Korg Multi/Poly

I’m guessing it’s the baked in driftyness for a start; just messing around with standard waveforms basses and pads sound pretty juicy. The M/P filter model is pretty nice and doesn’t sound a ton like the standard filter in the Modwave/wavestate. They’re supposed to both be based on the SSI 2044 so I guess there’s really something to the re-writes.

The envelope presets are nice but I don’t recall how configurable the originals were on the modwave/wavestate (I sold them and all I have left is the native software, but that has adjustable curves for the ADR stages, too, but not presets as I recall).

There’s what feels like pre-filter drive on the front panel too (albeit via a shift-button press - there is still a lot of that going on).

In the “Drift” menu there are scaling parameters for “Voice Variation” which include pitch, filter, osc, env, lfo, and portamento. Not quite sure what all of that does (and is it scaling of the CMT ID stuff or scaling of the Oscillator Drift amount? I’ve not gone into the manual yet).

Oh and there’s another osc common detune knob (again, a shift-knob so many of those) for a quick detune effect without messing with specific oscillator tunings.

So, I guess it’s the new filter models and a lot of the little things. Still early to make a final opinion, but of the four of them, this is probably the one I’d want in hardware.

simple single wavetables per osc work just about exactly like on the MW (just no blending between phase-locked wavetable A and B).

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Thanks for the detailed writeup!

It sounds like Korg has upped their game, which I admire. Not thinking of buying a MultiPoly (the DN2 was my last big order for the foreseeable future), but it’s good to know the M/P has something going on.

btw, I understand doing the puzzle of which hardware Korgs to keep. Whenever I start selling off gear next year, the Wavestate is on the bubble and maybe the Opsix should be leaving too. I don’t miss the Modwave at all, to me it never had character of the M or the Blofeld—but it’s all a matter of taste …

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Are the keys on the Multipoly substantially bigger? They look to be.
I got rid of my Minifreak because I eventually got fed up with the puny keys.
Im seriously eyeing the multipoly now.

Yeah, I’m not 100% certain this will be a keeper for me, either - but that’s more about what I want in a keybed poly (I think I appreciate simple, even when it’s got a bunch of LFOs and so on). Still, it sounds pretty good so far.

Still waiting on a DN2 for myself.

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Yeah, they’re normal sized keys.

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Here’s another demo: At the end of the video several filter models are being shown with a more basic patch and without effects activated

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I was about to order a Twist, but as usual your demos push me over the edge! What’s your take between the M/P and the Twist?

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It’s hard to say, as the two are very different concepts. I’d choose the TWISTfm over the Multi/Poly without hesitation, but I generally prefer synths that have a distinct sound character. I see the Multi/Poly more as a good-sounding generalist, but it’s not something I would miss in my workflow. However, I couldn’t replace the TWISTfm.

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I got mine today and spent a couple hours with it. The presets are far better than my OG ModWave. Started with an INIT patch to tinker and I’m very pleased so far.

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What do you think about its sound?

So far it sounds really good to me. I’ve only spent a little bit of time with it so i can’t delve too deep in to descriptions yet.

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For those who now have a M/P, quick questions: can you use the filters on all layers at the same time? I have a Wavestate, which I dearly love (just traded in my OG Wavestate for the desktop version), but one thing that irks me is that there is no way to have a filter apply to the whole sound. You can only apply the filter to each layer.

I’m still reading the manual, but could you assign one of the mod knobs to the filters on all layers?

Edit: I just did that and it works, but might not be what you’re looking for since it takes up a mod wheel spot.

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You mean mod knob, right?

Yeah. Sorry.

One thing that I think is a shame is that you can’t link the filters (Filter A and Filter B), so you can use 1 filter cutoff knob to control both (like you can on Iridium, Uno Synth Pro X, Polybrute).

Of course you can do this by assigning both to a mod knob, but that is pretty cumbersome to do. I’d love to be able to just click “Link filters” and then use filter 1 to control both, where you can still use filter 2 cutoff to set the offset between the two.

Also, a resonance link would be welcome as well.

Hopefully they will add this in a firmware update as a menu option, or maybe even a shortcut key/knob combination.

The same could theoretically be done with linking the filters of the different layers, although I think it makes more sense to just assign them to the mod knobs if you want that.

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Great idea. I hadn’t thought of that. I will try it. Even if it works, though, I just wish I didn’t need to do this manually for every preset. It seems like you should be able do some routing of the Oscillators/Layers into the filters, so they can all go into the same filter if that’s what you want to do. It can be difficult to tell how a filter affects each layer, separately and together.

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wow that sounds beautiful. it really seems like a good bread and butter va that can accomplish a wide range of what you’d need in a hardware setup with enough flexibility to reward exploration but still some very very nice sweet spots

i havent heard a lot from this synth so far that i dont like

cant really justify it with the setup i have now, but if i needed one synth, or a first synth, it seems like a very satisfying choice

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Any rumours about rack version?

I hadn’t seen the discussion of multi/poly here yet, but my own video on this awesome sounding synth can be found here:

A follow-up video with a few more of my ideas about multi/poly will come out this week. (I made some new wavetables that reflect some of the different ways I’m thinking about sound design in m/p and also of course have a few new observations after a bit more time with the synth. Also, I’m an absent-minded professor and forget to mention stuff! :man_shrugging:)

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