The original microKORG became a gateway synth for countless musicians, and nearly two decades later Korg decided it was time to give the legend a proper evolution rather than just a refresh. The microKORG 2 takes everything that made the first one special—compact size, intuitive workflow, iconic one-knob genre browsing—and rebuilds the engine from the ground up with significantly more sonic depth.
Under the hood you're getting a virtual analog synth with three oscillators instead of two, eight voices of polyphony in solo mode or four voices when running bi-timbral, and a completely redesigned modulation matrix with six slots for routing. The oscillators can produce saw, square, triangle, and sine waves plus single-cycle waveforms and one-shot samples, with waveshaping and advanced modulation including ring modulation, sync, and FM synthesis. There's a multimode filter with morphing capabilities, two envelopes, two LFOs with one-shot modes, and a configurable noise generator with built-in filtering. The effects section is genuinely useful—three series of modulation, delay, and reverb effects that can be mixed independently, plus a two-band parametric EQ on the output, so you can finish sounds completely in the box without external processing.
The 2.8-inch color display is where the microKORG 2 really shines for workflow. You get real-time visual feedback with animated sliders and knobs, an oscilloscope view, and the ability to see exactly how your edits are shaping the waveform. The 37 mini keys have been redesigned with better spacing between black and white keys for easier chord playing, and the five dedicated edit knobs let you tweak parameters on the fly during performance. Battery power via six AA batteries gives you roughly four hours of unplugged time, and USB-C connectivity handles MIDI and updates.
The vocoder section has been expanded with hard-tune pitch correction and a harmonizer, all fed by a dedicated gooseneck microphone included in the box. There's also a loop recorder for capturing phrases and layering new parts, an arpeggiator, and sequencer functionality.
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