Korg Forums

[jonajmi]

Which one should i get? Im new to synths and i wanna play stuff like MGMT. what do you recommend?

[Sina172]

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[jonajmi]

Thanks! i think I'm gonna get that. I just wanna know what is the difference between them? like synth wise. kinda a stupid question but i don't know much about synths

[thejam20]

i had the microkorg first, and sold it to buy a microstation, i think really you cant compare the two. i found the micrkorg to have a more powerful sound plus it has the vocoder which the microstation lacks. however as mentioned above the microstation has the sequencer a larger polyphony, more keys and the sd card slot to save your songs and own sounds to. for me as i write my own music the microstation is far better and far more flexible,but i depends what you want it for. i kinda wish a kept the microkorg and sold somthing else to fund the microstation, so if you got the budget my advice is get both

[jonajmi]

Thanks! Yea i was thinking about that. actually if i were to get the micro station and microkorg, i would probably want the full sized keys. i was thinking of getting the microkorg and the m audio axiom 61 midi controller. what do you think about that?

[thejam20]

hmm...... in my opinion if your getting the m audio just to control the microkorg its a bit expensive, if your gonna use it to control other midi instruments or soft synths then its a bit different. i used to use an old crappy casio ctk 750 to control the microkorg it did the job great it was touch sensitive and only cost me £20 on ebay.... although to be honest dont let the mini keys put you off, yeah it takes some getting used to but now i dont find any probs with them and i use roland synths and digital pianos with full size weighted keys.

[Re-Member]

If you are going to get the microKORG but not use it's keys, I suggest looking into the Korg R3. It has a much deeper synth engine than the microKORG, three octaves of full sized keys, yet it's only slightly larger by a few inches.

The keys on the microSTATION are not too bad. I actually use the microSTATION as an additional set of keys for my R3 (to play two sounds separately), then use microSTATION for drum machine duties and backing sequences. They make a good combo.
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Roland Juno-60, SH-101, TR-606, MC-505, Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX100, DX11, Kawai R-50e // Korg R3, microSTATION, Monotribe, MS-20 Mini, SQ-1, minilogue, electribe sampler, Volca series: Bass, Keys, Beats, Sample, FM, Kick, Moog Theremin

[Re-Member]

Also, no one mentioned this yet, but another major difference between the two synths is that the microSTATION operates on sampled sounds. In addition to synth sounds, it has things such as drums, organs, guitars, wind instruments, piano, etc. The microKORG is designed to replicate an analog synthesizer where sounds are created using various generated waveforms. Typically, it is used to play one sound at a time. While you can certainly program sounds on the microSTATION similar to the microKORG, it has a much more difficult menu system to navigate through and really doesn't sound as good. However, you gain the ability to play up to 16 sounds at once, as well as program entire songs.
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Roland Juno-60, SH-101, TR-606, MC-505, Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX100, DX11, Kawai R-50e // Korg R3, microSTATION, Monotribe, MS-20 Mini, SQ-1, minilogue, electribe sampler, Volca series: Bass, Keys, Beats, Sample, FM, Kick, Moog Theremin

[Mahalo]

I have both the microSTATION and the microKorg XL. I do not know the musical style originally asked in the first post. For live gigs the microSTATION is superb, I do like the small keys which somehow are just right where other manufacturers failed with small keys again and again. for multitrack recording maybe the microKorg has some better sounds, but the STATION has effects, drum beats, lots of layers, and a very up to date collection of presets but very weak on historic classic sounds (such as you get on an arranger KB). The mS has faults, some software bugs and design mistakes, and build quality is suprisingly not as expected - USB no longer works and basically I have to buy a second duplicate unit merely because of reliability worries for gigs.