KORG MS-20 HQ DEMO vintage synthesizer 1978

YouTube via AnalogAudio1 — June 03, 2010 —

"The Korg MS-20 from 1978 is an outstanding monophonic synthesizer with a very characteristic sound. It is very flexible thanks to its patching features. Korg planed the MS-20 as a budget synth - and it was the best sold monophonic synth of all time - mainly because its price. Today, it is a real classic, because its hip sound - and because its price :-).

Although a budget synth, it has all the traits of a professional instrument - it's a sophisticated tool. It's also very reliable - it never gets out of tune. Switch it on and play - no warm up required.

In my opinion, it's the first serious monophonic synth from Korg - it also has for the first time conventional terminology (ADSR, Filter cutoff, instead of "Singing level, Traveler" like on previous Korg models).

It is semi modular - like an ARP2600. Indeed, some call it "the poor man's ARP2600". But the sound is completely different from ARP or Moog. The MS-20 sounds more "electronic", "lofi" or "dirty" - these qualities are welcome for some electronica styles.

Similar to the Minimoog, the oscillators can overdrive the filter(s) - on values higher than 7 in the VCO mixer. Pay attention to this, if you want "cleaner" sounds.
The MS-20 can give you great leads, basses, loads of great FX, almost everything an analog synth can deliver.
But first, you must learn to program it... It's not that easy to get great sounds out of a MS-20 like on a Minimoog.

The behaviour of the patch connections is not always logic - MS-20 rules!

I played the MS-20 dry, sometimes with a Roland DEP-5 for delay effects and a Lexicon MPX-500 for reverbs.

By the way, this MS-20 is an early version in dark gray (not black) without the screw in the
VCA diagram on the front panel. That means, it has the old "KORG35 filter", which is also used in the Korg PS-series.

Finally I must say, the MS-20 looks very "sexy" and appealing. Once I saw it on a picture, I knew I want it, no matter how it sounds... in the end, the sound was quite ok ;-)"