Run one cable on a Korg MS-20 from an oscillator into the filter’s cutoff input, and the sweep starts following the pitch. Plug a drum machine into the external input, and the filter turns into a mangler. Nothing on the front panel tells you to do either. You find out by trying.
That’s the whole story of this synth. The MS-20 didn’t hand you sounds. It made you a sound designer, and nearly fifty years after its release, that’s still why producers keep one within arm’s reach.
Semi Modular Was the Clever Compromise
Korg released the MS-20 in 1978 as a semi modular synthesizer. Fully modular systems made you patch every signal path by cable. The MS-20 came pre routed and playable out of the box, but its patch panel let you interrupt the internal flow and rewire it in ways the designers never labelled.
Korg MS-20
A playable synth with a patch panel bolted on, and a filter rude enough to date well
- Type
- Semi modular analogue synthesizer
- Launched
- 1978
- Changed
- Proved a synth could be playable and patchable at once
- Ended
- Discontinued in 1983
- Today
- MS-20 Mini in 2013, a full size kit in 2014, the MS-20 FS in 2020
The machinesTen instruments on The DJ Diaries, from 1970 to 2006, drawn to scale. Tap a dot to read its story.
The hybrid design made it far cheaper than the modular racks it imitated, and a fraction of a Minimoog’s price at launch. Its list price was US$750. It kept the experimental flexibility that teaches synthesis properly, by physical cause and effect. Feed it a drum machine and you learn more about filters in an afternoon than a manual teaches in a week.
That Filter Is the Reason It Lasted
The MS-20’s defining voice is its filter: aggressive, screaming at high resonance, unstable in the best way, and nothing like the polite warmth of American designs. Early units used a circuit Korg later revised, and the two revisions have their own cults. The first generation used Korg’s own Korg35 filter, and later units used a more standard design. Most players prefer the earlier one, which is why the Kit and FS reissues offer both.
It’s a rude sound, and rudeness dates well. It cut through cheap PA systems in 1979 and it cuts through crowded mixes in 2026. You can hear the machine’s DNA all over electro, EBM and the harder ends of techno and house, anywhere a bassline needs teeth.
It Was Everybody’s Honest Synth
Because it was affordable, the MS-20 became the working musician’s experimental synth rather than the studio trophy. Vintage Synth Explorer’s list of users runs from Aphex Twin, Hardfloor and Air to The Prodigy, Jean-Michel Jarre and Daft Punk. Decades of post punk, coldwave and techno producers built basslines on it precisely because it refused to behave.
It was never anybody’s only synth. It was everybody’s honest one. The video below follows one of its best known basslines, from the MS-20 to Mr. Oizo’s Flat Beat.
The Reissues Proved the Point
Korg discontinued the MS-20 in 1983, and the secondhand market spent thirty years bidding it upward until the company took the hint. Korg announced the MS-20 Mini at NAMM in 2013, built by the same engineers at 86 percent of the original size, with MIDI and USB added. It was one of the first and most successful moves in the analogue reissue wave that Moog and the rest of the industry followed.
The MS-20 Family, 1978 to Now
Every official version, plus the best known clone
KORG MS-20, 1978년부터 지금까지
| Version | Year | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| MS-20 | 1978 | The original, made until 1983 |
| MS-20 Mini | 2013 | 86% size, MIDI and USB added |
| MS-20 Kit | 2014 | Full size kit, both filters on a switch |
| Behringer K-2 | 2019 | Low cost clone, not by Korg |
| MS-20 FS | 2020 | Full size reissue, Rev1 and Rev2 filters |
| KORG Collection | Software | The MS-20 as a plugin |
How to read itThirty years out of production, then four new versions in seven years. The demand never went away.
A full size kit followed in 2014 with both filter revisions on a switch. In 2020 Korg announced the MS-20 FS, a full size reissue that keeps the Rev1 and Rev2 choice, according to the instrument history. Behringer brought out a low cost clone, the K-2, in 2019. For anyone who will never touch a cable, the MS-20 also lives as software in the KORG Collection.
The reissues sold to a generation raised on software that wanted one instrument that pushes back. Like the SP-404, the MS-20’s value turned out to be its friction: patch cables force decisions plugins never demand.
How I’d Use One in a Club Setup
The part working DJs should care about is the external input. The MS-20 was built to process outside signals, and that’s how I’d use one in a booth, not as a keyboard. Send a drum machine, a vocal loop or a mixer channel into the external signal processor, then bring the filtered result back on a return. A straight house groove suddenly has a rude, resonant edge that you control by hand. My piece on the DJM mixer covers the send and return loop that makes this possible on a standard club setup.
How it sounds in a room is the warning. That high pass and low pass pair screams at high resonance, and a club system with real horns will punish a careless sweep. The peak that sounds exciting on headphones can land in the upper mids, where a loud room turns harsh fastest. Ride the resonance with one hand and the channel gain with the other, and keep an eye on the meters, which is the whole argument of my piece on staying out of the red.
Its voice also suits the harder end of the dancefloor that has come back in the last few years, from EBM basslines to acid tinged techno. I think about this when I play. The records that cut through a busy room almost always have something like that filter in them, a sound with an edge that doesn’t apologise.
The MS-20 doesn’t sound polite. It was never supposed to.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Korg MS-20?
The Korg MS-20 is a semi modular analogue synthesizer that Korg released in 1978 and made until 1983. It came pre routed and playable out of the box, with a patch panel for interrupting and rewiring the internal signal flow. That hybrid design made it far cheaper than the modular racks it imitated while keeping the flexibility that teaches synthesis by physical cause and effect.
Why is the MS-20 filter so famous?
The MS-20 filter is aggressive, screams at high resonance and sounds nothing like the polite warmth of American designs. It cut through cheap PA systems in 1979 and still cuts through crowded mixes in 2026. Early units used Korg’s own Korg35 filter and later ones a more standard design, and both revisions have their own fans.
Who used the Korg MS-20?
Vintage Synth Explorer lists Aphex Twin, Hardfloor, Air, The Prodigy, Jean-Michel Jarre and Daft Punk among its users. Decades of post punk, coldwave and techno producers built basslines on it because it refused to behave.
Is the Korg MS-20 still made?
Yes, in reissued form. Korg released the MS-20 Mini in 2013 at 86 percent of the original size, a full size kit in 2014 and the full size MS-20 FS, announced in 2020. The MS-20 also lives as software in the KORG Collection. At launch it cost a fraction of the price of the Minimoog.
Further Reading
- The Minimoog: The Synthesizer That Made Synthesis Portable
- The Roland SP-404
- Pioneer DJM Mixers: How a Channel Strip Became an Instrument
- Dance Music Machines: play the step sequencer
Sources
Sound On Sound, Korg MS-20 Kit review
Sound On Sound, Korg MS-20 Mini review, 2013
Vintage Synth Explorer, Korg MS-20
Written from Seoul, by someone who has been in the booth for more than twenty years. More on the site, or book a DJ.
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