MS2000 Love

i seriously love the korg ms2000. those of you that have seen me post on WATMM a while know this.

it doesn't have the sound of, say, an MS20 -- but it costs $200-400, and it just has such tweakability. so easy to get lost in. and it sounds quite nice in its own right!! it's one of those synths i keep coming back to. it never goes on the shelf (unlike, say, roland alpha juno one, which i like sonically but find cumbersome to use extensively).

let's hear it for MS2K!

klaus schulze and ms2000 off to bottom left

I like the MS-2000 especially the analogue style sequencer. in fact I want one.

my mate has a radias but never had my mits on an MS2000

any good examples?

  On 3/20/2010 at 3:22 PM, soundwave said:

my mate has a radias but never had my mits on an MS2000

i had a radias. i sold it

  On 3/20/2010 at 3:22 PM, soundwave said:

any good examples?

i got the rack version secondhand for $250. i never got a manual with it... but it's more fun just to learn by doing, with this one.

two oscillators, first has standard wav as well as a weird "digital" one where you can pick from dozens of waveforms. it's easy to miss the digital waveforms, but there's all sorts of weird shit buried in there. first osc can also just be audio in, and so i wind up using the whole thing as an FX unit like that a lot. second osc just has saw/square/tri but can ring/sync with first. it has a vocoder mode i don't use much.

basic multimode filter, 12/24 LPF, BPF, HPF. distort.

it really starts to get fun with the "patch" shit, though. you got four knobs that are essentially assignable in a v. flexible way. amount of lfo->pitch, oscillator controls, lfo speed... things can get pretty tense, bits and bobs effecting each other.

then, on top of that it has a 3-track "analog" style sequencer, all the knobs on the bottom row become your sequencing knobs. the three seq tracks can effect even more shit than the patch knobs... and can effect the patch knobs themselves! you can also do some basic recording of knob twiddles, and it'll remember, via mod sequence.

the midi implementation is solid... so once you've gotten around all that, you can start using reaktor or max to take it even further.

complaints: i wish the arp were a little more flexibile, but it's got all the basics covered. it only has four voices. i wish they made a 1U rack version that i could just talk with over midi... then i'd get a couple just have a lot of voices. the knobs don't feel that great (perfectly usable, though). overall, it sounds thin at times... but you learn the sweet spots and can work around that.

i had one once, liked it a lot, but sold it to get a nord micromodular. i do not regret selling. lets hear it for the nord micromodular!

  On 3/21/2010 at 12:05 AM, hahathhat said:

  On 3/20/2010 at 3:22 PM, soundwave said:

my mate has a radias but never had my mits on an MS2000

 

s one.

 

two oscillators, first has standard wav as well as a weird "digital" one where you can pick from dozens of waveforms. it's easy to miss the digital waveforms, but there's all sorts of weird shit buried in there. first osc can also just be audio in, and so i wind up using the whole thing as an FX unit like that a lot. second osc just has saw/square/tri but can ring/sync with first. it has a vocoder mode i don't use much.

 

 

this is the shit I've read about that interests me, fuck trying to sound like an analogue if there's plenty of digital weirdness under the hood

I had the opportunity to trade in my microkorg for a ms2000r but didn't do it, still slightly regretting that.

They share so many features that you could almost consider them to be the same but still...

  On 3/21/2010 at 3:11 AM, 277: 930-933 said:

I had the opportunity to trade in my microkorg for a ms2000r but didn't do it, still slightly regretting that.

They share so many features that you could almost consider them to be the same but still...

i am pretty sure they are patch compatable! that is, you can load ms2k patch on microkorg and vice versa.

ms2000 just has a full compliment of knobs, an LCD, etc. etc.

mine for sale £200

  On 3/21/2010 at 9:22 AM, chunky said:

mine for sale £200

what's that, $400us? better be the keyboard for that price

keyboard with original box

no, $300 mate

pound is worth fuck all these days

I never could get down with the MS2000. Something about the pots really puts me off.. Like, they don't have quite enough resistance or something, and the diameter of the knobs is just plain wrong. I mean, surface area is pretty much the number one thing the MS2000 has going for it, so I don't understand why they didn't put some nice, meaty knobs on it! (Try to make a joke about THAT!)

Also, the meager 4-note polyphony is a total joke. Why not go five so one can at least play a full chord?

All that being said, a friend of mine has one and I guess it can be kind of fun to fuck around with when the arpeggiator is running. I guess if you find it inspiring and/or rewarding, then more power to you. Then again, some people totally fawn over their Dodge Neons, so maybe there truly is no accounting for taste...

You can hook two together for 8 voices fyi.

I love the ms2000. I don't have one, but I love the sound of it. It's not great for bread and butter, or really va sounds, but the tinny character that a lotof people complain about suits me just fine. It's on my to get list when i see one even stupidly cheaper than they already are right now on the bay. The seq, delay, and additional waveforms are great. But yeah when they were new and expensive it was quite a lol for four voices of "va" at the price they were.

Edit: They are fantastic at synth drum sounds.

2nd edit: For clarity the same sound chip from the ms2000 is in the micro korg and sx/mx electribes. It's just divvied up differently on the tribes (ie: sx has no synth engine, but has the filters, some fx, etc).

I had one and liked it, but sold it to pay the rent some years ago. It's pretty cool.

Got one in my house. I agree its a well designed synth.