Korg Minilogue

[duncanm]

I do think that some here are asking for the moon on a stick. Maybe I have shit ears, but I genuinely don't see (or hear, rather) this being that big a problem if any, as long as you program your sound in a particular way to mask this apparently horrendous clicking.

If there are firmware updates to resolve some of the 'problems' here, great, but my assumption is that it's mostly as it was meant to sound right now, i.e. 'it is what it is'. You have a choice of either a/ not buying it or b/ living with it. I chose b, and it was GREAT.

[Carrollina]

I just got my Minilogue today and it was the last one in the store.... A display model the had only been on the floor a few days. Got it home and I have major humming from the audio out jack. Head phones are ok with know problem but the audio out has a serious hum!! I tried different audio cables from my other synth and still is a hum!! Well back to Sam Ash in the morning. And they gave me $40 bucks off but this just isn't going to work. I hit record on my DAW to see if the hum would get recorded... Without hitting any keys or other sounds and when I played back the recording you can here the humming loud and proud!! It sounds like my guitar amp lol

[lalo]

I do think that some here are asking for the moon on a stick.

yes, maybe.
i guess that asking for a more precise MIDI control from a DAW is a matter of firmware upgrade.
Given that (as obvious for this nice price tag) there are no CV inputs and that Korg kinda promised a librarian software and dump of parameters is already here (this means that parameter values are digitized at their full resolution and then converted to analog at their full native resolution) i guess workin' on a full 14bit MIDI structure is not such an impossible thing.
As for the click issue i don't know and i could possible live with it and make of it some creative use.
A question for early owners...what's the parameter min max values of cutoff as displayed by the little display?

[duncanm]

a fix for the click 'issue' is mentioned in this great video -

Basically, 'add some release'

For the librarian software, Midiox seems to do the trick if you need to back up your patches. Curious to hear where you heard that Korg said they'd be supplying their own librarian though - I hadn't read that anywhere.

[Daags]

Basically, 'add some release'

As expected .... which is why I said from the onset that we can't conclude anything without seeing what this guy was dialing in. had he shown people his patch settings, I guarantee you he'd have been met with a chorus of 'try dialing in some more release' suggestions

but then we wouldn't have seen his $500 VS $22k shootout ...and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we're all better musicians for having witnessed that spectacle.

[AnX]

I just got my Minilogue today and it was the last one in the store.... A display model the had only been on the floor a few days. Got it home and I have major humming from the audio out jack. Head phones are ok with know problem but the audio out has a serious hum!! I tried different audio cables from my other synth and still is a hum!! Well back to Sam Ash in the morning. And they gave me $40 bucks off but this just isn't going to work. I hit record on my DAW to see if the hum would get recorded... Without hitting any keys or other sounds and when I played back the recording you can here the humming loud and proud!! It sounds like my guitar amp lol

Thats not good at all....

[IncarnateX]

I just got my Minilogue today and it was the last one in the store.... A display model the had only been on the floor a few days. Got it home and I have major humming from the audio out jack. Head phones are ok with know problem but the audio out has a serious hum!! I tried different audio cables from my other synth and still is a hum!! Well back to Sam Ash in the morning. And they gave me $40 bucks off but this just isn't going to work. I hit record on my DAW to see if the hum would get recorded... Without hitting any keys or other sounds and when I played back the recording you can here the humming loud and proud!! It sounds like my guitar amp lol

Can't you just return it and get another when they arrive? Sounds like they fooked it up somehow. Maybe it's been on the floor in a literal sense?

[JCJR]

a fix for the click 'issue' is mentioned in this great video -

Basically, 'add some release'

In the fella's earlier video, he showed shift-play as the combination to tune the oscillators. I like it. Most all the old vco poly synths had the auto-tune button which occasionally had to be pushed. Some synths would drift so bad, it got to be a reflex gesture to push auto-tune before every song or recording take, "just to make sure" its in tune.

So one thing I'd wonder about, maybe probability zero-- The auto-tune on some of the old synths didn't just calibrate the VCO's. On some units the auto-tune would also calibrate other modules in the thang. Perhaps it is remotely possible that the auto-tune button MIGHT also function to calibrate away these clicks. Would be curious if someone tries this to see if auto-tune would adjust out the clicks.

It sounds pretty good to me. In one patch he uses the motion sequencer without any notes as an alternate modulation source. That is very kewl.

Being a geezer who doesn't like boring repetitive patterns-- Happy to play any needed boring repetitive patterns manually, I usually completely ignore descriptions of the step sequencers that are apparently de rigeur in these modern synths. But the motion sequencing without notes is kewl.

Is the use of the motion sequencing (without any notes in the sequence) as a complex additional modulator-- Is this something rather special to this product, or is it a trick which people commonly exploit using DSI Pro 2 or P12 or other gadgets with the gesture sequencing capability?

[Sequent]

Interesting that they were selling off a floor display model for a product that is only beginning to come into the stores. I have gotten floor display models in the past, but it was for items that were end of line and they were in really good shape. Some of the keyboards that I have seen in stores over the years have been pretty beat up, including 'blown out' outputs. So it sounds like this one may have had a rough ride. In this particular case I would return it to the store and wait for a brand new one even if it means having to pay the additional $40.

As for firmware updates, I notice that there is a version 1.04 posted on January 21.

I've seen so many youtube videos at this point that I don't remember exactly which one it was, but one of the store ones did mention some sort of librarian as being in the works.

[Sequent]

@JCJR... good point about trying the auto tune.

As far as tuning in general... in the old days (before computers were able to record audio) a lot of people used to record their mixdowns as left/right to a dat. You would need to have enough modules to cover as many sounds that you wanted to have in your song. (That's probably where this need to have a gazillion synths began, lol). I remember sending a tune command to my Prophets and SuperJupiter during 'downtime' when that particular synth was not playing anything at that moment. I don't see a tune command as listed in the midi spec for the Minilogue. Though, I suppose for the Minilogue tuning won't be as big an issue as it was in the dark ages. The oscillators on the MS20/MS20 mini seem to be overall really stable.

[fluffy_little_something]

Let's just all post our findings here when we get our units. If mine clicks very badly I'll be sending it back, but I have a fairly high tolerence of artifacts. I also suspect the very first batch of units, given the price point, are likely to have a few teething problems. I can totally understand how the clicking with slow envelopes and low cutoffs would be unacceptable to many people.

Really hoping mine arrives tomorrow.

Since you all but expect teething problems, shouldn't you have waited a few months before you ordered yours?

[Sequent]

ack, double post... sorry

[Sequent]

Yep... waiting a little before ordering is probably a good thing. Though in this case, I am guilty as well. I think part of it is the excitement at having an analog polysynth again, the fact that it sounds fantastic in the vast majority of the videos I have seen, and the last part of it is the fact that it's affordable.

Normally, I would have waited and normally there's a little bit of a wait before the announced units actually make it to the stores (e.g. the Soundcraft mixers announced at last year's NAMM).

Though my Minilogue is not arriving for a little while yet...

Let's just all post our findings here when we get our units. If mine clicks very badly I'll be sending it back, but I have a fairly high tolerence of artifacts. I also suspect the very first batch of units, given the price point, are likely to have a few teething problems. I can totally understand how the clicking with slow envelopes and low cutoffs would be unacceptable to many people.

Really hoping mine arrives tomorrow.

Since you all but expect teething problems, shouldn't you have waited a few months before you ordered yours?

[Sequent]

double post... sorry!

[fluffy_little_something]

Don't Korg test each unit before it is shipped? I remember years ago Roland had quite some problems with their cheaper products made in China. I assume they have gotten their act together by now, though.