From my experience of Korg’s previous lower/case synthesisers with little key beds, I didn’t buy the multi/poly hardware – betting that software would arrive not long after (which it did). I also owned a Mono/Poly and was never thrilled by ratio of sounds to weight. When it was made into software it suddenly came to polyphonic life. Four oscillators punching each other in the face is good – but then being able to play a tune is even better.
The multi/poly software version is definitely the better purchase – yes you get a bunch of knobs on the hardware but these represent one quarter of the knobs you’ll need to program the thing. It’s nowhere near as confusing as the wavestate but includes the hell that is Motion Sequencing 2.0 … so Korg include a software editor… which may as well be the whole software version dur. Also – cheaper.
Each of four layers has an identical set of four oscillators through two filters. Oscillators can each be one of Classic (of many combinations), Digital (wavetables), or Waveshaper (which creates some FM-like sizzle). The filters emulate the MS20, the moog ladder and variants, SEM and Prophet. There’s plenty of extra modules on board and it’s not too much of an exaggeration to claim that this is a modular system with some default wires – much like the MS20. If you don’t want to carry your modular farm to the gig then this might just do it.
Retro is back again
But this kind of retro museum has been on offer for a very very long time in software – the first thing that comes to mind is Arturia’s Pigments, but pretty much every vendor already has some kind of mix and match faux-analogue with ‘legendary filters’ on their books. Why would anyone switch to using the multi/poly plus multi/poly? Stage performers might I guess or those that do a lot of twiddling in their playing (but then they would need more than mini keys?) The rest of us are already spoiled for choice.
Then there’s the issue of getting your own wavetables and (for the wavestate) samples on and off the box. With e.g. Pigments or Vital you just put the wavetables in a folder and voila. The Korg keys all need a librarian and a unique file format. Just take a laptop?
And then there’s the general issue of retro synthesis as well – there is software (and some hardware) that goes far beyond anything that we could create back in the day. The kinds of sounds I need to make in my own work goes far beyond any number of saw waves through old filters. I hope that Korg make bank on this, but then I hope they get back to work on something like the minilogue XD, or Padshop or Myth.