Every one of them packs so much gear into such a little package. And the legends are all there - Korg Trident, Polysix, PS-3200, Mono/Poly, MS-10/20/50, VC-10... the list goes on and on. It all makes me so happy.
But out of all the gear spread across the three pages, one rather unassuming section of this catalog gets my full attention every time.
THIS:
I can hear you say it... "What? Bags? SOFT BAGS...?!?!?"
But if you look closer, they just aren't just bags. Some of them aren't even just Korg-branded bags. Three of them are PRODUCT BRANDED.
The funky blue bag proudly exclaims in bright yellow that it was specifically made for the LP10 electric piano. It kinda reminds me of my 80's blue and yellow Adidas gym bag I used to lug around. Or maybe that was the colour of my pants? Or shirt? Maybe both.
Anyways... back to those bags. That fire-engine red one? You can see it clearly written that it was designed to hold an X-911 guitar synthesizer.
And, although its hard to make out in the photo, the grey writing underneath the logo on that smaller brown bag at the back says "RHYTHM" - clearly made to carry their KR-55 and/or KR-33 Rhythm drum machine. You can see a photo of a KR55 snuggled right in on Polynomial's KR-55 Web page.
photo from MATRIXSYNTH!
The larger brown bag doesn't say what it was destined to carry in its belly, but I have seen it on MATRIXSYNTH - its made to fit the MS-10 perfectly. Drool.
For me, these bags are right up there with Roland's black and silver TB-303/606 vinyl carry bags. But unlike those bags, I've yet to trip over one of these Korg product bags IRL. In fact, I've only ever seen the red and blue bag in Korg catalogs.
So, if you have one of these bags, I'd love to see a better photo - preferably with an X-911 or LP-10 sitting it 'em.
Korg 1979 (?) General Catalog featuring PS-3300, PS-3200PS-3100 and PS-3010 polyphonic synthesizers, PS-3040 dual foot controller, PS-3050 60p junction box, PS-3001 60p cord, PS-3060 programmer remote controller, MS-10, MS-20,MS-50, Korg Sigma, M-500SP, 800DV, and 770 monophonic synthesizers, SQ-10 analog sequencer, MS-03 signal processor, MS-02 interface, MS-01 foot controller, VC-10 vocoder, PE-2000 and PE-1000 polyphonic emsembles, KA-180 keyboard amplifier, V-C-F effects, Mr. Multi effects pedal, SE-500, SE-300 stage echos, EM-570 echo mixer, SP-2035 speaker system, SM-20 Doncamatic Stageman, Mini Pops 120W and 120P, Mini Pops7, Mini Pops45, Mini Pops35, Mini Pops Junior, Korg Quartz tuning fork, WT-10A and GT-6 guitar tuner, RT-10 rhythm trainer, FK-3 2-channel volume pedal, FK-1 VCF pedal, Type S foot swtich, Type J foot switch, cords, hard cases, soft cases and stands.
Well... that was a mouthful.
I've posted a few vintage Korg general catalogs, including this one from 1984, and this cooler one from 1982, but the one I'm posting today is really really special. This little mini-catalog only measures about 4"x5", but it holds a big space in my heart. And it also holds a wack of juicy vintage Korg products. Unfortunately I couldn't find a print date, but based on the gear promoted (and more about what wasn't promoted) I came to the conclusion it was probably printed in early 1979.
For example, gear released by Korg in 1980 (according to Vintage Synth Explorer's interactive timeline) such as the Korg Trident and X-911 are not listed in the catalog. But the Korg Sigma, released around 1979, is included. Interestingly, other Korg gear released in 1979 like the Lambda and Delta are not included either. Which is why I considered an early 1979 print date for the catalog.
The catalog is tattered and worn - water-damaged to the point that the staples have left rust marks around the binding. But I still treasure it. And I knew that eventually an occasion worthy of such a celebratory posting would finally present itself.
So, what exactly am I celebrating, you ask?
The arrival of my Korg MS20 Mini!
