New Synth Day - Korg MS2000B - a modern classic?

[VTypeV4]

 

This wonderful thing arrived a few days back - initial impressions are very good! 🥰

 

Over the years, I've owned a number of classic synths including a Roland Juno 60, a JEN SX1000 and my all time favourite, a vintage Korg MS20. I still have the '20. Whilst a much newer machine, I always wanted an example of an MS2000 when they were current although as a 17 year old student, I never had the funds - any spare pennies went on bass strings!

 

In terms of sounds, it's got some pointless and silly noises patched in but it also has some distinctly 'classic' sounds including Roland Juno / Jupiter, Mini-Moog, Sequential Prophet and Korg MS series. Despite it's apparently complex panel with a sea of knobs, buttons, legends and diagrams, the Korg is reasonably straight forward to use but above all else, it sounds great. It has all the usual toys with a 16-step four-layer sequencer, arpeggiator, dual envelopes, dual LFOs plus Fat (Phat?) oscillators, variable spec filters and a simple but useful effects unit seem to make it a classic 'one box' hardware solution. 

 

I'll report back after I've used it a little more..  

[BassTractor]

Aw! An MS-24 !  🥰
No, I've changed my mind. It's a 420G ... *
😀

Lusted after it at the time (probably in its rack version), in part guided by my love for the MS-20 and the fun I'd had with the VC-10 vocoder.
Yes, please report back. Good to read hands-on experience.


*) for those not in the know, a 420G is really a Mark X, Jaguar's very, very expensive model in the sixties.

[VTypeV4]

3 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Aw! An MS-24 !  🥰
No, I've changed my mind. It's a 420G ... *
😀

Lusted after it at the time (probably in its rack version), in part guided by my love for the MS-20 and the fun I'd had with the VC-10 vocoder.
Yes, please report back. Good to read hands-on experience.


*) for those not in the know, a 420G is really a Mark X, Jaguar's very, very expensive model in the sixties.

 

I never had the VC-10 although I did own an MS-10 for a short time - it was lovely.. On the new machine, I need to get to grips with the sequencer section a bit more as it's a little convoluted.

 

Nice Jag reference, I love my X350 V8.. ❤️

[BassTractor]

1 hour ago, VTypeV4 said:

Nice Jag reference, I love my X350 V8.. ❤️

Woh??? Pure coincidence, I promise you.
Nice car!
 

[VTypeV4]

 

The two Korg machines and the little Yamaha.. 🥰

 

13 hours ago, BassTractor said:

Woh??? Pure coincidence, I promise you.
Nice car!
 

 

Ha, no worries - all good. 👍

[BassTractor]

25 minutes ago, VTypeV4 said:

The two Korg machines and the little Yamaha.. 🥰

Nice! Melurves synthporn, me, especially with wooden side panels.
 

I notice what I assume are four output pots on the virtual patch bay, but also two input pots on OSC 1. If correct, does that mean that the machine spawns more "hidden" flexibility necessitating this doubling up?
As you can see, I don't know this synth. Admittedly, I haven't studied the panel in great detail, and not Thought This Through Thoroughly either. 😄

[Hellzero]

Just for the fun record, I owned a Korg MS20 that I sold for peanuts, 1500 Belgian Francs IIRC, way back in 1987 at the end of my studies (alongside an awful Maya EB-2).

 

35 Euros/GBP was a lot of money back then to get drunk... 🤦🤪😂😉

[BassTractor]

23 hours ago, Hellzero said:

Just for the fun record, I owned a Korg MS20 that I sold for peanuts, 1500 Belgian Francs IIRC, way back in 1987 at the end of my studies (alongside an awful Maya EB-2).

 

35 Euros/GBP was a lot of money back then to get drunk... 🤦🤪😂😉

Just for the funds record, I too owned an MS-20 that I sold for peanuts.
There is a fun bit too though, in that its ownership travel, disregarding caveats in the story, may actually have been like this:
Cesar Zuiderwijk (Golden Earring drums) -> yours truly -> Alex Roelofs (The Nits bass) -> Robert Jan Stips (The Nits keys) -> Robert Jan Stips (Golden Earring keys)

So there sits Zuiderwijk: "Demn, demn, demn, demn ..." 😁

 

 

Edited November 3 by BassTractor

[VTypeV4]

On 02/11/2024 at 12:09, BassTractor said:

Nice! Melurves synthporn, me, especially with wooden side panels.
 

I notice what I assume are four output pots on the virtual patch bay, but also two input pots on OSC 1. If correct, does that mean that the machine spawns more "hidden" flexibility necessitating this doubling up?
As you can see, I don't know this synth. Admittedly, I haven't studied the panel in great detail, and not Thought This Through Thoroughly either. 😄

 

I was thinking I might build some replacement, slightly thicker / darker stain panels to make it a little prettier in time..?

 

The four pots on the patch bay are for each set of routings. At centre position they do nothing but clockwise adds the strength / range and anti-clockwise does the same but inverted which is a nice touch. As for the two inputs, I think it's just to allow the routing of stereo sources via the jack sockets around the rest of the synth. With mine being the 'B' variant, it seems to default the XLR input to input 2. I've not yet found any 'hidden' features although time will tell..