Bad Gear - Korg Nu:Tekt NTS-1 - The Stocking Filler

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Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world's most hated audio tools. Today we are going to talk about the Korg Nu:Tekt NTS-1. Is this Ikea style open source digital mono synth DIY kit with the heart of the Korg Prologue and Korg Minilogue XD the ideal stocking filler?

Alex Ball is - of course - an international treasure:

Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
01:13 Overview
05:20 Hate
05:44 Jam 1
06:40 Jam 2
07:41 Finale
08:11 Verdict

[kerbolax]

I bought this little guy while drunk and no regrets really, it's such a powerful thing with the custom effects and oscillators

[foxholeartist]

Korg: releases decent sounding accessible synths
Synth community: that doesn't look like Minimoog Phantom Premium full sized keys synth
Korg is a blessing we don't deserve

[Rompler_Rocco]

Most reverb stompboxes in this price range have *nowhere near* the satisfying crunch when you stomp down on them.

[swassesois]

As someone whos spent thousands on gear, some of which has been hosted on your channel. The fact you have found the means to play or even keep some of the instruments you review is the greatest life hack a limited musician could have ever developed. I dont miss a video and appreciate you greatly!

[hypercubedmusic]

Hey, thanks for featuring my work! Love what you did with the chord oscillator!

[geoffclapp]

The open platform means that you can code your own Patches and FX in C++. The toolchain works great on Linux. If you are a programmer and a synth nerd this thing is small enough to keep on your desk at work.

[MentalSideBeats]

Bought it a couple of weeks ago, and for the money it sounds pretty impressive! The filter is good, the oscillators and reverbs are amazing. Paired with VCV rack (turing machine + quantizer + a couple of lfos and envelopes modulating the parameters via midi cc) = a powerful generative voice

[voltijuice]

TARDIS intro was a great choice, as the NTS-1 is much bigger on the inside than it appears. It's my most-used bit of gear - intuitive, inspiring, and sounds amazing.

[strangersound]

This is insanely awesome if you think about what he said at the end. Take 4 of these and build them into an enclosure with flexible connections, routing, and mixing, and you could build an insane synth. Korg is giving you the building blocks and saying go for it. Super cool. :)

[monotrious]

I've Had One Of These Little Fellows On My Gear List For Ages But Still Haven't Got Round To Buying One . After Watching This Episode You Have Convinced Me To Buy One Immediately . Sound Quality Is Great For What It Is And It Will Be Well Worth It . I'm Still Amazed At How Well Put Together And Produced Your Videos Are And This Is No Exception, I Appreciate How Much Work You Put In To Them . Thumbs Up From Me Every Time .

[Trinin]

The NTS-1 has become one of my most important tools in my small setup for recording for sending a signal for stereo processing with the wonderful effects and for producing bass lines, leads, and arps with my DAW as a sequencer. For the money it has probably given me my greatest return.
I have a mid 80s Roland SRV-2000 which I love to pieces, but I find myself using the Korg more often because it takes less time to get a great reverb for whatever instrument I am working with at the time. I have a few other much more expensive synths and plugins that sound top notch. But the little Korg makes it so easy to just plug in and create a solid riff or main melody.
My only beef is that I wish it had an even smaller keys to anger keyboard purists.

[Paul-uyru]

You featuring the synths in the intro get's me every time. I mostly don't notice until you mention it. Keep it up

[nebvchadnezzar]

One of the best gear I bought! It fits great in my studio and the sounds that u can produce with this machine are pretty decent!

[matrixx]

the best part is that you can pop off the top PCB and make your own hardware control surface with a sit ton of knobs that plugs right into it. I made my own. You can also add memory for saving patches and a better screen.

[grouponspeam]

This hundred buck pocket synth really smash the synth world. Not mentioning the tons of customized waveshapes/effects you could load and plenty of tweaking options, the reverb unit inside is incredible. I don't see much difference between it and bigsky. Yep, no saving option is a bigh shame, but if you treat it as a dedicated fx with a mono synth engine, the NTS-1 is really crazy. While Behringer keep cloning the legendary synth, Korg is leading the innovation with so many affordable and powerful products.

[jesseblayney]

I thought this was the best episode of the year, a good review of the Korg dilemma and the all music featured sublime… wait this isn’t a better gear episode

[edwardtang]

Amazing! As a stereotypical Volca and Pocket Operator owner this has been on my to-purchase radar for a long time and if the same instrument came out with Volca or Teenage Engineering level industrial design and save functionality this would be a pretty great addition for my lofi succulent DAW-less jamming.

[felixschmidt]

The music mems in your videos are allway so good! really appreciate that :D

[MCBrainpower]

A truly gourmet reverb... superb meme / OG footage timing

[splode]

Liked immediately for the intro... and then it got even better. Great tracks, have been tempted by one of these for a while...