From Alex Ball.
A look at the reissue of the mysterious Korg PS-3300, first released in 1977, along with some history about it and footage of its creator, Fumio Mieda.
Huge thanks to Korg for letting me snaffle their prototype to make this video and for letting use some of their interview footage.
NOTE – Korg have asked that I make it clear that this unit is their working prototype and that the release date and price of production units is still to be finalised at the time of uploading and that they will announce that officially themselves in due course. Thanks for your understanding.
0:00 Intro Jam
1:38 A little history
3:54 Demo 1
4:53 Overview
7:38 Resonators
10:50 Temperament Adjust
14:35 Semi Modular Polyphony
15:08 Demo 2
16:22 Legacy
17:58 Demo 3
18:39 Summary
19:34 Outro Jam
PS details:
The nerdy details that I didn’t expressively cover in the video are as follows:
The output section has discrete outputs for each channel, but there’s an S-Trig controlled switch for each, so they can be sequenced on and off, (as well as just switched on and off).
They’ve added a balanced main/mono output at the end, the original had x2 unbalanced/mono mix outputs.
There’s two CV inputs to control the overall level of all channels simultaneously. One is pre the channel switches and the other is post.
There’s 2×4 junctions (mults).
There’s a sample and hold circuits with input, output and clock speed. The ‘syncro’ control locks the S&H frequency to the wave cycle of a sampled voltage.
The General Envelope Generator (GEG) is a single envelope with Delay, Attack and Release times. There’s two trigger inputs, an auto switch and three outputs; inverted, non-inverted bipolar and non-inverted unipolar.
There is one voltage processor (the original had two, but MIDI has replaced one on the reissue). There’s an input and output and two limiters with a -/+5v range each.
The keyboard has a lot of controls! Firstly, a damper output. Next comes an S-Trig output with an associated trigger select knob (off, 1 – 5). Like the ‘Silence note trigger select’ I discussed in my Trident video, this is the number of keys you need to hold down before a trigger is fired.
Next, there are trigger outputs for both detached and legato playing (aka single, multiple). There are then three trigger outputs with switches (an obvious thing is to use these to control the three channel switches in the output section). There’s then a momentary switch with trigger output, aftertouch CV (an update) and a joystick (‘X-Y Manipulator’) with X and Y trimmers for CV level.
The updates include patch memory (originally found on the PS-3200), which also saves temperaments. There’s USB to dump in and out patches and temperaments. MIDI in/out/thru have been added, as has channel after touch with a CV output in the keyboard. The original was 48 key, the reissue is 49 too. The envelope generators have been simplified to ADSR and the old damping control is now in the keyboard. There’s also a balanced mix out, as discussed above. The unit is as wide as the original, but slightly shorter and a lot thinner (the original was about 40cm deep!)
