[NewMusic] Microkorg?

[Travis C. Johns]

I had one a few yeas back but have since parted ways with it in order to
fund...erm... something - probably basic living expenses or something
lame like that.

My synopsis - It's a solid little creature with some nice preset sounds
that you program in with a big honkin' "genre" knob thats somewhat...
dance oriented - like house, d'n'b, hiphop, minimal detroit 2-step,
etc. There's oodles of parameters that you can fiddle with, but on the
fly-in box programming is a little tricky since you have to sort
through banks of effects and there's only like, 5 knobs on the box to
tweak with. If you really want to exploit the box to its fullest, I'd
recommend either an external midi controller or a computer. However,
there's two things to be aware of:

1.) it can only receive MIDI on one channel. Generally not such a big
deal, but it was kind of a hindrance when I tried using it with my Zeta
sending each string on a separate channel - I ended up with the choice
of either an extremely responsive sound with extensive pitch bending
capabilities on only one string or a rudimental attempt sounding from
all four - glissandos became digital chromatic steps and any type of
double stops or chording caused it to flip out but good. If I recall
correctly, it wasn't to keen on handling harmonics, either...

Next thing) 4 voice polyphony! great for leads and synthy-stuff, but if
you try anything fancy - say, 4 voice chorale style voice leading with
a couple suspensions in the mix, you'd find it stealing some of the
older notes leading to somthing just a little less than switched on
Bach. likewise, if you're holding down a drone in the bass and
noodleing around with a melody, the low end would occasionally drop out
due to this particular limitation...

However, the vocoder and the stereo audio in's are pretty snazzy, though
- not to mention that you can get some pretty wicked sounds just by
using the external ins in conjunction with the 16 bands. Very
glitchtastic. And battery powered!!!

I'd say if the mail-order's offering a great deal on it, go for it, but
if you can find a used ms-2000 for a comparable price, snag that
instead - much more hands on control and I think the vocoder is like 40
bands instead of 16 - fun!

Hope this helps - drop a line if you have any other questions and all
that, droppa line.

t.

Quoting Matt Davignon <mattdavignon at gmail.com>:

> Does anyone have a microkorg? It looked nice in the musicians friend
> ad, but I don't want to buy it without any more information.
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