NAMM 2026: After several years of development, Korg’s brilliantly unconventional Phase8 synth is finally ready for release.
Harnessing a new form of “Acoustic Synthesis” technology conceived at Korg’s experimental Berlin outpost, Phase8 is the brainchild of renowned engineer Tatsuya "Tats" Takahashi, best known for masterminding the Minilogue and the Volca series.
Tats unveiled the final evolution of Phase8 today on stage at NAMM'S Global Media Day, telling the audience that the product was inspired by the desire to design an instrument that feels "organic" and "alive" in a "flooded market" of feature-laden synthesizers. Tats declared that Phase8 is not only “beyond analogue vs digital”, but “beyond electronics” altogether.
It’s safe to say that Phase8 is not your average synth: essentially a hybrid of a synthesizer and an electric kalimba, it's an innovative instrument that brings together acoustic sound generation with electronic control via synth-style sequencing and modulation.
At the heart of Phase8 are eight chromatically tuned steel resonators – the synth comes with 13 of these that can be swapped out and tuned by the user – that produce sound via electromagnetic stimulation.
The resonators can also be physically touched, plucked, strummed or tapped, and Korg suggests that you place objects on the instrument to experiment with new textures and tones. Phase8’s Air slider allows you to boost or dampen the acoustic response of anything that’s brought into contact with the resonators.
Phase8 is equipped with dedicated envelopes and velocity control for each resonator, and features a polymetric step sequencer that supports both step programming and unquantized live recording. Sequences can be stored and recalled via eight memory slots, and a Shift knob can be used to add delayed triggers to each resonator relative to the chosen tempo.
All of Phase8’s controls can be automated across a sequence using the record function, and three modulation effects are on offer: you get good old tremolo along with two audio-rate, pitch-dependent styles of modulation, one of which can be harmonically quantized.
In the connectivity department, Phase8 offers MIDI In/Out over 3.5mm TRS, USB MIDI, sync in/out and a CV input for hooking up the synth with a wider set-up, along with a ¼” audio output and 3.5mm headphone out.
Korg's Phase8 is priced at $1149 and available now.
Find out more on Korg’s website.
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