Korg Multi/Poly and the Hunt for an Analog Poly

Story time!

I make mistakes rather often. These mistakes are often founded in a good idea, and despite hours of research it’s possible to fall flat on your face when it comes time to take action. Sometimes, however, you stand back up having learned things, and using things how you might otherwise not have. Thus is my story with the Korg Multi/Poly.

My husband and I have been wanting to move to Japan for several years. We got married there, we have friends and property there, we visit regularly. We actually had plans to move there in 2020, but… well… 2020 happened. Life has settled, people moved on, places changed, but plans can resume. Finally, 2025, we’re moving there, despite different visa requirements and different personal situations. This is a big change, one that also includes retiring from my work, and moving our children into a totally foreign life. It also means I want a new synth.

For many years I’ve wanted just a big, nice, analog polysynth. I’ve owned some in the past, a Juno 6, an SH01a (if that counts), a JP08 (also if that counts), but never had a reason to get one other than personal enjoyment, so I didnt, instead learning how to get rich, organic analog sounds from my otherwise sterile and artificial digital synths. For the most part, this is easy, and I was pleased. Now that I’m just doing things for me instead of my job, I can get things just because I like them. So I’m shopping for an analog poly.

My initial requirements were thus:

• complex
• analog (or decent emulation thereof)
• polyphonic (at least 6 voices, precluding most modern VA synths)
• thick, rich, creamy, [insert synthfluencer taking about moog words here] tone
• bitimbrality
• ringmod, sync, and fm available at once
• fun waves
• fun filters (preferably dual)
• unique modulation
• doesn’t have to be new, just unique and useful

My requirements later shifted and were added onto to include:

• 8 voice 2600 (doesn’t exist)
• 3 oscs (or 2 with a sub)
• adjustable noise
• 2 filters (at least one being multimode)
• arp (not sequencer)
• good fx
• mono/unison modes

You saw the title. What’s one synth, new or old, that covers all these bases, perfectly? The Korg Multi/Poly. So I got one, B-stock used as a floor model for $650, included power, bag, and original box. I was set. I had everything. I read the manual 3 times. I listened to demos online. I read user reviews and testimony. It was the perfect synth for one extremely demanding and picky girl.

Turns out, it’s all the above, except the tone.

You see, the reason vintage analog synths sound so warm, thick, lush, etc is because of saturation. Your oscillators can create the most perfect slightly logarithmic shape that beautifully emphasize low end odd harmonics while maintining crisp high end content. You can have the shimmeriest of reverbs and the thickest chorus. Your filters can be the smoothest of butter of the raunchiest of… Anyway, you can have all the great components, but they’ll just sound like that: good components, not a cohesive sound. That cohesive sound comes from the mixer being overdriven, filter being overdriven, amplifier being overdriven. There’s something to be said for envelope shapes as well but that’s a later discussion.

The Multi/Poly does each component perfectly. You can use emulated analog waves with a variety of useful and great sounding alterations, like the inverted detuned double saw to create rich PWM effects, as well as wavetables of any synth you want or even on-board waveshaping (only of sines and triangles, but we can use another osc set to square with the ringmod to get saws and such as well). You have 2 filters which can be emulated lowpasses from the Mono/Poly, Minimoog, Prophet 5, MS20 (and its highpass), SEM, and Synthacon, as well as numerous more surgical digital filters, which sound very accurate to the point where using the template presets of those synths can reasonably quickly and easily emulate sounds of the real things, at least to the point of being largely similar in a mix. There’s a plethora of great effects with very useful presets and emulations, a variety of modulation options and shaping for long, evolving sounds or controlled chaotic rumblings…

But no saturation. Anywhere. It’s a perfect oscillator into a perfect filter with perfect effects, giving you perfect sounds which nobody wants. The whole point of an analog poly is the slight unpredictability and hands-on ease of use which the Multi/Poly also barely provides thanks to its Drift feature – accessed via button+knob combo, an all too familiar motion with this synth – but also the thick sound which Multi/Poly can only deliver in one way: monophonic, using the Valve vintage distortion preset. Using this, I could nearly perfectly emulate my Behringer Model D – in side-by-side comparisons it was very difficult to tell them apart. Same with the Odyssey template preset compared to my 2600, very similar sounds. But, with no per-voice distortion, and especially with no multi-stage drive, when you switch to polyphony you just get varying degrees of ugly distortion based on number of keys pressed. The effects are monophonic, if you will – all voices sum into them, meaning input level-based effects like distortion will react differently with more notes.

Now, I will admit I kinda fell into a rut with Multi/Poly, as I started trying to emulate everything instead of using it as its own thing. I would recreate patches from other synths and see how close I could get. I would use the DW-6000 wavetables with the Prophet filter and smooth chorus to emulate a DW-6000. I would limit myself to features of other synths and see how accurately I could nail the sounds. I realised what I was doing and stopped myself, then started just using its features to make the kinda sounds I wanted to make, not emulate. I had fun, I was making new, wild, complex sounds, and it was kinda like playing with Vital or Serum but in hardware and with better analog emulation.

And that’s where I found another problem.

Being a very complex yet affordable-ish compact synth, the control scheme is annoying. This is a common problem with modern synths, of course, with many solutions that work for different people. I think whoever the Multi/Poly UX works for is not me. I shouldn’t have to interact with three different things before I can fine-tune an oscillator. The mod matrix shouldn’t be limited to things that already have modulation options. I shouldn’t have to do a button combo while turning a knob to change key tracking amount on a filter. On that note, key tracking shouldn’t be a numeric value. 100% key tracking on the multi-poly relates to the number positive 60, because of the number of semitones in half the range of the keyboard (5 octaves). Useful.

I feel I will keep this synth for a while, but I am still researching other synths. I also bought a JX08, both because I feel I’ll gel with a simplified control scheme more, and because the Multi/Poly can’t emulate Rolands very well despite including 2 chorus presets that sound like the Juno’s I and I+II choruses. I think secretly just wanted my Juno back, but with more options. I know I wanted my old Moog back too; I had a voyager OS, upgraded to an XL, traded for an OG Minimoog with mods, then sold that when I got my Behringer Model D. Since then I’ve been wanting another proper Moog, and so I bought a Sub 37! As for a poly, I’m looking at Peak, Deepmind, Creamware, and ofc Muse. Might find something cooler tho.

I love Korg and their synths. I hope you enjoy yours, or will enjoy yours if you’re reading this before buying. This one is just more of a miss for me. Or my expectations weren’t in line with it. Regardless, thanks for reading! Subscribe to the page to be notified when I post again.