Korg's Weird Joystick Synth
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- Опубликовано: 9 июл 2024
- A look at the Korg Σ (Sigma / KP-30) from 1979, a rare and strange monophonic performance synthesizer with two joysticks.
We discuss its features and history and listen to its suprising sound.
Gear used:
Korg Σ (1979)
Korg MS-20 Mk I (1978)
Korg KR-55B (1982)
Korg KPR-77 Samples (1983)
Korg DDM-110 (1985)
Korg SQ-1 (2015)
Seekers Voice Spectra Vocoder (00s)
Squier Jagmaster Vista (1997)
Evans Sound Creator Nova 400 (70s)
If you enjoyed the music and/or wanted to support me in making future videos then the outro song from this video can be bought here: alexball.bandcamp.com/track/k...
Thanks
Social & My Music:
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/ alexballmusic
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0:00 Opening Jam
1:02 The Korg Sigma
1:53 Demo 1: The Joy of Sticks
2:30 Demo 2: Your Host This Evening
2:49 The Tone Sections
3:49 Demo 3: XXX
4:30 Demo 4: Klang!
5:01 Effects
7:31 Context & Summary
8:16 Contextual Demonstration 
Видеоклипы
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the end track and/or want to support me in making videos like this, please check it out here.
alexball.bandcamp.com/track/korg-sigma-sun-stars
Thank you!
Ow yes! I really like this track at the end :) Thanks!
Done and done. I hope you continue making bits like this after you are recruited into the cinema and theme writing industry!
@@jerometv7637 Thanks!
@@flounderguts Much appreciated!
My mate played a Delta for years,
He was renowned for employing both hands on the keyboard and moving the joystck with his Nose !! ...
Forty odd years on and we still have a laugh about Nosing the Delta ... 👃
He nose what he's doing.
I used to use that trick, in at least two bands I was in! Great way to get a pitch bend with no hands free. If you buy a keyboard from a keyboard player, always wipe the pitch bend control with disinfectant. :D
The nose knows.
the Delta is a great string machine!
You sure he wasn't, err, sniffing up something? How's his nose? Needed reconstructive surgery?
Years ago: came for the gear, still here for the music. This guy could make a fire alarm sound good.
Thanks for sticking around!
@@AlexBallMusic You too, My Friend.
@@retro-dademusic6403 ...I came here for the synth docs, but he really hooked me when he sang that song last year that reminded me so much of "money makes the world go 'round".
@@retro-dademusic6403 what happened to the instagram page?
@@sliccricc1654 became too overwhelming 😕
Guten Tag!!!
Ja servus
Guten Tag 😀
Gluten free?
@@graxjpg 😅
"I wanna know if it can deliver on this post-punk, electro-jive, prog-funk jam".
a piece of little known trivia, geert van schlanger used this on the music for the video "two schticks is better than one"
And it’s sequel “2 schticks in each Chick”
You make that crazy old thing sound amazing and edgy and retro at the same time.
Thanks. Certainly some gnarly sounds in that thing, as well as some comical ones!
3:50 it's like the music played in the evil guy's club in a cheezy 80s movie.
Got the popcorn. When does this movie start?
I played one of these in 1987 when they were really out of vogue. Great demo tunes but I really like that little 15/8 diddy in the middle. Cheers.
The Sigma began life out of vogue and then ran with it!
15/8 is a fitting time signature for such an oddball synth.
Cheers!
@@AlexBallMusic - I am certain that I heard this thing in some of those early 80's new wave punk synth bands... love those old synths. Someone should map out the sounds so they can be run in the new Midi/USB boards generically available today. What a treasure.
Somehow it felt like the quirkiest synth to date. And I loved it!
I think an arcade machine and an organ got freaky.
What a masterpiece of a synth! Oh, and that's 2432902008176640000 combinations :)
It is actually 1,048,576. That's not even a joke.
@@AlexBallMusic Correct, 1,048,576 is number of discrete combinations of the 20 switches, same as 20 bits of information in binary.
This has to be the most "Japanese sounding" synth that I've ever heard. Nice review! Thanks for sharing.
Quite like the MS-20 combined with something else. Quite weird.
But yeah, Japanese for sure!
Hey Alain! Been a long time. We chatted a bit back in the day on the Moog forums and collaborated a couple times. Cool bumping into you again!
