Intellijel Corgasmatron / MS-20 VCF comparison

YouTube Uploaded by s0LVentCIty on Jul 8, 2011

"Hello - my name is Solvent and this is my video comparison of the MS20's legendary VCF and Intellijel's new Corgasmatron eurorack VCF module, which is roughly based on the MS20's VCF. According to Mr Intellijel "Corgasmatron is inspired by the MS-20 but it is a totally different circuit".

This is not a musical demonstration - and as a direct comparison, the conditions are not particularly labored over... so ultimately it's not a fair direct comparison... It is just to give you an idea of how the same sound source (a System 100 VCO) sounds, being filtered roughly the same way by both filters, in a standard-MS20 configuration.

My conclusion - even if my conditions make this comparison rather inaccurate, it is still pretty clear to me that these filters do not sound the same. The MS-20 spirit/vibe is in the Corgasmatron, but it's quite different sounding - more precise and clinical sounding, for sure, but it can still get very dirty!

The MS-20 sounds better to me here -- it's a classic for a reason -- it rules. Same thing applies here as always (IMO): if you crave an 808, a Miami won't do - if you crave a Pro-One, a Mopho won't do - if you crave a Minimoog, a Voyager won't do.... if you crave an MS-20, this won't do. But IMO it sounds fantastic and better than the other MS-20 filter clones I've tried (Frostwave Resonator & Analogue Solutions SY-02).

Obviously the Intellijel has a lot more features and capabilities going for it that I haven't explored here at all. I just know that people are going to want some kind of MS-20 comparison so that's what this is.

Things to keep in mind:

- MS-20's ESP (external signal processor) seems to remove some high end from the signal, so the Sys100 VCO sounds less bright through the MS-20.

- MS-20 ESP has a peak light -- Intellijel does not -- so I don't know whether I may be overdriving Intellijel's input a bit.

- Intellijel has "Q drive" control, which the MS-20 does not... I don't know what the Q drive should be set to, in order to be closest to MS-20... it sounded to me like it was closest @ around 75%. So initially you hear the Intellijel with Q drive at zero, and at this setting it really doesn't sound much like the MS-20's VCF at all. It gets closer as I increase the Q drive.

- During my first comparison segment with the Intellijel, where I was comparing the HPF, I realized afterwards that the LPF had it's Q set to 100%. This was a mistake - I don't know how much that affected the way the HPF performed. I know from experience with the MS20 that the HPF / LPF behaviour do interact a lot, so this may have changed the sound.

Other settings and technical details:

- Here the Intellijel is set up like the MS20's VCF -- in series -- Filter 1 set to HPF, then into Filter 2 set to LPF.

- The LFO modulating the Intellijel is the MS-20's LFO. Sometimes it comes in with no action on screen -- this is because off screen I am bringing it in via an Intellijel uAtten attenuator module.

- The Intellijel's jumper is on the "vintage" setting throughout.

- I don't know which revision of Korg filter I have in my MS-20 (there are 2 diff types)"