[NewMusic] MicroKorg

[Matt Davignon]

I was having issues with the interface more than the concepts. This
particular keyboard appears to have 4 banks of sound modification options,
which are accessed through 2 "edit select" dials, a shift button that
changes the values of the "edit select" dials, and 5 knobs that edit
specific values in each effects bank. I'm confused by...

--Sometimes changing the moving the 'value' knobs makes an audible change
and sometimes it doesn't.
--The 2 "Edit select" dials seem to share the same value knobs.
--Pressing the "Shift" button doesn't cause the shift button to light up.
However, pressing the "Write" button makes "Shift" light up instead of
"Write".
--Given the last 2 points, it was hard to figure out which of 4 parameters I
was changing when I adjusted a value knob.

The above features share a fairly small piece of real estate. The largest
knob is for genres of music: Trance, techno, electronica, etc. Each genre
has 16 different default waveforms, selected by 1 of 8 pads and an a/b
switch. Some have the arpeggiator turned on automatically and some don't. If
you were to ask my why one preset is "trance" and another isn't, I wouldn't
be able to tell you.

It seems like it would make much more sense to have a smaller dial that
simply dials through all the presets to save more room for modifications,
but that's just me.

Anyway, that's my first night's observations. I'm still glad I got it, I
guess I'm just wishing it was more for the 'manipulate' crowd than the
'preset' crowd.

Matt

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 4:46 PM, lx rudis <lx.rudis at gmail.com> wrote:

> i'm wondering whether you're having issue with the interface of the synth,
> or with the concepts of analog synthesis.
>
> if the latter, one of the better resources on analog synthesis is the 'arp
> 2600 owner's manual'.  much of what's in it can be transposed to your
> instrument [although there's no real section on vocoding.]
> here are two links to pdf files:
> http://www.guitarfool.com/ARP2600.html
> [owner's manual, not the service manual]
> or:
> oldschoolsound2.free.fr/manuels/*arp2600*%20*owner*%20*manual*.pdf
>
> alternatively, rob hordjik did a pretty incredible job documenting analog
> synthesis for ...a digital emulator of an analog synth.
> there's tons here, so don't expect to digest it in a night, or a weeekend:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~rhordijk/G2Pages/<http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Erhordijk/G2Pages/>
>
> if you want thumbnail tutorials on stuff like 'why is the filter making
> this
> 'pwee pwee' sound', feel free to hit me with private email.
>
> good luck, happy snyctphlerthizing!
> that korg is one of the better deals out there for making classic synth
> tones, imvho.
> you won't be disappointed once you start cracking into it.