@@kgbinfo
Hello there Kenneth! Hope that you are well? Yes, back in the days of my Moog Old School and you had a Voyager, if I'm not mistaken? Glad to see that you still love synths! Cool indeed!
It's what I've loved about Korg, they've made some odd ball synths over the years but that's what makes them unique. Great demo as usual.
Yep, probably my favourite thing about Korg.
its true, they are innovative, but, usually when ive gotten their gear, im dissapointed at the end of the day. But, ive only bought the oddball stuff, never a full size keyboard, bigger synth or something.... almost was going to get one of those new touch capacitance keyboards i think microkorg. because id like a synth that does synthesizer sounds of its own, that has CV output at the same time. since i own a modular. i thought that would be pretty cool. but i heard of some problems with the touch keys on that thing.
I bought one of these off a couple of hippies for 40 quid in the 80s. it was mint. They claimed it had too many magical powers for them to cope with. Wish I still had it. Very strange obscure synth. So glad you are demoing these old Korgs.
Now here's a synth we're definitely not going to be seeing cloned by Behringer anytime soon 🤔
Haha. Yeah, not clone material.
Let's hope the SK30 does
"Rick Wakeman played one."
Rick Wakeman played everything.
What a fascinatingly weird little beast. I love the cutoff filter joystick. I bet it was used for effects and scoring in many 70s sci-fi movie soundtracks. Or maybe Turkish knockoff 70s sci-fi movie soundtracks.
This is outstanding. Every time I think I've seen and heard and played 'em all, Alex, you pull another obscure machine out of retirement.
Yeah, Wakeman did a Reverb shop last year and he did have bloomin' everything. There was a Sigma in there.
Goodness only knows what (if anything) the Sigma was used on. Quite possibly the Turkish sci-fi machine!
He had a Trident which I lusted over for many years. The price is way out of my league now. I think he was/ is sponsored by Kong
Full Bucket Music makes nice emulations of Korg vintage synths and I'm pretty sure this one is included as well.
I'm in love with "Your Host This Evening"
We need an accompanying game show for it.
@@AlexBallMusic Would it be cool if I recorded a jazzy cover of the tune?
This has to be one of my favorite Korg Synths! I just love expressivity.
Yeah, designed for performance I guess.
Ah, once more my day is brightened by another of your fantastic videos. I always come away from your reviews feeling happy - duei n no small part to the amazing tracks you record with the synths. Salute!
I'm always so happy to see a new post by you!
Thank you!
Great vid, very interesting synth, thank you Mr Ball.
So you play guitars, keys, violin, double bass etc. Pretty impressive. I'll be checking out your music. Say hi to Geert!
Hi Mischter Arsetoni.
What a great sounding synth! All the music you made with it in this video was excellent. Kudos.
Thanks!
After Rick Wakeman got sponsored by Korg, he left all his Minimoog's at home and used 2 of these for solos and melody lines in his live performances instead.
I really love this format of yours. Short video on a half forgotten, yet interesting piece of gear and some music to go with it.
Thanks Jakob, I've been experimenting with it so that's good to hear.
Great video I love your channel ❤️
Always entertaining!
Thanks for tuning in.
Awesome demo and outro music yet again!
Thanks!
Love the playing and preso, as always, dude!
Thanks John!
Alex always has the coolest original music in his videos. Thanks now I want one of these rare unobtainable synths.
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.
Your videos make me happy.
Thanks!
Alex, this is one of your greatest ever. the song at the end is so unbelievably awesome. you are a gem my friend.
As always superb presentation Alex! Such a cool sounding synth! Loving it! Vintage Korg is just amazing!!!
Yeah nice grubby sound to their 70s stuff, in a good way. So much fun.
Another amazing video!! The music you did for this one was off the rails cool!! Brilliant!!
Thank you Todd!
Always really enjoy your sound selections Alex good on ya
Thank you!
Wow! That was a nice journey back to my youth. I grew up in a small town with a small music gear shop. It offered a collection of the most requested instruments in such villages. In case of synths there were in fact just three of them: a Korg MS-20, something from Crumar which I don't remember exactly and - of course - one Korg Sigma. The owner of the shop had no clue of these instruments but he allowed me sometimes to explore them and the Sigma was truly my favourite. However I could'n afford it these days since I was young and still saving money for my bike. Great to see that the Sigma is not completely forgotten and that there's at least one still operational. By the way: on my Mac I have also the Fullbucket Stigma installed which is a (VST/AU) simulating the KORG Sigma. Thank you for the video.
