special needs people need accommodations but this should not be done to the detriment of normal users.
wow thats hilarious you must be a professional comedian
Historically, keys have been all sorts of sizes. Go to a museum that curates this type of thing and you will see “mini keys” on 200 year old keyboard instruments.
Standard piano-sized keys will never be outdated, so long as synth players also play piano. Many, if not most of the time, people buy their first dedicated synth only after spending untold hours learning piano. For these musicians (im assuming a majority) it is very important.
My muscle memory is tailored to full size keys. I don’t play as well on mini-keys, and don’t want to lose what I’ve practiced so long to earn. It’s not like mini-keys are bad… just not suited to piano players.
Also, and this applies to guys who learned on a piano, my fingers are too strong for them. I’ve broken the keys on mini-boards before, because I’m used to better-quality hammer-action keys. Don’t believe me? Ask ANY classical pianist if they are scared to play those little boards.
Mini keys allow a much smaller product, which is critical these days for several reasons. The first is that it it’s expensive to ship a fairly bulky 21 lb synth around the planet quickly. The second: few (sane) people have room for a stack of hulking metal and wood monoliths lurking in the corner of their spare bedroom. Third: Massive metal cases and full-sized keyboards cost more to make; remember that raw manufacturing costs are often 1/5 of the final MSRP. Adding $50 to the cost of making and shipping the unit would probably translate to a $200-$250 increase in retail.
herpa derp
I play the MS-20 mini. Same mini-keys. Very nice key-size for a mono-synth imo. Plays great! You won’t have trouble unless you have super-fat fingers. Btw I know some great guitarists who have huge fingers, Even some Violinists. It’s all about getting used to the instrument!
I’ve tried the Korg ARP Odyssey and the minikeys on it feel different than the keys on my microKorg. It’s like they are narrower, not just shrunk down.
I don’t get the popularity of minikeys. They must sell well, but Korg should always offer a version with keys that traditional keyboard players will like. Just cut the number of keys down, if you want to keep size or cost down!
They do offer a version with full size keys, it’s called MIDI IN
You can fit more keys on the keybed. With full-sized keys, it would only fit 2 octaves (rather than 3)
Sure minikeys are awful. Next, a 2600 reissue would be wonderful and… no need to bother with keys!
And yet no one moans about the appalling PPC pads which are almost impossible to accurately control. That, and no midi control over pitch bend and modulation are far bigger shortcomings than the very playable mid sized keys.
A lot of Odyssey fans do love those PPC pads though!
I agree that the MIDI implementation is pathetic and very off-putting for studio musicians.
But I still want one..
We were given an opportunity to give feedback, it’s us who chose orange. But I think people (including me) probably voted for the pads since they were authentic, not ever having played the original, because yes, they suck.
he lies: the ring modulator in it is digital. it says so right on the Korg product page for this, and it’s got to be perhaps the biggest disappointment in this iteration. the digital RM is veeery tinny on this odyssey.
no problem here, the ringmod on the original odyssey was digital too.
Wow that’s crazy, I hadn’t seen that sort of ring mod design before with the two nand gates.
http://www.arpodyssey.com/schematics/ody_30.gif
They’ve both got one side pulled high, so they are configured as inverters. It’s then got two of the four diodes one would normally see on a ring modulator. I wonder if the nands are being operated out of spec in the analog range of their operation to use up otherwise leftover gates. Hm, they had 2 of the quad packages and four of the gates are configured as two flip flops which drive the ring modulator nands. Looks like the flip flops are doing signal shaping converting the ramp wave to the square wave, but they are also implementing the oscillator sync mechanism as well. Not totally sure.
Hm, the ARP 2600’s sealed 4014 module actually has two balanced two-quadrant multipliers which are active using transistors. The design is kinda sorta similar looking to what we see here. So maybe they simplified the 2600 ring modulator by replacing a bunch of transistors with some really specific older nand gates operated in their analog range.
I’ve read that the Oddysey’s “ring mod” is an XOR (exclusive OR) of the square wave outputs of the VCOs. [Does quick web search] Hey, the Wikipedia agreed, and explains that it’s done with 4 NAND gates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_modulation
Right on, so that makes sense. The 2600 Ring mod can take any inputs and thus has to be analog. But! The Odyssey limits the ring mod to the two square wave oscillator outputs only, which means it can be done with digital gates and it’s the exact same signal output as if it was analog. That’s really cool!
With normal keys they should have a winner.
I played on a Korg MS 20 mini. It felt unreal and I was totally disappoint.
These slimkeys are a unbelievable trend and I hope some compagnies will realize this.
Imagine a SubPhatty with minikeys.
What year is this? So many racists here.
Why not design a tabletop/rack-mount unit with a detachable keyboard?
We could even be discussing about sound instead doing so with key size