Analog GAS

[Dr. Vegetable]

I ordered the Minilogue from SweetWater back in February, but it's been back-ordered until the end of time. (There were rumors that Korg did a recall to address a clicking sound coming from the envelope generator.)

Out For Delivery. I'll have it in my sweaty hands today.

[GoldenVulture]

I ordered the Minilogue from SweetWater back in February, but it's been back-ordered until the end of time.  (There were rumors that Korg did a recall to address a clicking sound coming from the envelope generator.)

Out For Delivery.  I'll have it in my sweaty hands today.

Funny , that popped into my head yesterday. I was wondering what was happening.
Looking forward to hearing about it. :toast:

[Dr. Vegetable]

This thing is pretty cool.  It sounds fantastic.  I was jamming on it for a couple hours and finding all kinds of neat riffs and sounds.  It's definitely in a league of its own compared to my other synths.

Mechanically it feels solid.  The knobs are very smooth and easy to dial in sounds accurately.  The keys feel almost flimsy compared to the rest of the unit, but not terrible.  I am not a huge fan of the pitch/modulation slider so far.  The motion is very linear and it feels more like a cheap fader than a pitch bend lever.  Maybe it will grow on me as it breaks in.

The synth architecture is very deep.  Some of the presets are very busy, but others are ready to use right out of the box.  Pulling up a preset has the problem that the panel knobs and switches no longer match the sound being produced.  So if you start to turn a knob, you can get a sudden change in the sound.  There are also several parameters that don't have a direct control on the panel, but that can be edited if you are motivated enough to find them.  So you do lose some of the immediacy of a pure analog controlled knob-tweaker synth, but this thing would be enormous if they tried to represent everything it can do with a knob on the panel.

The display is very useful.  When you turn any knob it shows the control value, making it easy to dial in precise values.  A nice touch is that many parameters are labeled in real units (like cents) instead of generic 0 - 100 ranges.  When you are playing, the display shows a digital oscilloscope image of the waveform, which is really kind of neat.  The visualization actually does make it easier to understand why each voice sounds the way it does.

Jamming around I found myself playing everything from Popcorn's Hot Butter, Yes, Zeppelin, Floyd, Amazing Grace, and the Beverly Hills Cop theme song.  There were a lot of familiar sounds that were pretty easy to find.  But there are also a lot of great drones and patches.  I spent as much time holding a few notes and playing with the filter and delay knobs as I did trying to play music.  I could have recorded some great movie soundtracks if I was set up to record.

The keyboard note mapping is interesting.  The unit remembers what order you put each key down, and goes in most-recent priority in assigning voices when you release keys.  (Most synths I've played use a simple lowest-note or highest-note priority scheme.)  This meant I could get some cool riffs by holding multiple keys with a mono patch.  (The Exorcist Theme was a happening moment.)  This is especially cool with portamento patches.  As you know, this stuff matters with analog because it can determine whether envelopes get re-triggered on each note.

I'm not accustomed to playing an analog poly synth.  It seems like sometimes the detuning of the voices is a bit too independent, causing stuff to sound slightly out of tune.  But this was only on voices with detuned, warbly oscillators.  The intonation on most patches was perfect.  It is worth noting that the Minilogue has a digital-voltage-controlled all-analog sound path, so there should be little or no drift.

I didn't really play with the step sequencer or dig too deep into patch creation.  But I am already impressed with the voice structure.  There are a lot of ways to blend the oscillators, with plenty of waveform variations.  And they can be fine-tuned with knobs, but also coarse-tuned up or down by whole octave steps.  Sync, cross-modulation, pwm, it's all in there.  It can sound very clean an pure, but it also has a little grit if you push it.

I also should mention that the filter can be switched between 2- or 4-pole operation.  I expected to prefer the 4-pole, but the 2-pole surprised me.  It really lets through a lot of harmonic content and I found it to be very pleasing to the ear, especially with a mild bump to the resonance.

Overall, I think it will take some time to get to know it well enough to be able to create "the sound that's in my head" on it, but even just taking it out for a casual stroll I was finding a lot of great sounds that weren't in my head before.  (I hope I can find my way back to some of them again!)

Well, that's my initial impressions.  It's definitely a keeper.  Next time I sit down with it, I will have it plugged in for recording so I can capture some of these great sounds.

[Securb]

Veg nice review why don't you let us post it to the front p[age.

[Dr. Vegetable]

Let me write it up for real. How many words do you want?

[karpathion]

Let me write it up for real. 

Please do! Everytime I try, I end up on another project before I can even start. I've proven to be completely unreliable with that. 

That is a hell of a review. You covered everything.

[Securb]

Let me write it up for real.  How many words do you want?

The length you have is fine if you want to go longer have at it.