The most requested instruments were the MS-20, Sigma and a Crumar! Well, well, well.
What was the most popular local music?
In fact I don't think that synths in general had anything to do with the mainstream music in this town. This shop mainly sold acoustic guitars, brass instruments, entertainer organs and so on for tradional folky stuff. The owner surely just offered these synths to complete his portfolio and I assume he choose them just because of their pricing against brands like Moog, ARP etc. Another small anecdote: the MS-20 came accomplished by an SQ-10 but the shop owner was newer able to get it to work because "this thing was for professionals only". 😄
It looks like a well used but well loved beauty. Great music Alex ☺️☺️
Cheers Dervish!
Alright, but that opening jam. That was actually too cool. Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go watch it about 37 more times.
EDIT: After watching the entire video, I can confirm that you can make anything sound incredible. Ending song was absolutely wild.
Doesn't sound like it looks! Quite the oddball synth.
Or should that be synthe?
sounds a lot like depeche mode. bet martin gore has one of these...
wish Korg would re-release crazy stuff like this. Awesome outro song btw!
I played an Arp Pro Soloist in my 80's band in college. I kinda had a hard time using the key pressure for pitch bending - it definitely takes practice. This is an awesome video, by the way, and thank you for that! Best vintage keyboard channel on RUclips. I get fired up any time you put out a new video. Wonderful stuff.
Yeah, if you're not used to it, it's too easy to accidentally engage it. Or it's too easy to not quite apply the right pressure.
A bit like learning to bend strings on a guitar I guess.
What an awesomely bonkers machine, and kind of unique sounding too. Great stuff :-)
Yep, quite to goofball!
The synth is pretty weird too.
Your demo parts are really inventive Alex, and transcend loads of styles 👍
Thank you!
Good job Alex. Well done.
Thanks Ian.
That Sigma was a pleasant surprise to say the least. I had to listen to the closing piece a few times for everything to sink in. Second hand values just soared because all of those sounds are relevant today.
Glad you enjoyed it. There doesn't seem to be much of a second hand market as there's too few around.
Love, truly madly deeply, the quirky time signatures used in these tracks :) 7/4 really is a trip :) and the 8/8, 7/8 earlier had me wondering precisely where in the universe I was at that moment! Well played, in all the possible (overwhelmingly positive) ways that may be taken
This odd synth demands odd time.
I love the track at the end very much, especially the dissonant parts. Nice! 🤩
Thanks. Always nice to add a bit of crunch.
Brilliant as always :-)
Thank you my good man.
a lot of tremendous track ideas inside! :)
I had the chance to get one in 1998 for around $ 75 and missed it. I didn't know too much about vintage equipment at that time, but I don't regret it. Right after I bought a Juno-106 that made a big difference in my learning to synthesizer programming. Anyway, the Sigma is a very unique machine, with very unique features and a very unique appearance.
It's a great little weirdo, but a Juno-106 was the way to go!
Yet again another video proving that Mr. Alex Ball can make any instrument-no matter how obscure, rare, or oddball-sound freakin’ amazing! Great video!
Cheers. I could try making music with a kazoo and a loan castanet, but I feel the synth helps. ;)
Joysticks are really cool. It so interesting to see them on older all in one synthesizers. Great video!
Appeals to the kid in us I guess. I went straight for the joysticks!
fantastic sounds!
Wow this takes me back. This was my first synth which I had in my late teens, bought second hand from a colleague in the early 80s. I remember in that a couple of the rocker switches were physically damaged, still worked though, if you knew how to press them 🙂. Didn't realise at the time they were a limited edition. I wanted a poly synth so when funds allowed I let this one go and upgraded to a new Roland Juno 6. Which I still have.
Korg went nuts with joysticks in the 80s, but came back to the classic pitch/ mod wheel by late 80s. I've even seen a controller keyboard recently with dual joysticks- some have not learned obviously!
Wasn't expecting that video sequence near the end. Lol. Great stuff!
Wheel out a bit of obscure Japanese TV to accompany the weird synth. :)
@@AlexBallMusic well played
Sounds awesome as always Alex!!
Thanks Peter. Yeah, it only had a brief moment of exposure before it was retired.
Nice, Alex. That ending was bizarrely fun :)
Parts of it sounded like an old "In Search Of" intro theme music cassette tape that had been unwound a few times. Pretty sure I saw Bigfoot.
