Anyone got Minilogue + AK?

For some reason I keep coming back to wanting a minilogue… Sucks that the sequencer has no transpose and arp no latch. But for just a hands on vibey synth it looks great… Hard to tell from videos but seems like I like the sound of it, kind of lo-fi/Delia Derbyshire mojo thing going on. I recently got an AK and love it. But can’t help wishing more controls were simultaneously tweakable minus the need for programming macros. Wondering if grabbing a minilogue would be worth it just to have something around with a different sound and that ‘instant’ programming/live tweaking aspect. Anyone out there got both AK and Minilogue? Too much overlap/finding the minilogue shallow? or are people finding the minilogue to be the bargain/fun that it seems to be? Thanks

Literally just got my Minilogue an hour ago (had my AK for a while now), so I will try to update on my opinion of their relation/overlap/relative strengths & weaknesses in, I don’t know a week.

But as for arp latch and sequencer transpose, Tats suggested in this really great Attack Magazine interview (https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/long-read/the-democratisation-of-synthesis-korg-designers-on-the-making-of-the-minilogue/) that there are plans for firmware revisions down the line; the interviewer suggests arp latch, and I’m sure they are aware that sequencer transpose would be nice. I get the impression that at least for a little while the Minilogue will get some updates/upgrades. Anyway, about to unbox, so I’ll try to fill in more on my impressions of the Minilogue vs. the AK like I said in about a week’s time once I’ve really messed with it.

Great, thanks! I’d be really interested to hear how you feel about owning both after you’ve had some time with the minilogue. I just sold some gear and trying to decide what to throw the money at :wink:

When announced, there were a lot of comparisons to A4/AK and MophoX4/Tetra but one thing I think gets lost in the comparisons is modulation capabilities.

The single LFO on the Minilogue has a mere three fixed destinations. Also, the EG destinations are fixed. Of course, this is part and parcel to its WYSIWYG interface, but often that type of interface isn’t called out for its lack of depth.

I don’t discount the A4/AK for its menu system. It’s quite elegant having 80% of parameters one button push away, and most of the remaining parameters just two button pushes (of the same button) away. Considering what is inside, far more flexible filters, two LFOs with a massive list of its 4 destinations to chose from, and the same for the envelopes 2 and 3, it’s in another league with little overlap.

Still, a polyphonic sequencer, true analog topography, and more/larger keys puts the Minilogue ahead of the Roland Boutique offerings. But if I were seeking to add a second four voice analog to an A4/AK, I’d personally find it difficult to not just spend $999 on a refurb/b-stock second A4 on eBay and get so, so much more per dollar.

2 Likes

Yeah I know what you mean about limited mod destinations etc. Can’t help but think Minilogue looks like a fun synth to tweak though… Weirdly I seem to sometimes enjoy tweaking Sunrizer on Ipad more than AK. AK is in a different league but just having everything laid out (and the Sunrizer knobs having a ‘normal’ response curve) seems to ‘feel’ more fluid. Despite Sunrizer’s relatively shallow options (though great filter options) and obvious no physical knobs. Guess there’s no real answer and it’s all down to taste. Minilogue just kind of appeals for some reason. And there’s also the fact that no one is really making ‘new’ synth sounds, not drastically at least… Everything has been done. So although more mod options and lfos etc are always cool it might be nice to have a synth that although limited, does what it does well in a nice hands on way. There’s still a lot of mileage in those tried and tested less modulated sounds 5 ossible on the Minilogue. Really need to just try one in person I suppose to see if I like it’s quality/character…

I still want to sit with it a little longer, and I do plan on to spend more time with it, but I have to say: the Minilogue is kind of a dud for me.

