Korg micro 37-Key Synthesizer and Vocoder, Analog Modeling Synthesizer, Assignable Controls

2023-07-02T17:13:32

The Korg microKORG is an excellent synth. Having remained in production for over 20 years, its status as a constant is determined by its sound and ease of use. I haven't messed with the factory presets but designing your own sounds is a breeze with the intuitive knob layout. The sound engine sounds very natural. I wouldn't say analog because resonance on the filter is markedly digital but there are countless analog-like tones to be had. The oscillators don't start at the same phase with each key press, which makes this much more analog sounding than digital. The polyphony leaves something to be desired because, when making layered patches, you only get two notes. The ring-mod on oscillator two is quite good and, so far in every application I've used, ring-mod-sync seems to be more pleasing than sync on its own. The effects give a nice stereo dimension to the sounds and, on a synth of this stature, four mod-matrix slots seems to be just enough. I can't recommend key-tracking LFO 2 enough for really cool analog-FM style tones. Getting a tracked LFO speed for each note does so much for creative sound design. The microKORG has definitely remained in production for as long as it has for a reason.

Tom N.