They seem to unlock when you do something, like make a patch or change settings in the arpeggiator. You only see what the trophy is for once you get it. Seems to me that maybe they should have put a list somewhere so people would be encouraged to try out features. I think they maybe got scared of all the negative feedback online and didn’t develop it much.
I just got the grey one. There is a limited edition black one and white one, but they are like $100 more, so I just went for the cheapest one. The grey one reminds me of the old MicroKorg color. Good enough for me.
I was already stoked for mine to arrive today, and was going to try an acid patch soon already, but this is nuts. Now it’s the first thing I’ll create unless I get distracted.
Update: it arrived really early. First impressions are basically useless, but here are mine:
It feels good, no complaints. Buttons feel slightly better than the OpSix.
Very easy to use - only thing I’ve looked up so far is how to save, and it’s because I didn’t pay enough attention to the ‘write’ icon on the screen. I made a decent BOC pad and an acid bass patch during a meeting.
Screen is very helpful, and not overwhelming at all. The info is presented logically and in a very easy-to-understand form. If you’re used to the Elektron screen + encoders, this will feel just right.
I kinda wish the osc volume was on the osc page rather than the mixer page
Sounds very good, but likely isn’t going to blow your socks off if you already have character synths you prefer. I can see it being a great do-it-all synth for someone who needs one.
The FX section is very good
Looper and arp are incredibly fun and easy to use
I really hope they add a scaling mode to the knobs - Jump mode never feels great on anything and I dislike Catch modes.
Despite lots of menu button clicking, it doesn’t feel divey at all - everything is more or less easily accessible.
The special white edition looks really snazzy.
The genre knob is silly and mildly embarrassing but I understand it’s part of the legacy. Also that knob is the chunkiest, most satisfying thing I’ve ever turned on a synth.
You guys keep on delivering with the great reviews.
Makes me wanna be part of the fun, gotta say. And that may very well be a first.
I don’t get hyped a lot, but this one is sending « fun » vibes the more I hear users feedback.
Yeah, Loopop mentioned that so I knew about it going in, but I definitely would agree. I think the key for now is before you are recording to get all your knobs at the right values for your performance parameters. I really like how you can easily make that performance page for your patches. Loads of stuff in there to assign, but missing a few things. I didn’t see feedback for the tape delay as an option and I would really like that one.
Yeah, I honestly am not a synth person. I’m way more a sampler person, but it’s like I keep wanting to turn it on and make stuff. I think maybe the graphics add a video game element to it or something, or could just be that the combination of ease of use plus good sounding effects make it so easy to get good sounding patches, but it’s the most addictive piece of gear I’ve bought in a while. I didn’t get a chance to use it yesterday and I’m stoked to play around with it after work. The portability also adds to it as well. It’s nice to not be chained to a desk or keyboard stand.
One other thing that I hadn’t considered is that I’m super spoiled by Roland products recently. I wish this could send audio over USB to make it faster to record. It’s a pain to plug into my UAD audio interface (one of my least favorite gear purchases), so I basically just record it through my SP404mkii, but it’s an extra step. First world problems.
I guess the UI is definitely an important element nowadays.
When I look at an op1f, for instance, its graphic interface is a big part of its workflow. So is the mK2, I guess.
Most musicians I know hate the daunting workflow on most synths. They want visual feedback. Don’t know if that is a by-product of phones and tablets or if that’s just an evolution in customers needs-and-wants, but the graphic part of an interface is one of these things that could open the synth world to more customers.
I was messing around with the looper today and discovered something that might appeal to some people. When you record your loops you have four options: mono, stereo, lo-q stereo, and lo-q mono. I have no idea what the resolution is for the lo-q versions, but it can be interestingly lo-fi if that’s your thing. Sort of like lowering the resolution on the Roland P-6.
The looper on this really needs some more development, but even in its current state it’s pretty good for building up a loop in a set number of measures (up to 8 bars) to sample to my SP-404mkii.
The one problem I’ve run into is that while the loop sounds perfect on the MK2, I get just a tiny bit of a pop or click when sampling and looping it. I’m wondering if this has to do with the bpms being slightly off between the 404 and MK2. I need to experiment with sending midi clock to see if that does anything, but on the 404mkii, I can fix this pretty quickly by snapping the start and end to zero crossings (which might be faster than breaking out midi cables to record loops). It’s an extra step though and means I get cleaner loops on the 404mkii than if I go direct to my Roland P-6, which doesn’t have support for snapping to zero crossings.
Anyway, some room for improvement, but this opens up some potential doors for workflow for me, and I’m interested to experiment more with the lofi loop option.