The good:
–The build quality is surprisingly very solid (with one exception being the power button which works fine but feels fiddly; you have to hold it down for a few seconds to turn it off, which just feels strange, especially since you don’t need to hold it to turn it on).
–The oscilloscope is a great addition. It’s a lot of fun, and despite its small size, the screen is very legible and bright (much better than the AK).
–I actually like the keybed. I know a lot of people have their concerns about minikeys, but these are very responsive and fast. It’s a lot of fun to play. And keep in mind, I sold my MS20-mini in part because I could not stand the keybed. I think it’s the same size, but it’s an entirely different feel.
–Although there is a single LFO and a single mod envelope, there’s still a fair amount of modulation that can be wrung from it. Without going the “four lfos and six envelopes” path, I think they’ve done a good job with the limitations, although the limited destinations is really a bigger problem (especially the fact that although it’s cool that you can shape every wave, the fact that you can only use the LFO on both waves shape is a really serious limitation to the effectiveness of such modulation).
Additionally, it is worth keeping in mind that the synth can produce significantly more modulation than just what the LFO and mod envelope allow. You can also motion sequence four controls. For a sixteen step pattern that’s a little limiting, but you can always erase the note data and sequence externally/play internally while the motion sequence runs. And I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the firmware updates allows for something akin to p-locking, since the Volca Sample has this features.
–It is fun to mess around with.
–It does a lot of things fairly well. It has fast envelopes (and I know about the clicking, but it’s easy to get rid of, plus it has some virtues as a percussive attack). It does plucks very well, some basses, brass sounds pretty good. I haven’t been able to get much in the way of strings, but it can do an okay pulsewidth string. It does pads all right, too, but for them to be really effective, it depends on the delay, which I will get to momentarily and not in this column.
–This isn’t talked about enough, but it’s a great, great addition: the MIDI resolution is… I forget what bit this is 14? 1028 steps of MIDI resolution, so everything is very smooth; no stepping detected by the human ear. Might make external control a bitch, but compared to a lot of the “beginner” level synths, it’s a lot, lot smoother. (I used to have a Pulse 2, which is not a beginner level synth, and it was steppy as hell.)
–I like the slider, although I am certain, dead certain, that the spring will wear out at some point. (But compared to what I call the “happy accident” device that is the joystick of the AK, it’s much more precise.)

Cons:
–The oscillators are sound, most of the time, paper-thin. I haven’t done any spectral analysis, but they are just not very rich. I was a little surprised, because the Volca Keys oscillators sound fairly thick (all things considered).
–The unison, in turn, sounds thin. This was one of my major reasons for buying the Minilogue. I looove the unison on the AK, but as I often am using the AK to do a lot of things that don’t really allow me to make use of the unison, I wanted another synth that I could play some unison parts over the AK. I don’t think this gets it done. (The Waldorf Rocket, for instance, has a considerably better, if far more limited sonically, unison mode.) It may be the oscillators themselves, it may be the tuning mechanism making them too precise. The synth sounds analog, but it is more mild than wild and perhaps too precise. (Obviously, same concern goes for the duophonic mode.)
–The filter begins self-oscillating at about 60% resonance, but resonance doesn’t make much of an impact before 40%; it doesn’t have a particularly wide “sweet spot.” The filter itself–and this may be a result of the “thin” oscillators–seems to go dark at around 40% frequency. I just don’t think there are any subharmonics for it to allow to shine through. It’s okay, as far as filters go, but nothing much, and it very rarely adds to the experience of the synth to go tweaking.
–The other voice modes are better: the arp is quite nice, although also sort of limited. The MIDI-delay and the monophonic modes are both usable, although this strikes me as problematic since both sort of depend on it not being a polyphonic instrument. The sidechain probably has its uses, although I find the attack on the sidechain overly long, no matter how I adjust it. Hell, the inversion on the polyphonic mode is a great feature. There’s a lot of really cool stuff here that I just feel is let down by those oscillators. Chord mode is okay, but it’s rare that I want to play in only one chord? You can motion-sequence the chord selection, which is a workaround but not the best one imaginable.
–The sequencer is fun, and pretty great as far as a 16-step sequencer can be. But it’s a 16-step sequencer, so again, really limited. Maybe this will be addressed in a firmware update, with the possibility of chaining patterns (since you can do so in the Volca FM and Sample).
–The delay is garbage. Noisy, noisy garbage. It is way noisier than the delay on the Volca Keys, and the noise is more irritating/less musical than the Keys’ delay. Sure, you can use the high-pass filter to clean it up, but most of the time I keep turning it until the delay is gone, so not much help. I would have been happier if they had stuck the reverb from the Sample onto the Minilogue instead. That’s a great, crunchy reverb.

