I shot a quick and dirty video of the studio with my Windows phone yesterday and posted it to the Atomic Shadow FaceBook page. So far it has been seen by far more people than saw my last SoundCloud post of the Black Sun piece. So it seems that a lot of people are more interested in the gear than in the end result. That is fair enough. It is a serious pile of equipment. 

So what are you seeing here? 

It is a collection of vintage signal generators, MU synth modules, modern effects, old tape machines, an old sampler, lab gear and an oscilloscope. The green metal cabinets have my live rig (with blinky lights) and my recording gear which is sitting on the counter space. 

The video begins with the seldom seen, other side of the room. This is where the all important refrigerator sits, just inside the door. Next to that are the equally important Eames chairs. My assistant, George, is relaxing on one of them as usual. Some my be surprised to see two laptops on that side of the room. The old white one is mostly doing e-mail duties these days. If you have sharp eyes you may see my favorite software synth open on the second one, next to the new King Korg. 

You may notice that there are two black and white video monitors in the rack. This is where I play old science fiction movies from a couple of DVD players. The Akai filter unit has been removed to make room for the EMW-300, now sitting between the old reel to reel and the cassette deck . I have been experimenting with a sequence using the 300 and that is what is running in the background. I am not certain that sequencing is for me. Time will tell.

In time, the JP-8080 will probably be replaced in the main rack and be moved to the west wall, above the King Korg. More likely I will sell it off to finish off the modular. In all honesty the King Korg covers all of the same bases and more.

So that is the setup as of February, 2015. It's always morphing. There is a new album in the works. Some final recording and mixing is coming along reasonably well. More on that at a later date. Thanks for watching!

At long last I have added the KingKorg synthesizer to the instrumentation here in the Command Center. It has a spot on the opposite wall from the main set of rack gear, right next to the Eames chairs. I first heard the KingKorg when it debuted at NAMM, 2013. This was the same show where Korg first showed the MS-20 Mini. Since the lines for demoing the Mini were ridiculous I looked around and found this golden keyboard sitting there all alone. So I gave it a try and have been singing it's praises ever since. Yesterday I finally had time to sit down and record with it. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review (Check Keyboard Magazine and Sound On Sound for that),  but I thought I would share my thoughts.

As you can see, It is a gold sort of color. To be honest, I don't really care for it. I prefer gear to be black, grey or possibly silver, and hammerite finish if at all possible. So the color, along with the dopey name were two things I had to get over. The color is growing on me. The name is not. 

What you have here is a three oscillator, virtual analog synth with an effects section. There are multiple waveform options in the analog style which include the basics and dual, unison, X-mod (fm), and ring mod versions. In addition there are all 64 of the DWGS waveforms that many will know from previous Korg products. A set of PCM waveforms cover basic piano, organ, Clav and Mellotron bases and there is a mic input for vocoder duties. 

The filter section has excellent models of Moog, Oberheim, P5, 303, and MS-20 filters. There is a KingKorg filter as well that is very nice. All of the filters come in Low pass, high pass, and band pass options. They are smooth and creamy without the stepping that we have come to expect from modeled filters. Top marks go to Korg for the filter design.

There is an effects section that is made up of three knobs. Push the knob to turn that section on, turn the knob to select the effect and the dedicated smaller knobs control each section's send and amount. Real time tweaking is a breeze. There is a glowing thing just below the logo in the photo above. That is the tube drive section. It sounds great and really adds some growl and volume. Although it is the first section on the physical panel, be warned that the tube drive comes after the main effects section in the actual signal chain. So it comes after the cabinet simulation and reverb effects. That seems wrong to me, but you can easily overcome that by not using the onboard amp sim and reverbs. We all probably have other source of reverb.

You can layer two sounds or split the keyboard between two sounds. The oscillator section has it's own lcd screen so you can see which waveform you have loaded for each oscillator. The controls are all clearly laid out and you will have no trouble figuring out what is going on.

In addition to the mic input the KingKorg also has CV/gate out from a stereo mini plug. I have not done anything with either feature, but the possibilities are sparking ideas for future experiments. That is one of the best benefits of a great piece of gear.

I know that there is a lot of fuss made on various websites about analog polysynths. Why can't we have them and why can't they cost 500 bucks? Of course the answer to the last is cost. But the truth to tell is that the virtual synth has come a very long way since the late 90s. The KingKorg does some very convincing impressions of some classic, expensive and electronically unreliable gear of yesteryear. I had a P-600 a few years back. It sounded great, when it worked. Same could be said for the Akai Ax-60 that I once owned and several others. I got really tired of working on them. Now days you can save up for a Dave Smith poly of one design or another and you will have a great sounding and reliable, modern polysynth. But The KingKorg can get in to areas that you simply cannot reach with triangle, squares and saws. It will set up back far less with secondhand units going for $800-900.

I have recorded a track called Black Sun using only the KingKorg and it's built in effects. One patch uses some of the Inharmonic DWGS waves, which were switched and manipulated in real time during recording. The other patch employs various  combinations of  X-mod and ring mod waveforms, which were also swapped and controlled during recording. It's easy to change LFO settings, turn effects on/off, select different waveforms and more. You can do this on the fly.

Give the track a listen and then drop down for some final thoughts.

Korg have done a lot of things right here. I see this keyboard being very handy for a working musician as a second instrument in his rig, or perhaps a main one. Serious piano players are not going to like the keybed and the pianos are not mega gigabyte sample libraries, but in a band setting with a noisy guitarist this would not matter to anyone out front. If that is important to you then you are shopping in the wrong store here. As a great sounding synthesizer alone it more than earns it's keep. It is plastic and therefor, very light and portable. I would have a hard case if I were gigging it. The PCM sounds are nice to have if you need them. The addition of the DWGS waves makes it easy to get in to territory that belongs to the PPG. You can do some glassy FM pianos and bass sounds if that is your thing. It's all in there. Your screaming leads, fat bass, and swirly pads. 

But the bottom line for me is the sound. It just sounds very analog, when you want it to. Very lush, The quality sound and the price make the bang-for-the-buck factor very high. Try one out with a decent set of headphones. I think a lot of people will be very surprised when they give this instrument an honest listen.