A Timeline History of Korg Polysynths: What's The Difference? | Gear Through The Years

Korg has released a wide variety of innovative, iconic synthesizers and other keyboards that span nearly the entire history of electronic music-making. In this video, we're focusing solely on Korg's original polysynths—removing recent reissues—of which there are many highlights.

*A few corrections to the information in this video:
PS-3300: Changed the 48 VCOs, VCFs and VCAs to 144 (so three per key)
Polysix: Changes mention of VCO alteration via joystick to DCO
Volca FM: Original was 3 voices, not 6, the FM2 which was released this year is the one with 6 voices

[ianflurrance]

I love Vintage Korg! I’m glad they are still doing a lot of great analog but also really exploring the next wave of digital in hardware. I hope to see a prologue v2 or even a more beefed up flagship, perhaps call it the Epilogue?

[men]

Gran resumen de la historia de Korg, yo estoy contento con mi Minilogue XD ❤️😍

[Zebulon]

You forgot the excellent Korg Radias (and the R3 & KingKorg).

[michelvondenhoff]

Just want to note that the KingKorg is also a powerhouse. Two parts per program, three osc per part with parts to be split or layered. Among the filters (VA) are Moog, Prophet 5, MS-20, 303 and Oberheim. All able to do 12 & 24 db/oct as lpf, hpf and bpf. 24 note polyphony, two lfo's and envelope eg's, arpeggiator and 16 band vocoder top it of.

Not a very popular synth, though imho an affordable powerhouse. Just imagine a 3 osc. 2 part split in one program (that is 2 VA MiniMoogs in one affordable synth!). And this is one of your 100 user programs, 99 to go...

[djfrancavilla]

Nice video! i bought the Minilogue XD a month ago and im amaze!
more than happy with my buy, highly recomended

[BCTGuitarPlayer]

This was fun. I love that they hold their value. I bought my Minilogue new in 2017 for $400. It’s still worth $400. 👏 Although I'll never sell it;)

[fruitbatstudios]

I love Korg synths and own many of them. I was surprised that two of their very best - The Radias and R3 were not on the list though? Too rare I guess. - Definitely under valued compared to the lesser ones around that time.

[leeselectronicwidgets]

Love it, missed out some details eg DW series was also the first Korg synths with aftertouch, I believe (again, inspired by DX7..)

[joermnyc]

I had a Poly 800, kind of wish it had more controls than it did (tweaking a knob is much more intuitive than searching for a parameter on the keypad and clicking the up and down arrow buttons. I know there were circuit bending mods for it, but I wasn’t sure it would work for what I wanted to do.)

[bassfingers]

10.48 Even the guy at the bank loves Korg.

[SlaserX]

I just wish Korg gave more love to the Kingkorg. It's an absolute dream of a synth, but it's build quality and size are a problem. They should make it a rack module and add aftertouch

[richardwinn]

I appreciate the effort, but you miss devices and the “facts” about these synths seem pretty random. This feels like fluff.

[alex_on_the_web]

I'm sure someday someone will have a complete collection of factual mistakes in the video, but for now, 9:00 - the Volca FM wasn't 2016 and 6 voice, but only 3 voices. The volca FM2 was the one with 6 voices, and it came out in 2022.

[pastaway]

OMG: you have loose the Electribes!Two series of them plus the 2 station! Overall like Korg fans i like this video and all the video timeline. K🖤RG

[zdravkodimitrov]

Lots of factual errors in this video. But any love for Korg is appreciated.

[secreho]

Mistakes on site DW-8000, 1985 (double copy paste) - Dss1 true name on the picture

[richardwinn]

I appreciate the effort, but you miss devices and the “facts” about these synths seem pretty random. This feels like fluff.

[richardwinn]

I appreciate the effort, but you miss devices and the “facts” about these synths seem pretty random. Respectfully, this feels like fluff.