It is a busy time for Martin Bowes of Attrition, so it wasn't easy to pin Bowes down on the Korg MS20.

"I'm just completing a new album of dark ambient soundtracks and an album about the life of Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton." says Bowes. " My ancestor was her arresting officer in 1872. She was hanged in 1873 for poisoning around 20 people. There will be short film to accompany the recording.

In addition the band will be touring Europe in April 2007, the USA this summer, Australia in the fall, back to Europe and then back to the USA. There are also a lot of remastered re-issues coming out through the band's own label, Two Gods, which was set up last year. A new album is in the works for 2008. Even with all this going on, Bowes made some time to chat with Gearwire about his Korg MS20.

Patrick Ogle: Why the Korg MS20? What recommends it?

Martin Bowes: It's a semi-modular monophonic analog synthesiser and it's portable so you get the best of both worlds. It's capable of a massive range of sounds and it doesn't take up half a room to do that.

I've been using this synth since 1981. It was one of the first synths that ATTRITION ever owned. It's really good for experiemental evolving and ambient textures and external sound processing through it's dual filters. And you can even get it to track a sine wave you send to it so it doesnt even need a midi to Hz/Oct convertor like a lot of other old synths do.

I still find new things coming out of it now all this time later. It's my synth for improvising sounds with. I use it a little less in the studio now as I have so many other new synths but i've used it live for years and years. It's a fantastic hands on live synthesiser--a classic.

Some folks (but by no means a majority) looking for the features the MS20 provides go for Moogs. Why not you?

If they do they don't know what they are doing!. The minimoogs have much steeper filters and are great for harder sounds--bass sounds--but they can't do any of the experimental textures that an MS20 can. A Moog modular could but that is a cumbersome and expensive beast. You know I've never been a big fan of the moog sound anyway. I mean it's fine--it's a classic too but not for me. I used a Sequential Circuits Pro One for analog bass sounds for a long time, now a mix of hardware and software.

When I talk to artists about old gear one thing I like to ask about is how what were seen as limitations when the gear came out become things that recommend the gear years later. Can you think of anything about the MS20 that falls into this category?

Well when we started and we only had a couple of synths it was a massive pain changing sound patches between songs when we played live. There are no memory locations on these old synths! So we would end up with sounds that evolved into the new sounds as the next song started. Sometimes that was NOT good!

If you get a killer sound on this synth one day, you have to write down the position of the knobs on paper and you just know you will never be able to totally replicate that sound later on. This didnt always matter but sometimes it did. When digital programmable synths came along it was a blessing and we could then stop using the MS20 for all the everyday sounds and use it for what it is good at.

Do you have problems keeping an old piece of gear like this working? How do you do it?

Not at all. it has always been really reliable, unlike some of the old synths that would break down. I think the Japanese synths of this time were the most reliable although there is something about the "danger" of using a vintage American or British synth!

Another thing i've noticed about the MS20 is the sound. I have used mine for years so I can recognise the pure tones and on some US tours I borrowed a friends MS20 over in the States as it saved me bringing mine, ran on 110 volts, etc. It made sense but the basic tone of the synth was different, a bit thinner than mine. I don't know why--if it is due to the electrical current affecting things or if it was just the way that particular synth sounded - i love that vintage synths have their own character. It's the same as with a vintage Gibson or a Stradivarius --real instruments.

It seems, and correct me if I am wrong, that this is a synth that requires a lot of patching and whatnot. Is part of the allure nostalgia?

I don't think it's nostalgia. I love that aspect. It is fairly simple compared to a true modular synth-- the patching is a big part of it's flexibility--Something a lot of modern synths are lacking.

On our recent US tour I left the MS20 at home and used a specially built modular analogue synth donated by livewire-synthesizers.com (they did one for Nine inch Nails as well..) They are making some wonderful instruments--totally comparable to the vintage equipment. So nothing nostalgic at all; it was really good to use something new that has that pedigree but it is totally modular and as i only got the synth the day before the tour i only scratched the surface of what it did. I'll be using it on the next tour in July so maybe I'll figure it all out by then!

What sorts of sounds does the MS20 give you that you cannot get from software and the like?

It's the tone and the hands on flexibility....there are lots of interesting software synths that are capable of many more sounds than the MS20... but the raw tone of the synth; the oscillators and filters are something else. Korg have released a software VST instrument emulation of the MS20 and I tested it by creating the same patch on both synths. It really wasn't the same! (and i have a good sound card so that wasn't letting me down). The hardware MS20 was much richer in tone. I think the day is coming that software will achieve that. It's getting really close now and in some cases has done that but not for my MS20 yet!