All in all, if I were buying my first synth, it would be a great choice. That spot was previously reserved for the Bass Station II in my book; while I think the Bass Station II is the superior synth, I could see the appeal for someone getting into synthesis to have a stab at a very accessible and cheap poly. As an AK owner, I don’t see that it offers much. I will likely end up selling it; as much as I think there will be firmware updates in the future, and as much as I trust Tats, I also know that the recent Electribes have been waiting on firmware for a while, so I’m not holding my breath. People will make some great music with the Minilogue–it’s not a bad synth; it really does make excellent plucked sounds–but I’m not sure I will be one of them. Right now, I’m leaning toward selling while the iron is hot, before thousands of these flood the market a la Microkorgs.

Again, I’m going to sit with it a few more days, but I’m not seeing myself really warming to it.

1 Like

I’m with you; I didn’t get this because I find the AK hard to navigate. You spend enough time with it, and you don’t really notice the menus; I know what button to push and what knob to tweak to get the effect I want without really looking at the screen.

I think if I were to get another poly, I might look long and hard at the Parva, too. For the same price as an A4 used/refurb/b-stock–which is not something I really mind; a lot of my gear is used/refurb/b-stock–I could get an 8-voice/8-part, 3 oscillator synth. It doesn’t sound mind-blowing from the demos I’ve come across, but it does sound really solid.

Yes indeed. If I weren’t such a slave to the A4’s probability trigs, sound locks, performance macros, and fill mode, the Parva would be my synth. All those LFOs on a 3 OSC poly would be heaven.
I think with time, and more patch programmers passing their hand over it, we’ll see better demos that open it up, like we’ve seen with the A4.

[quote="“AdamJay”"]

Yes indeed. If I weren’t such a slave to the A4’s probability trigs, sound locks, performance macros, and fill mode, the Parva would be my synth. All those LFOs on a 3 OSC poly would be heaven.
I think with time, and more patch programmers passing their hand over it, we’ll see better demos that open it up, like we’ve seen with the A4.[/quote]
Oh definitely. Keep in mind, I’m only imagining the possibilities I would have sequencing it from the Octatrack.

And I agree; I think that the more people get their hands on it, the more we will see from it. And the designer–can’t remember his name off the top of my head–seems very committed to updating firmware. I got an email a few days ago that pre-orders for the next shipment were available, and from the timeline mentioned, it sounds like they’ve got manufacturing worked out pretty well, so they should be available in the future. Still, I almost opened my bank account and asked, “Do I have $999 lying around?” I might have purchased one if I hadn’t spend my bones on this okay-but-nothing-special Minilogue.

Yea, looks like less than 4 weeks delivery time on pre-orders. Just discovered the 8 outs are TRS stereo, too. Great!
I’d love to see more UI videos too.

5v DC power thanks to the low power OLED display means lots of affordable USB/DC battery packs are compatible. I’m a sucker for portability. The USB host jack would be great for my OP-1 to sequence/play, and sample it.

Hmmmmm… :thinking:

Hmmmm… indeed.

And yeah, the Parva has all of these nice little features. The individual stereo outs, the USB hosting, the OLED (which the designer increased the size of because he had the money to do so rather than just seeing “increased profit margin”). The knobs look like they have a very nice positive feel. Word on the street was that a sequencer/arpeggiator was going to be part of a firmware update as well. All with a ton of modulation possibilities, which, if not precisely Elektronian, are still far more extensive than a lot of what’s out there.

Yep, I actually got mail from Brad at Futursonus today and he confirmed again that arp and sequencer are being added asap. Very tempting synth. Think I’m over the minilogue thing now after reading what you’ve said in depth and also looking at other stuff (a friend just got a nord lead 2…a lot of fun/great sound… Maybe I’ll look more at V.A/used which I’d kind of dismissed before…). Waiting til after Messe to see what else materialises…

Yeah, I’m waiting to see what shakes out at Messe, as well.

On the VA front, I have to say that I don’t have any real experience with a Nord Lead, but I often miss my old Miniak, which I may rebuy at some point because they can be had for peanuts.

And Brad! Yes, that is the guy’s name. He seems great; very committed.