Look over there (yay!) ----->
In fact, this catalog would be a great blue-print for Korg on all the gear they should reissue in their mini resurgence. Please, Korg? Pretty please? :)
You might recall that I also celebrated when Korg first announced the perfectly replicated MS20 Mini last January at NAMM, when I posted a lovely (and in much better condition) Korg MS-10/MS-20/SQ-10 brochure. As time went on after that announcement, rumors of short supplies and slow pre-order deliveries only made me want one more. And made me think that an early possession date was probably not going to happen.
My wishing apparently paid off, because it was with great happiness and surprise that one happened to land in my lap last week. And luckily it fits very nicely on my lap because that is where it will continue to sit until I can find time to rearrange my studio to fit it in. It's small, but not that small.
First-world problems, right?
There are a lot of great things about this mini-catalog. First and foremost, it makes all the products in the catalog look... well... mini. Just like the adorable new Korg MS20 Mini (did I mention I already got mine? :). And I can only hope that there are more Korg Mini products on the way.
Another reason this catalog is fantastic is that it is bilingual - English and what I'm gonna guess is Japanese. Very unique.
The products in the catalog are split up into logical sections, including my favorites - the poly synths, the mono synths (including the original MS20 of course!) and the rhythm machines sections.
It's that rhythm machine section that peaks my interest the most. I've had the opportunity to play on some of those Korg synths, but all of those Mini Pops rhythm machines have continued to elude me. My curiosity with drum machines in general is usually a good eight out of ten, and these Mini Pop machines push it to eleven.
The real problem is that older drum machines are like a drug - they are relatively cheap compared to vintage synths, and take up a lot less room in the studio. My growing drum machine collection is proof of my addiction. No, its not anything near Moby-scale [yet!], but lets just say there has been more than few vintage drum machines popping up locally for very reasonable prices. Can't turn that down.
I honestly didn't even realize the Mini Pops series was so varied until I had finally come across this catalog. I thought there was maybe one or two different machines, tops. Not six. And many of the series are quite different from the others in looks (mmmm... wood panels) and sound. The catalog, in particular, makes the Mini Pops45 sound intriguing: "Original circuitry for natural metallic percussion".
One day I'll finally get my hands on 'em.
But until them, I'll just keep this YouTube video bookmarked :D
Korg "Where's the portamento?" 1-page advertisement from page 25 in Contemporary Keyboard March 1978.
Happy Movember, people! :)
Do you know hard it was to try and line up this ad featuring Kerry Livgren of Kansas sportin' a kick-ass 'stache so it would fall on the last blog post in November? Best thing about that moustache? It has aged like good wine!
When this ad appeared in the March '78 issue of CK, across the pond, UK readers were opening up their March issue of International Musician to find that two-page "Seven hundred and fifty words..." ad I had just blogged about. Although the two appeared at approximately the same time, they couldn't have been more different from each other.
While Korg/Rose-Morris/Hohner were trying a little too desperately to take on the role of "expert" by using valuable advertising space to "educate" UK readers on the basics of sound, Korg/Unicord featured well-known musician Kerry Livgren to help promote Korg synthesizers in the US.
The largest of three photos in that 2-page UK ad? A kid playing a penny whistle. Meanwhile the US ad featured - unsurprisingly - a large photo of Kery Livgren playing a Korg PLS-series synthesizer that also featured a large KORG logo strategically placed in the centre of the instrument in the photo.
Do I need to go on? Needless to say, I'd bet that US ad was probably a lot more effective at both getting readers attention and keeping it.
To be fair - that UK ad was trying to push a lot more instruments in the two-page spread. The 1-page US ad was focusing mostly on Korg's Professional Laboratory Systems (PLS) line of synthesizers. Although, interestingly, the actual models of these synthesizers - the 3300 and 3100 (and possibly the 3200) - are not mentioned directly.
Mistake or not - this wasn't the first kick at the can to get the actual names of the synths in a PLS ad. The first Korg PLS ad that started to appear in CK in October 1977 also didn't mention the synth model numbers.
