Manuals for the original MS-20 - these should be useful!

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 7:27 pm

I'm enjoying the iMS-20. I'm very familiar with analog synths so the Control Panel isn't a problem - everything does just exactly what I expect it to do, and once I found you could switch from Rotary to Linear mode in the Global Preferences section it has become instantly much more usable and controllable.

But the patch panel has me baffled - stuff doesn't do what I expect it too, and the help file is nigh on useless, since it doesn't even list what each patch point is for.

But I've been able to find what appear to be the actual original manuals for the genuine MS-20 (and all the others like the MS-10 and the very rare MS-50) http://www.korganalogue.net/korgms/msomans.html

I've not had a chance to really go through them yet, but for the MS-20 there's the full owners manual , which is infinitely more detailed than the woeful iMS-20 on-line help. It should be of great assistance to people struggling to understand what the controls actually do, and how the whole signal flow is configured and all that sort of stuff. Unfortunately it's in HTML, and some of the image links are broken.

The patching section isn't much better than the on-line help, but at least there's a full list of what each patch point does (but no diagram as far as I can see).

There's also a manual of patch settings (should be very useful) and a manual for the External Signal Processor section (but since as far as I know this does nothing except look pretty in the iMS-20, it probably isn't of much use to anyone.)

Of course there's no documentation for any of the features of the iMS-20 that didn't exist in the original MS-20 (KAOSS pads, sequencer, etc).

I've also found a PDF of the MS-20 Owners Manual http://www.synthfool.com/docs/Korg/MS_s ... Manual.pdf It's virtually illegible in much of it, but it might be of some use.

I hope this helps people out in understanding the features and functions of the iMS-20.

Cheers!

WWWerner4Fun · Post by **WWWerner4Fun** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:03 pm

Thanks !

Krog · Post by **Krog** » Thu Jan 06, 2011 8:23 pm

Excellent find. Thanks for posting it

im70 · Post by **im70** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 6:27 pm

This is a great resource! Thanks for posting it. The photos of specific patches are especially enlightening.

outbackyak · Post by **outbackyak** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:53 am

Thanks - I thought this might be useful to some people. If anyone can find a PDF of the VST version, the MS-20 Legacy, that would also be useful too I think.

I've only been able to find one such PDF, and it's on a really dodgy Warez site, so I'm not going there! WOT rates it as the lowest possible "trustworthiness" rating, and I'm not going to risk getting some ghastly trojan just for the manual!

Cheers!

[EDIT: I've just put up a post in the MS-20 Legacy VSTi sub-forum here, asking if anyone can email me a PDF of the manual. Hopefully I'll get some response! ENDEDIT]