Yep, I actually got mail from Brad at Futursonus today and he confirmed again that arp and sequencer are being added asap. Very tempting synth. Think I’m over the minilogue thing now after reading what you’ve said in depth and also looking at other stuff (a friend just got a nord lead 2…a lot of fun/great sound… Maybe I’ll look more at V.A/used which I’d kind of dismissed before…). Waiting til after Messe to see what else materialises… [/quote]
Any more details on the sequencer? Polyphonic? Multitrack?
I’m officially on the fence now.

The oscillators really let the Minilogue down. For all the waveshaping and sync and cross-mod and what-not, the raw oscillators let the synth down. It’s nice, and perhaps I should have said this more forcefully: I think it is worth its price, but at the same time, I also think that for anyone who has an AK or any other more advanced analog poly, it will be a disappointment. It totally destroys a Timbre Wolf, though. :wink:

Yeah I never really looked at nord before but it’s cool. A lot of split/layer options etc.


I had a micron, first synth, same as the miniak right? Menu system was a nightmare for a total synth noob but I’d probably get on way better with it now, I liked the sound of it back then, just didn’t know what to do with it…

Yep, I actually got mail from Brad at Futursonus today and he confirmed again that arp and sequencer are being added asap. Very tempting synth. Think I’m over the minilogue thing now after reading what you’ve said in depth and also looking at other stuff (a friend just got a nord lead 2…a lot of fun/great sound… Maybe I’ll look more at V.A/used which I’d kind of dismissed before…). Waiting til after Messe to see what else materialises… [/quote]
Any more details on the sequencer? Polyphonic? Multitrack?
I’m officially on the fence now.[/quote]
No details, he just said they’d been working hard on the OS in prep for adding new features including arp and sequencer…

Yeah I never really looked at nord before but it’s cool. A lot of split/layer options etc.


I had a micron, first synth, same as the miniak right? Menu system was a nightmare for a total synth noob but I’d probably get on way better with it now, I liked the sound of it back then, just didn’t know what to do with it… [/quote]
Yeah, Miniak is a Micron in slightly different form factor. The menu system isn’t great, but once I worked on it, I actually had an easier time with it than some mod matrix style menus (Pulse, Evolver). It’s laid out very logically, in my opinion. And I have no doubt that a Nord Lead is plenty cool.

Yes indeed. If I weren’t such a slave to the A4’s probability trigs, sound locks, performance macros, and fill mode, the Parva would be my synth. All those LFOs on a 3 OSC poly would be heaven.
I think with time, and more patch programmers passing their hand over it, we’ll see better demos that open it up, like we’ve seen with the A4.[/quote]
Oh definitely. Keep in mind, I’m only imagining the possibilities I would have sequencing it from the Octatrack.

And I agree; I think that the more people get their hands on it, the more we will see from it. And the designer–can’t remember his name off the top of my head–seems very committed to updating firmware. I got an email a few days ago that pre-orders for the next shipment were available, and from the timeline mentioned, it sounds like they’ve got manufacturing worked out pretty well, so they should be available in the future. Still, I almost opened my bank account and asked, “Do I have $999 lying around?” I might have purchased one if I hadn’t spend my bones on this okay-but-nothing-special Minilogue.[/quote]

I’m tempted also thinking about the possibilities of using it with the Octa. Hooking it up to the Octa’s 4 inputs and using Octa’s effects while sequencing the Parva could be lethal.

I messaged the Parva guy on FB and he has been very helpful with questions I had about patch memory and if the sequencer would be latching or not, or polyphonic…

Parva has six banks of 64, so 384 patches total. There is also a utility to load/save to a computer, so you can backup or share patches with other people.

[ltr]The sequencer hasn’t been fully implemented yet, so I can’t answer all of your questions, but I’ll do my best. One thing to keep in mind, though, is because of the control layout and UI constraints, the sequencer will be relatively basic – I would rather make a basic usable sequencer than a full-featured, complex sequencer that requires a lot of menus to navigate.[/ltr]

[ltr]To get to the answers: You can press an encoder to start playback, and it will be polyphonic. Whether or not it will be multi-track is to be determined. Also, it will be usable with or without MIDI tempo sync, but whether or not the Parva can act as a MIDI master clock hasn’t been decided.[/ltr]

1 Like