I had one thatI sold to a friend, so it's still in the family. The pressure keyboard combined with the ring mod makes it go from sweet to shreik in a most delightful way!
Yes! All about the ring mod.
This is really nice!
Alex, hello!
Thank you, I wasn't familiar with this synthesizer until this day. It was laconic!
Special thanks for the finale.
Thanks Serge.
Oh yes, the Sigma. Beautiful instrument! Never played one in real life though, but Full Bucket Music has made a free emulation of the Sigma, a swell as quite a lot of other Korg emulations. 😀
Oh is there? I wondered if anybody had bothered doing that.
@@AlexBallMusic Bjorn there has done his version of the Delta, the Trident, PS-3100/3200/3300, Poly 800, VC-10 and Mono/Poly. Well worth checking out I think.
@@baward Thank you!
Yeah, the Full Bucket Audio recreations are awesome. Well worth checking out. 👍
Came to the comments to see if anyone had mentioned Stigma. As with all of Bjorn's plug-ins, Stigma is a very faithful recreation of the original, with loads of bonus extras such as preset parameter tweaking and polyphony.
Just plain brilliant!
I usched thisch schynth on Chitty Chitty Wang Wang.
Or was it schticky schticky poon tang?
Didn’t you also use it on the soundtrack to “Analize This” Geert?
how did I miss this insane video? that thing sound INSANE. I hope Behringer does a clone on this before I die, with tons of mods added to it.
Ah, the 70, decade of prog and other kinds of madness. Love it! :D
Awesome compositions, Alex!
Gute Nacht!
Guess there is some prog hangover in this thing now you say it.
Rare and strange but makes a kind of sense when you look at what came later. Even my Novation Xiosynth has both a joystick and an xy pad for controlling parameters.
When I first got my Korg DW-8000, the first sound, I twiddled it’s joystick and knew it was a keeper!
Hopefully I'll try one of those at some point.
That was one of my favorite sounding synths I grew up with while learning to play and program as a youngster.
A peculiar one to learn on no doubt!
Wow! Really cool synth
That last jam was lovely :). I love hearing time signatures that slam like that, amazing :).
A synth as weird as the Sigma is asking to be played in odd time.
Cool synth, totally overlooked the Sigma for over 40 years lol. Thanks for sharing your amazing demo skills :-)
Yeah, looks like an organ, doesn't sound like you'd expect!
Great stuff!!
Cheers Clemens.
My week just got better! Looking forward to a lambda or trident video!
Would love to do those if I can.
Brilliant as ever Alex. I can imagine back in the 70s, Geert making sexy music with two joysticks.
I agree with Elsinore Bennet, you do make that crazy old things sound amazing. Alex you videos are like 3 for 1 they're enjoyable and they're about synths and there's a song in there somewhere. That was very enjoyable. Thank you...............
Thanks Tony, nice to hear!
Super cool!!! Great music too!
Thank you!
The sounds are amazing.
love it!
These reviews are SO inspiring. I want to switch on my gear and do some music NOW! (too bad I'm in bed at the moment)
I like your jam with this!
I remember seeing something like this unit once at a radio shack as a kid, and was entranced by the oddness of the joysticks! I think it might have been a casio??? This tickles my Tron sfx loving glands in a huge way.
Amazing synth!!!
Guten Tag und vielen Dank für den schönen Klang!
🇩🇪👍
Some wicked bass sounds. A real gem of a synth.😎👍👍👍✌✌
Yeah, detuned oscillators hard panned is ace. Can't think of many 70s monos that allow for that.
I'd forgotten this thing ever existed. Thank you! Not actually heard it demonstrated before... of all the weird old synths I've seen on RUclips, I think this has one of the most characteristic sounds. Amazing! And that ring mod does *sound* like cross mod to me, but I'm no engineer, so don't take my word for it.
As a microtonal-curious student of the weird, the quarter tone thing really excited me at first. It's a shame it only works after you hold down an initial key though - but I think the brass trills were an excellent way to use it.
Quite the oddball isn't it!
The "ring mod" is not quite a full ring mod, others have explained in the comments after looking at the schematic. I'll have to dig back for the explanation as I've already forgotten.
Quarter tone - I wonder if it only works that way due to some trick in the keybed, like the ARP duophony thing. Does seem an odd way to implement it, so I wonder if they stumbled across it and made it a feature.