Also, the MK2 is not reading the battery life of the fresh set of alkaline batteries I put in it, so definitely a bug. I did report it to Korg though. It would be good if others do the same if you experience this issue.
I was rewatching some of the early Youtube reviews and I think Accurate Beats was the only who didn’t seem almost bored reviewing the MicroKorg 2. He had mostly positive things to say about it.
I would like to see more in-depth reviews and maybe some A-B analysis against the original MicroKorg. We know it’s one of Korg’s best selling synths, so it’d be interesting for someone on Synth youtube to dive a bit deeper into the new MK2. There’s clearly more to it than just spec sheets and the sound demos I’ve heard from @DimensionsTomorrow are awesome!
I highly second that.
This little synth needs more reviews asap.
Some deep-dives, some A/Bs, etc.
Dunno how come its reviews are a little half-assed like that.
This thread is a great long run review, I guess.
Good question and really good idea! I haven’t tried it, but I’m pretty sure it says in the manual that you can run external audio into it to play over. I’ll have to give it a try when I find time. I wonder if that could add some interesting character. Definitely worth a try!
I would caution again that the looper definitely feels under developed at this stage. You can’t put loops through effects for instance, which would have been dope. There also seems to be some kind of tempo change when I change patches, even when I’ve tempo locked. I think there’s a bug, but I can’t wrap my head around what’s exactly happening yet. That hasn’t been a showstopper for me so far as I’m using this for sound design as opposed to for some kind of performance, so I can just adjust.
Here’s one I really want someone more skilled than me to do a deep dive on.
So I had an idea based on this video and it works but I have no idea what I’m doing so I’m way off in the weeds.
As it stands the Aux-In doesn’t go through the vocoder but I ran my TR-6S mono into the mic input with a 1/4” cable and confirmed the gain is perfectly fine for running things like drum machines through the vocoder.
I got best results with the vocoder synth mix set fully wet, and then you can dial in dry signal from your drum machine to taste and then just mess with the envelope follower sensitivity and sweep the formant band and resonance to taste. I found it easiest to use the arpeggiator latched to free me up to twist knobs.
Also, I was wrong before when I said Korg missed a trick by not giving access to your mod matrix, because you have full access to your mod matrix, filter controls, and your effects in vocoder mode for this kind of processing. I was getting really cool sounds, but I am WAY out of my depth for this kind of thing, so it’s like I have access to a ton of sound shaping possibilities but don’t know what I’m doing. Also, while you can apply things like LFOs to the vocoder formant and resonance, you can’t assign it to the individual vocoder bands. I’m actually not at all familiar with what the Moog Spectravox is capable of, but that video at least inspired me to try this.
Anyway, since I’m not a singer this is a way more interesting way to use the vocoder for me and I hope someone does a video on this someday to teach me some tricks.
So, just confirmed, and, yes, you can loop external audio pretty easily. It doesn’t have the function to start record when it detects audio, but I basically got clean loops 100% of the time just using the record count-in function and hitting start and stop on my TR6S at the right time, so as far as loopers go it seems pretty forgiving with punch in/out timing. I found that mono lo-q was the most lo-fi sounding if that’s your thing. Plus, the looper audio is time stretched when you adjust bpm, and the time stretch algo is pretty good. I found that if you record in something at a higher tempo and drop the bpm quite a bit it gets even more lo-fi, and the lo-fi quality is really compounded if you start layering in synth sounds on this setting, which start sounding like an old Nintendo pretty quickly on “lo-q mono”.
The important thing to remember here is that it’s not an effect, it’s actually recording audio so once you record it’s going to be at whatever you set it as (low quality or normal), no way to temporarily apply.
A couple of pro-tips.
Make sure the main volume knob is only like halfway up when you record your loop as that’s the baseline for lowering or raising volume after the loop is recorded.
If you want to layer synth lines on top of it, go into the “Mix” menu under “Timbre” to lower or raise the synth volume to get the appropriate level for mixing with whatever you already recorded. It took me a while to realize this.
Anyway, best to curb expectations, and I wouldn’t recommend buying the synth on this feature alone, BUT if you are going to get one anyway, this is another feature to explore.
Also, I played around with drums through the vocoder some more and it’s pretty damn fun. Combined with the effects you can get some pretty out-there sounds if that’s your thing. It will be great for sampling.
Honestly I think I will get it just to try out the trophy mode. I will feel like an edge runner in Cyberpunk if I can open trophies up. My theory is if you do the Arturia V collection tutorials then you will unlock 90% of the trophies.
The other thing that is selling me is the fun interface of programming now. I’m really close to buying one soon.
