From robot@crl.comThu May 25 14:44:06 1995
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 14:37:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: rbcIII <robot@crl.com>
To: Heavenly Analogous <analogue@hyperreal.com>
Subject: Maxi-Korg, Dr. Frankenstein's monster


Well it came today!  A little banged up and very dirty.  A couple of 
broken keys was causing the keyboard tracking to go haywire but after I 
fixed them, all was well.  The thing was noisy so I cleaned the hell out 
of it and now it hums a sweet tune.  It's got the be the ugliest keyboard 
I've ever seen.  The knobs and sliders are not attractive in the least 
bit.  I wonder what the Japanese designers were thinking with this one!

It is an interesting sound design.  There are two identical sections 
(upper and lower).  Each section consists of two oscs: the first is 
switchable from triangle to square to saw to pulse to chorus (it doesn't 
say which waveform) to noise (upper has a pink noise source and the lower 
white).  The first osc can also be set to 2',4',8',16',32',64'.  The second 
osc is permanently on saw and can be set to 2',4',8',16',32' or ring 
modulation.  The VCF section is a high pass and low pass filter but the 
res is only selectable by a switch with three settings (ugh!).  The VCA 
is split up in very weird ways by several sections including something 
called bender which allows for very wacky special effects.  There is a 
lot of possibilities with the portamento.  There are two LFO's one 
dedicated to vibrato, and the other is a strange section which applies a 
pulse to various settings between upper and lower.

There are upper and lower output jacks but both sections put out sound on 
both jacks (wha?).  Ther are four other jacks that have me confused.  
They are labelled "To Accessory" and "From Accessory" and they are for 
both opper and lower sections.  I can't see how these are CV/Gate 
ins/outs unless they are stereo like the Source.  Anybody have a clue?  
Plus there are din jacks for pedals.

The sounds is not at all ballsy or bassy.  It keeps up with the strange 
eerie sound of the other early Korg synths like the MS-20...  I'd have to 
say that four oscs and two ring modulators makes for an awesome sound.  
Trippy electronic special effects are abundant.  Definately 
Frankenstein's monster as Darwin so wisely put.

Anybody have a owners manual or a service manual?

-robert
______________________________________________*AudioElectronic*_____
Sampling the 808 is like shooting an animal       sonic explorers   \
        and hanging its stuffed head                                 \
                     in your livingroom! - (mw)                     __\