@@AlexBallMusic Thanks - I'll check out the ring mod comments shortly.
Making features out of accidents is a tried and tested design approach :)
that just blew my mind, and i'm an old analog guy! thanks so much for this killer demo of this amazing and unsung synth!
Thanks. Glad to have still surprised an experienced analog connoisseur!
You have mastered the scheme, Ball!
Your audio mixing sounds massive on all devices.
Good to know! Cheers.
@@AlexBallMusic As someone who is listening to this video on the most decrepit laptop speakers ever, i can attest to what this guy is saying.
Even on a mobile, Sounds super fat
Guten Tag, tolles Video! The Sigma was my first analog monophonic synthesizer in 2005 and I used it very often as a performance synthesizer for the live gigs of my retro progressive rock band. His big advantages are this cool ring modulator and that you can combine all (!) of the presets. But the overall sound is rather metallic and thin compared to the Roland SH-2000 which has very similar performance features and presets plus a warmer, minimoog-like sound. Keep up your extraordinary videos!!
Yeah, quite a klanger this one! But it can be quite beefy at times.
Hopefully I'll try the SH-2000 at some point. It has the Moog infringing filter in it, so that explains it!
Absolutely brilliant. In 11 minutes of this 'synth demo', there's more creativity and good tunes than in the last 11 years of 'chart' music... and even most stuff played on Radio 6 at the moment, which tells you a lot...
Wow, this thing sounds amazing, gritty goodness!
Yeah, quite the surprise!
It must feel spine tinglingly awesome to own and play vintage synths especially in the rare variety!!!🤘🎹🤘
This one is just passing through, but it definitely feels spine tinglingly awesome nonetheless!
That's some gnarly tunes you're coaxing out of this thing. And it sounds surprisingly rich and fat.
Yep, surprising is the word. Sounds nothing like it looks.
Brilliant! :-)
Thanks alex. Pretty happy you are doing odd synths. There are a ton out there for you to do. Getting tired of jupiter demos et al.
Thanks Michael, glad to be able to supply the weirdess.
Although, a couple of Jupiters are actually lined up for videos. 😬
Cool 🔥🤟🔥 that is super awesome 💯
Actually never heard of the sigma before. Such a great surprise - and that tune at the end, I mean.. damn! 🤘
I guess it's largely forgotten and it doesn't look like a synth, so nobody talks about it.
You make that weird amazing quirky synth sing
Man, Alex.... watching your videos is either inspiring or demoralizing. On the one hand, I aspire to create as incredible material as you do, yet on the other hand, I don't see that ever happening lol. You do what I'd love to do - acquire vintage synths, make fantastic videos with them featuring the music you made on them. I don't know how you can afford them, or what your primary means of income is that allows you to do stuff like this, but that's also none of my business. Still, you make even the cheesiest divide-down Korgs sound fresh and modern without even the slightest hint of old. I always end up with very old, vintage style sounds, even when I'm trying for modernity. I always enjoy your videos!
Cheers Adam. You're very modest btw, my playing is pretty Mickey Mouse compared to yours.
To answer your question, I don't own many of the synths that I feature. They're just passing through. That's a story unto itself and is possibly more annoying to hear than if I just had a massive pile of cash (which I don't).
To that end, I've got some absolute stonkers lined up this year, fingers crossed. Trying to make hay whilst the sun shines.
@@AlexBallMusic I'm modest, but you're saying your playing is Mickey Mouse? It's more your compositional skills that I admire, I suppose. The melodies and rhythms are one thing, but your choice of sounds as well. Are you classically trained?
@@AdamBorseti Thanks Adam. I'm a guitarist really, I'm not a keyboard player, but I can work around my limits I guess.
Yes, I have a degree in music composition. Was definitely worth doing way back when, helped immensely.
Have you studied music formally?
I played one back in the early 80's in a music store. Never quite got my head around it and never seen one again until today. All weird synths will come to Alex sooner or later :)
Ditto!
Welcome back to the early 80s in that case! Still as weird as it was then.
Late to the party as usual, but thanks for yet another cool demo Alex! I have a friend that consider this synth a must for his sound. To me, it's charming but not enough to make me want one, just like an old uncle of mine. He smells weird, and although he's friendly and inviting, I don't visit very often.... Cheers!
Hey Espen. Yep, quite the oddball. Some really cool sounds in there though, which is suprising considering that it looks like a bit of furniture.
I got one of these. I love it to the moon and back