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• weaponEX

  

  Fri 27 Feb 2009, 3:48 pm GMT

  User rating 5 of 5

  My new MicroKorg XL is the first thing I've impulse-bought for over £150.
  The R3 was a strong contender, but I was put off by some design elements. After having spent a while aspiring to the mighty Radias, the MicroKorg XL quietly swept in seemingly out of nowhere and immediately grabbed my attention, long enough to convince me.
  The MicroKorg XL employs some exceptionally brave design decisions, which are challenging but undeniably evocative. I'd say it's audacious Fender Rhodes-parody appearance is playing on this ice as it is - the textured plastic casing literally looks cheap'n'nasty. Bizarrely (and confusingly), it redeems itself by the inclusion of a control surface of beautiful, brush aluminum that is more tasty and deliciously adorned with retro delight than any keyboard has ever dared before (except for the great Fender Rhodes, itself, perhaps).
  I'm not exaggerating! It's made the effort and deserves the praise.
  Initially I assumed it would never be taken seriously by those unfamiliar, it basically looks like a toy, but when the microphone is installed, it transforms into a professional and expensive-looking piece of kit.
  Physically, it's slightly too long to fit in my rucksack, but that's the only thing that's not VERY small about it. It's exceptionally light-weight.
  The key-size.. works! Enough said. It may be the reduced sensitivity on the (virtually action-free) keyboard, but it feels very natural to skip around on, definitely contradicted my expectation. I imagine it has to be played to be believed.
  I don't need to say much about the sound - it has the Radias engine, which is brilliant, along with it's effects, arpeggiators etc, but it's worth mentioning the presets: all brilliant and more significantly, brilliantly laid out! Once again, it works! I was dubious about the patronizingly formulaic arrangement of "Program Genres": ROCK/POP, R&B/HIP-HOP, D'N'B/BREAKS etc - but what the hell! I can find 'the sort of sound I'm looking for' without any tedious trawling through presets - you suggest a better system!?
  However, the sound itself, you can be assured, is professional standard. I'm sure the MMT engine has already reached you though plenty of professionally recorded music already (assuming that you listen to professionally recorded music).
  The MicroKorg XL can create, what sounds to me like perfectly realistic analogue across the board, while it's electronica-style patches remain familiar but fresh. I'm sure a programmer or patch designer would dismiss all these pre-sets as trite and ordinary. Nevertheless I'm left with a rich palette to draw from.
  It's my first instrument to have a vocoder - so I can't compare it to anything. It's fantastic.
  The PCM sounds are surprisingly impressive. Nothing sarcastic or self indulgent, although the acoustic piano pre-set sounds a lot better than my (1992) Korg X5!
  As you can probably tell from my absolute failure to quote information for you about triangle waves, filter types and polyphonies etc - I'm a musician and not a programmer.. well maybe you can't tell I'm a musician unless I start feeding you correspondingly dull geek-speak about relative flattened minor 6ths over augmented 9ths in the 3rd inversion, cubed - but rest assured, the primary audience for this synth is, in my opinion, will undoubtedly be interested in neither.
  The MicroKorg XL is definitely "for" a certain kind of musician: the rich kind, who isn't immediately interested in patch-design, perhaps new to the pro-synth landscape and wants to learn how to implement these sounds before learning how to invent them. Probably well suited for live-use, or on a plane or in a tree.
  Apart from the grotesque-but-rational price - it's a novelty that will take a long time to wear off. Maybe that's all all electronic music is?

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