Korg MS-20 Mini

I've been looking for a synthesiser for some time and stumbled across the KORG MS-20 from demonstrational videos on youtube and of course it's unprecedented place in the history of pioneering radical electronic music from the late 1970's that continues to this day. Firstly, there's the beautifully unique design, a keyboard with a built in upright panel of lovingly organised ports and knobs , this is really handy, it's like having an editing panel right in front of your eyes. The KORG MS-20 is a wondefully mad musical laboratory with endless room for experimentation, you can patch different sound parameters with the 10 yellow cables which gives it that crazy Japanese music 'science lab' feel. The manual gives many examples of different sound configurations with and without the cables, so it's a great base from which you can proceed with your own settings. You can also hook up many other effects units to dramatically alter the already infamous KORG sounds. I've got this attached to numerous guitar pedals and a Yamaha SPX90 multi reverb effects processor into my Line6 UX Guitar Toneport using Logic ProX. I highly recommend this instrument, it's a complex work of art that stimulates and excites your imagination into interstellar realms of electronic space! I'm so happy I got this!

This is amazing synthesizer! It is the same like original MS-20, but smaller + has USB and MIDI connections.

PROS: the sound is definite KORG MS sound and the posibilities are really very wide. I like especially that this thing is semi-modular (well, it's not exact term, but it is very close to the truth!) therefore it could be connected to the modular Eurorack system. It is not plug and play, but it is possible using Harvestman's English Tear module, that converts signals back and forth for the Korg MS20mini to talk to Eurorack both ways.

CONS: the knobs a little bit wobbly, but that's what you get for the price.

Anyway, I think that it is amazing thing for such a price. ANd there are so much info and tutorials in the internet that helps to get it going, that it's a must to have for every synthesizer maniac ! :)

more psychedelic sound than other analog synthesizers!its like very metallic and organic shamanic vargan sounds.one of the first machine languages in universe!never listen people who told you about korg ms-20 too noisy!this is special organic noises like nature always have some sounds.simply use this synth with some modern effects like eventide h9 harmonizer if you like going to space!very easy make osc sync,pwm,raw osc out mods!

If anyone has seen the film, you might have spotted the Korg MS-20 played by Maggie Gyllenhaal's character. It sounds great in the film and on the soundtrack. After watching some youtube demonstration videos, I decided to take the plunge and can see why this is such a famous synth. The manual has some interesting setting suggestions and it feels like a powerful piece of kit. I like the weight and size. I wish it was polyphonic, but I guess it's good to be forced into a different territory and get creative. The dials don't feel as tight and crisp in places as I might have liked, but there's no real issues stemming from that. The white lettering near each dial could ideally be more prominent and easy to read as well. Finding and remembering good sounds is a little challenging for a beginner like myself, but for experienced players you'll probably have a blast with this synth. Overall happy with this and know there's more to come.

Had one of these ‘toys’ back in the early ‘80s; the most versatile, robust synth for the price