DAN AGOSTO: Hi. I’m Dan Agosto and welcome to the Gearwire Synth Lab. Today, we’re taking a look at the MicroKORG. It’s a virtual analog synth in a small package. So, let’s dive right in and take a look at our inputs and outputs.

First of all, we got the headphone output. It’s always important, nice to have. Of course line outputs; you can use this mono or stereo. Over here we have inputs for our vocoder mic. It comes with a condenser mic but you can also plug in any low-impedance dynamic mic. You can use a high-impedance too but the signal to noise is going to be worse then. We also have the volume control or trim pot for the microphone and a mic/line switch so you could also plug into the dynamic jack you can plug a line source like another keyboard or mixer or something like that. Over here, we have line audio ins -- or just one line audio in and the volume control for that.

If we go to the other side, we have our MIDI I/O (in, out, and thru). You could use it as a controller. You could sequence it off of another keyboard or sequencer, and we also have the thru so you could chain more synths together.

All right. So the cool thing about this synth is it packs a lot of different editing capabilities into a small package and it’s also virtual analog so you’re able to control it much like you would control a normal analog synth. Up here, we have knobs that are labeled cutoff, resonance, EG attack, EG release, and then tempo. Whenever you switch to a patch, those are the controllers that are assigned to these knobs. It’s pretty nice, so if I just say play a chord on here, I got a synth pad or a string patch loaded in.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

I can control the cutoff of that now if I can give it some more resonance.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

Put it all the way up and you’ll just hear the peak pretty much resonating. There’s also an envelope generator attack that’ll sort of change the swell of the notes.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, now you hear it’s bright right away. We turn that down...

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It sort of moves into it slower, and then of course we have the envelope generator release.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

That’s fast release, and here’s a slower release.

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All right. And the last one, tempo, would only apply if we’re using our arpeggiator but we’ll get into that later. So let’s flip it around and take a look at the in-depth editing capabilities using the editing matrix.

Okay, so now we have a good view of the front of the microKORG. We can see our mod and pitch wheels, and this patch controls -- the mod wheel is going to control pitch of one of the oscillators.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

And we also have the pitch bend that will control both oscillators.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

You can control the range of the pitch bend. You can also control what the mod wheel will control using the editing matrix. We’ll get into that, but for this sound -- Well, actually we see the program selector has different genres. We have trance, techno, house, electronica, drum & bass breaks, hip hop/vintage, retro, sound effects hits, and then also the vocoder patches. I’m going to try the hip hop/vintage setting and see what kind of sound we get.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

Okay. So, sort of like a Wurlitzer sound. We can use that to edit with but let’s check out some of the other patches on the hip hop/vintage genre.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, some nice bass sounds.

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Some more strings.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

Yeah. Let’s stay in there. One other thing: You can -- There’s two different banks to every genre.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, there’s actually 16 patches per genre but I’m going to go back to the first side and number five...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

...the Wurlitzer. You can pitch the octave of your keyboard up or down so...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

...and also go down.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

I’m going to stay there. All right. So, let’s take a look at our editing section. These two knobs are pretty important. They basically control which set of parameters you’ll be controlling, and of course the editing matrix actually shows you what each knob will do. Basically, you control which row you’re in using these knobs and then each column is controlled separately by each of these knobs.

Now when you change to a patch, every knob is automatically set to a certain parameter and we can see these here. This is cutoff, resonance, envelope generator attack, and envelope generator release, and tempo. So, if I’m just going to go in here and I want to change the cutoff frequency of the filter...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

...and resonance...,

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...it’s automatically at my fingertips when I go to this patch. I can make it a smoother attack.

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This one I wanted to be a little quicker...

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING THE KORG MICROKORG]

...and some release as well. Tempo, we won’t mess with right now because that’s with the arpeggiator. So, those are the basic functions of these knobs. But when we get into the actual editing matrix, we can se things like waveform, controller routing, oscillator levels like in balance with each other. We also have the same controls but just deeper. So, let’s get a little deeper in here.

I can see that there’s actually distortion setting on here in this first bank of settings. So, what I’ll do, that’s under the amp settings, so I’ll switch to the amp setting on this knob, find the distortion knob up here, and as we can see here it says off, and as I turn it, it will come on.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, we have some distortion so I can turn it off now.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

I think we’ll leave it off for now. What else do we got? We have a portamento switch. Usually we won’t hear portamento on a patch like this but we can put it on there. It’s under the pitch row.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And if we turn that on or actually it’s at zero, if we turn it up...,

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

...it can be pretty. It’s all the way up to 127. Pretty slow.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

I’d like to have that fairly quick on this sort of patch. You control pan. There’s also an envelope generator for the filter so we can make the attack of the filter -- or actually, first what I want to do is put the intensity of the envelope filter up. So, that’s under the actual filter setting so we’ll actually be able to hear it.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And now, I can change the filter envelope generator.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, it’s starting to get a sound less and less like the original patch. Down on the bottom, there’s also some settings. We have a delay setting. So, some effects, let’s turn on the delay.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

First we’ll turn up the effect depth, and that is over here. Right now it’s zero so it’s off.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

This is a very slow effect and the depth would be like a feedback amount.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

We turn...

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

...tempo sync on so the time will go up to your tempo, and then we also have a type. Right now, it’s stereo so it’s panning left and right.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

This would be a cross-feedback stereo and left-right so it’s sort of a ping-pong effect.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

There’s also EQ and mod effects. Let’s put some chorus on here or see -- Actually, let’s see. It looks like a flanger, ensemble, and phaser. I’m going to put some phaser on. So, the next setting I’d like to change is effect depth, that would be this knob.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Now we can start to hear the phaser.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And then of course there is also the speed.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Okay. Next let’s check out the arpeggiator. For this, I’m going to turn off the delay. To do that, I’m going to turn the delay depth all the way down.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Let’s go to the arpeggiator. So, right now we can see sort of the sequence that’s mapped out on the program keys. Whenever we switch to the arpeggiator A row on our edit select 2, these come on, and we’re going to turn the arpeggiator on.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Okay. So that’s the sort of sound we’re getting. Let’s play a chord...

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

...and start to edit the sequence.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And now since we’ve changed what -- Since we’ve actually started effecting what we’re changing in the editing matrix, this knob will not change the tempo by itself now. You have to find the tempo knob here. Let me see that.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, this will control the speed.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

There’s also a resolution setting, so we were playing 16th and we can have it playing 24th notes.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

That is about as high as it goes so then you can get really fast.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

You can also go all the way down to quarter notes.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

So, quarter notes at 300 BPM. We also have the gate control.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Turn that down and it becomes more percussive. Each note is going to be shorter. We can change that back to 16th notes, and over here we have “type”. This basic control is when you’re holding down multiple notes.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Basically where the note is going to go, so we can hear that’s different. Now it’s on random, so we’ll just go to random notes within the chord.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And this is all the notes at the same time.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

All right. Let me go down random. And over here, there is one more row in the arpeggiator section: latch. So, when I turn latch on, I can let go and it will keep on playing. If I turn it off, it will only be triggered when I play.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Over here we have swing. A lot of people like that swing.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

Key sync.

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I’m not sure exactly what that does but the last setting on here is “last step”. So, it’s set to eight now. That’s the maximum. We can see we have eight steps here. If we turn that down to four, we can see now we only have four steps, and we go all the way down to one.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

And we can control this while the sequencer is going. This is where we change the sequence and sort of randomize it with that knob.

[DAN AGOSTO EDITING AND PLAYING A PATCH IN THE KORG MICROKORG]

So those are the basic features of the microKORG. Thanks for checking it out here at Gearwire Synth Lab.