Korg microKORG2

Updated for a new generation, can the microKORG2 live up to the huge success of its predecessor?

The microKORG. Where to begin? With its legion of long‑time users, it’s not the kind of instrument to be upgraded without some serious consideration. And I dare say the time is right: you hardly need me to tell you that the marketplace is now far more congested and competitive than it was in 2002, particularly in the realm of small‑but‑mighty synths. What was once a reliable slam‑dunk year on year for Korg is now in a position where it very much needs to reassert its relevance for fear of being left behind.

The original microKORG managed to slake the needs of two very different parties equally: preset‑flicking users, with an idea of what sound they want but little to no interest in electronic sound sculpting, and then more experienced players needing a convenient instrument with which they can craft and tweak sounds down to a reasonably fine level of detail. Parallel to this was its modest selection of big, accessible physical controls and, above all, a really rather excellent‑sounding DSP analogue‑modelling system ported straight over from the significantly more esoteric MS2000. All of that really constitutes the criteria for this review: if the microKORG2 doesn’t similarly mediate between depth and accessibility, it simply has no raison d’être.

Next In Line

I’ll try to avoid simply listing the differences between the microKORG2 and its predecessor, but in terms of spec it simply offers more, and in almost every way. It doubles the amount of voices from four to eight, and also the capacity for preset storage from 128 to 256. There’s a new sound engine, more effects and more modulation possibilities, more types of arpeggiator, a significantly upgraded vocal processor, and a handful of new features such as the loop recorder.

The panel’s most conspicuous indication of all this, perhaps predictably, is a lush 2.8‑inch colour screen, which immediately upends the traditional microKORG workflow. I should say straight out of the gate that the original microKORG’s workflow was by a mile the weakest thing about it. Assignable knobs clunkily programmed by way of two encoders; a cramped three‑digit, seven‑segment display doing its best to display words, reams of parameters written on the body of the synth itself... it strays perilously close to the likes of the supremely clunky Korg Poly‑800 (tattooed up to the neck with on‑body parameters — though we’ll forgive it, because, well, it was the ’80s), so I’m glad to see the back of most of it.

Here on the microKORG2, though, there is blissfully little text on the body of the thing. “Don’t worry,” goes Korg’s spiel, “it’s all about enhancing your experience, not complicating it.” Glad to hear it. The fundamentals of the microKORG panel remain, of course: five assignable Edit knobs, a large central Program Select dial and a row of big Program buttons. A Mic knob (to adjust level after A‑D conversion) has appeared next to the Volume knob, and of course the centre of the panel has been all but overhauled with the inclusion of the screen. Impressively, despite feeling sturdier and featuring an improved, slightly bigger keyboard, the whole thing is actually slightly lighter than the original.

You’ll be either pleased or dismayed to know that cheesy genre labels still orbit the Program Select dial, though these seem to have been updated for 2025 (to reflect, erm, Korg’s finger on the cultural pulse?), displaying ‘Pop/Rock’, ‘Funk/Soul’, ‘Hiphop/R&B’, ‘House/Disco’, ‘Ambient/Electronica’, ‘Techno/Trance’, ‘DnB/Dubstep’, and ‘Game/SFX’. Then as now, I honestly cannot think of anybody who would seriously choose to organise their sounds as if they were programming muzak; and the moment you start editing those sounds, you’re likely to deviate from...