I find that odd - but, then again, the March UK ad doesn't mention the PLS synthesizers at all. Nothing.
This ad also introduced US reader to the new Micro-Preset synthesizer by Korg - and mentioned that at the time there were 10 products in the Korg product line. My guess is these would include the Maxi-Korg (aka 800dv), 700s, Preset, 770, Synthebass, Ensemble P (aka Poly Ensemble 1000) and Ensemble S (aka Poly Ensemble 2000), Micro-Preset, 3100 and 3200.
US readers could consider themselves even more lucky - because it wasn't just in ads that readers could find info on the PS-series synths. Well before this ad or even the first PLS ad ran in CK, the July/August 1977 issue of Synapse featured a small promo for the two synths in the "What's Happening" section on page 40 that included a lot of good reference material like list prices.
"Two new polyphonic synthesizers have been released by Unicord Inc. The Korg PS3100 is a fully polyphonic synthesizer in which each note has it's own VCF and VCA. Six waveforms are available from the Modulation Generator and a Polyphonic Same and Hold is also featured. Unlike most polyphonic synthesizers, patching is allowed on the face panel. The PS3100 lists for $2995. The Korg PS3300 is a modular polyphonic system composed of three PSU-482 modules featuring signal processors, low pass filters, envelope modifiers, resonators, amplitude modulator, and two modulation generators. The PSU-483 module features mixer with VCA, sample and hold, envelope generator and voltage processors. As with the PS3100, patching is allowed and many inter-connections are possible between the two systems. The PS3300 lists for $7500 with remote keyboard"
Contemporary Keyboard also included a Spec Sheet promo on the PS3100 in the December 1977 issue (why not include the PS3300?!) that also included some good reference info:
"Korg Polyphonic Synthesizer. Capable of producing separate envelopes for each of its 48 notes, the PS 3100 polyphonic synthesizer is modular in construction. Waveforms available are triangle, sawtooth, and pulse in four frequency ranges: 2', 4', 8' and 16'. An external pulse width modulation control input and a frequency modulation control input are supplied. Two modulation oscillators, a filter section, a polyphonic sample & hold, a voltage processor bank, and an envelope generator section are included on this unit. The 48-note eyboard features selectable single or multiple triggering. Unicord 75 Frost St, Westbury, NY 11590."
But don't fret - it would only be another four months before UK readers would get some
news on the PS3100 and 3300 in another two-page Rose-Morris ad that ran in the July 1978
issue of IMRW.
That ad is on deck for the next blog post! :)
Long end note: If you recall the end of my last blog post,
I pointed out there were three logos at the bottom of that ad and I was
trying to find the connection between them - Korg, Rose-Morris and
Hohner. I knew Rose-Morris was a distributor of Korg, but what was
Hohner doing in there? Turns out I found the answer quite by accident in
a Korg WT-10A tuner ad that also appeared in that March 1978 (UK) issue
of International Musician and Recording World on page 202.
A
lot of ads in this UK magazine were actually paid for by the
distributors of the products - unlike in the US where most synth ads
seemed to have come directly from the companies themselves. Early on,
Korg tended to let their distributors do the talking. Like for these
Contemporary Keyboard ads from Unicord for the Polyphonic Ensembles and MaxiKorg. In the UK, I knew that Rose-Morris was often responsible for the Korg ads that appeared in IMRW.
In
the case of that Korg WT-10A tuner ad I mentioned above, Korg looks to
have paid for the ad because at the bottom it includes a list of all of
their distributors - I doubt a distributor would include their
competition in their own ads. These include CBS Musical Instruments in
Australia, Erikson Music in Canada and Unicord in the US. But in the UK
it looks like they have TWO distributors - Rose-Morris and M. Hohner!
So,
here I was coming down hard on Rose-Morris for that two-pager, when in
fact, it looks more likely that Korg probably paid for the ad
themselves, and included *both* of their UK distributors logos -
Rose-Morris and Hohner logos.
The other explanation is that Hohner and Rose-Morris paid for the ad together (again - can't see this happening).
