Korg MS-Series

the MS10 sounds a bit „fatter“ but it has only one VCO. anyway the MS20’s sound is much more versatile and it’s filters are very special. technically they are maqybe the most worse filters ever made in a synth (priced about 750Euro when it was new) but it sounds so sick / industrial and dirty. DAF and lots of other german wave bands used this synth on their first records and it’s special sound has more friends now FOR IT’s SOUND! so it’s an instrument with charisma! the sequencer is 12 step and very easy to use.. the best and worst is the hpf and lpf filters with resonance (called peak here)!! the vostok by analogue solutions has the same filters inside. so you might get the popularity of this synth.. maybe you should call this synth „brtitish“,too.. ;) rough and very interesting.

who doesn’t know this synth?..

it is a semi-modular synthesizer, that has hardwired pre-routed patches inside, but can be manually patched,too.. as the arp 2600 this is a semi modular synthesizer.

the most important trick maybe this one:

if you want to remote control this synth without having to use a midi interface take a sinewave osc from any of your synths and use an individual out: put this into either the OSC in or the pitch to voltage in (slower!) and use another one for gate (or split it up).. this is enough to control the MS20 from another non-CV-synth with no cost. if you want to midify it: use the same inputs but note that Korg has Volt/Hertz Characteristics! (not like roland or moog). the gate is s-trgger.. anyway it’s mostly satisfied with a normal v-trig-one like roland etc.. (gate is used to trigger the envelopes, CV is for the OSCs/keyboard/notes).
whats inside the MS50? a ringmodulator, 2 ADSR eg’s, vca, integrator, inverter, sample & hold, noise gen., and fixed voltage & meter, VCO with PWM, „adding amp“ (small mixer) , another MG = modulation generator (=LFO), a low pass filter

and/or the analogue solutions „filtered coffee“.. imagine ,what this is ;)

the vc10 vocoder another interesting model of the MS series – a simple 8 band vocoder. of course it wasn’t the best but reasonable price those times! and it sounded special.. listen to cabaret voltaire „seconds too late“ for impression

some MS-20 related links
manuals/more on korg MS20?
some stripped MS20 pics can be found here (navigate yourself, please..)

the sound is much like the PS series (ms = monophonic synthesizer, ps = polyphonic synthesizer – s can be read as series,too)

MS20,MS10 etc. have Hz/Oct. CV and S-Trigger.

There are two Versions of the MS-20 Filter: the LM13600 OTA which is located on a doughterboear and can be seen by just removing one side panel. dismantling the MS20 is a horror, so you may only do it if needed. The earlier Korg IC35 is a double Transistor that Korg unveilled for non-commercial users. This is the normal Version with no Daughterboard attached..

any of the 3 is an EXTRA app. there is also one app for ms20 and poly6 sounds and another „standalone“ wavestation. it is quite similar to the original with „a big display“.. ok but I could image more like own samples and better visual control, but it is ok.. not that „innovative“ but good for WS fans anyway.. the quality of the ms20 and poly6 is about that of arturia moog and the like.. it is still not exactly the same but as long as you do not have the original it is ok so far.. the WS is the „best“ on here, sounds the same.. more close than ms20.. no, it is not a BAD ms20 emu,but it is indeed an emulation. i did not manage to run the WS and other apps at the same time, maybe it was due to its beta status.. or performance issues on the demo pcs.. so watch out for this..