Released in 1978 the Korg MS-20 was the 2 oscillator bigger sister of the single oscillator MS-10 & is a patchable semi-modular analog synth. VCO 1 is selectable as triangle, sawtooth, adjustable-width pulse or white noise. VCO 2 can be set to sawtooth, square pulse, narrow pulse, or "ring mod" which is achieved by the sum & difference between VCO 1 & 2, in audible terms it allows the MS-20 to produce that tearing, ringing & rasping type ring mod flavour. The filters are two in series: a 6dB/Octave Hi-pass & a 12dB/Octave Low-pass, both with resonance controls Korg labels as 'Peak'. The VCO Frequency modulation & cutoff frequency of either filter can be modulated by EG-2, the LFO (Modulation Generator in Korg speak) or an external source.
The MS-20 is a classic synth of it's semi-modular vertical console type, encapsulating everything about the design form & the sonic variety such a synth should and can offer.
Original MS-20 synths are rare & costly, but the sound can be had in software plugin form from various companies such as Arturia, Korg themselves & Cherry Audio. For a physical hardware emulation, Korg themselves re-issued the MS-20 in hardware form with their 2013 released MS-20 Mini - so called because Korg choose to scale down the instrument to 86% of it's original size & it has Mini Keys rather than the full sized keys of the original.
The Korg re-release is however as circuit accurate as they could get it and sports a reproduction of the earlier MS-20 iteration KORG 35 filter circuit which is generally considered to be superior to the later OTA filter which for some reason in the Korg MS-20 yielded a somewhat uncharacteristic harsher / thinner sound that the usual 'fat' or 'warm quality OTA filters tended to deliver in most synths. Finally Behringer released their own circuit accurate MS-20 clone the K-2 in 2019 which is the obvious bang for buck option while being absolutely on the money in terms of sound.
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