Either
way - my apologies to Rose-Morris! My frustration should have been
distributed equally to Rose and Hohner - or to Korg itself. :)
Korg General Catalog, Electronic Musical Instruments, Volume 1, 1982.
This was a total surprise.
I had already pretty much finished my blog post for the Korg "...we put it all together" family of products ad from the January 1982 issue of Keyboard Magazine, when I went back to re-check something. I pulled a different copy of that January issue off the shelf, and wouldn't you know it, stapled into the centrefold of that ad was this miniature Korg catalog.
We are talking 10 juicy pages of Korg products (well, 8 pages, plus a cover and mailing label), folded down to just under 7 x 10 inches. And, unlike in the two-page ad where Korg was a little more limited by space, this catalog contains not only three pages of photos of all their current product line-up, but another three pages of all the reference info for those products - over 25 of 'em! An historical reference gold mine.
I've scanned and posted the front side of the catalog as single pages, but merged the back pages into two larger scans due to the way text and images flowed between the pages.
That front cover of the catalog is very intriguing to me. I'm always trying to figure out what the designer was thinking at the time they were creating ads and brochures - especially those with staged photos. In this case, someone decided that the front cover theme should be a humid terrarium of some sort, with the reader wiping away the droplets of water to see in to... the... er... plants and synthesizers. But wait! If the reader wiped the glass of the terrarium, that would mean it was really humid outside the terrarium. Or, maybe it was just raining outside. And the wet observer is creeping around someone's window...
Gah. Whatever. The effect is still nice. And it's always nice to stick something organic like a plant into a synthesizer ad. A nice touch.
The centrefold ad that accompanied this magazine mentions that you could send away for a full colour catalog. And since this catalog includes a mailing address page, I'm betting this was, in fact, the catalog being referred to in the ad - and included in the January issue of Keyboard as an extra. Excellent work, Korg!
Where it gets really interesting is comparing this 1982 catalog to the one Korg put out in 1984. In particular, it is interesting to see just how many products were still available. Only two new polyphonics became available in those two years - the Poly-800 and Poly-61. But in Korg's defense, they did update the Trident, as well as expand other areas of the business as can be seen in the piano/organs and rhythm/sound effects sections of that '84 catalog. Also interesting is how Korg was definitely increasing the plastic-to-wood ratio.
But the absolutely crazy-coolest thing about this catalog is the "Possible Connections" section located underneath all those lovely Korg accessories. I love diagrams, and I guess Korg was making their point: "We put it all together". And now I know my MS-20 will work with an MS-02.
Korg Electronic Music Instruments General Catalog from 1984.
We interrupt my ongoing fetish for everything that is "E-70 organ"-like for this special scan.
Somehow, back in the day, I chucked this Korg catalog sheet into a box with a wack of other papers, all of which then quickly became lost for the next decade or two.
Then, just a short time ago, I was digging through some old boxes with a friend to show off some Moog modular "patch" sheets that included handwritten instructions from Bob Moog, and remembered I had this.
Wow. What a great summary of Korg's electronic products - all beautifully laid out within two pages. That's one jam-packed time capsule.
What I find most fascinating is how it so clearly demonstrates the design transition the synth industry was going through in the early to mid-80s. From the dino-3200 to the futuristic Poly-800. From knobs and jacks to buttons and digital displays. Wood paneling to plastic.
And how about that PME-40x "modular" pedal board? How cool is that?!?!? To think all of this was available in 1984.
It's also nice to be able to see what wasn't available. In particular, I'm talking about one of my favorite pieces of gear - the KMS-30 MIDI syncronizer. It's the glue that ties together most of my 80's XOX gear to my 2005 computer :o)
But, alas, the KMS-30 wasn't available until later. Too bad - would have looked nice in this little catalogue.
The funky blue bag proudly exclaims in bright yellow that it was specifically made for the LP10 electric piano. It kinda reminds me of my 80's blue and yellow Adidas gym bag I used to lug around. Or maybe that was the colour of my pants? Or shirt? Maybe both.
