Korg Modwave Review

I recently picked up a Korg Modwave for the purpose of review. I’m a huge fan of wavetable software synths, and on paper this one comes pretty close to looking like a hardware version of Serum. I was rather surprised by a few of the features on this synth, and even had my mind changed about the utility of the “Kaoss Physics” pad on the front panel. I was honestly incredibly impressed by this synth, but mostly for reasons I did not anticipate, though there are still some choices made in the design that I’m not personally the biggest fan of.
I went into the Modwave expecting to make the most of the “wave” portion of that name, but came out thrilled by the “mod” prefix. If you’re at all interested in creating generative music and don’t care about wavetables, synthesis or filters, please at least skip ahead to the Modulation portion of this article as this is the true potential of this instrument. However with that said, I did enjoy aspects of the sound engine enough to consider keeping this synth as one of my favorites.

Build/UI: I’ve already reviewed the build of the Opsix, Modwave is mostly the same, just significantly more control laden and “synth” looking. As much as I love the cp1919 graphic Joy Division album cover, I’d rather not have the front panel of a synth covered with the a 3d wavetable pattern. It does however transition neatly into the ribbed beveled edge pattern, a strange choice over all, but luckily it’s not nearly as distracting as I anticipated.
The knobs all have a nice smooth feel and the digital engine registers value changes with a fair degree of precision, if you need more precision you can use the main encoder to dial the last parameter by decimal values. Nearly every control has a shift control, doubling the front panel in terms of controls. You can even double click “shift” to lock it, which almost feels like a second page for the front panel. 

The modwave requires a bit more menu diving than the Opsix ironically enough, while the Opsix only has 6 main encoders, every menu page utilizes them to their full extent, where the Modwave only has one menu encoder
meaning anything that ins’t handled on the front panel must be accessed via page buttons. On top of this, adjusting front panel controls often takes over the menu UI, meaning a lot of navigation back and forth. The Modwave does make up for this in some ways with its clever routing system, simply activate routing mode with “shift + page >” turn a control, then click or adjust a modulation source to link them up, hit enter, and adjust the depth.
On the topic of UI, I’d say navigating presets isn’t the most intuitive, the only way I’ve found to initialize my sounds was to scroll off and back on to the “init” preset performance. Also it’s worth mentioning, this synth has a rather long loading screen when you turn it on, which can sort of take you out of the immersion hardware normally excels  at.

For example, saving a single preset is rather tedious, taking upwards of 9 button presses on top of actually dialing in the name via the encoder and page arrows.
This aspect of the UI pops up everywhere, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to copy and paste sequencer steps and many other options are a juggle between page buttons and encoder
to really get the most out of this synth you have to do a fair amount of menuing, it’s not something I mind too much if done well, but it really could spell the difference between using this synth daily or programming a bank of presets in a sitting one day and just using those as I see fit

Oscillators: The wavetable engine on the Modwave is quite impressive for hardware, but somewhat lacking if we compare to software. This is to be expected, but I do wish there was Just a bit more.
First of all, you can import your .wav wavetable samples. I imported my entire 250 wavetable pack with no issues and they all sound great. Being able to import user wavetables via the .wav format we’ve come to love from synths like Vital and Serum, is almost worth the price of admission. It’s just so much fun to scan my favorite tables with hardware controls, though I haven’t yet compared to see if there’s any quality or resolution reduction.
Just like software WT synths, there is a “morph” control, allowing you to stretch, sync, mirror, and fm* (Osc 2 only) your wavetables. Additionally there is a static “mod” effect that can change the over all harmonic structure of the loaded table in subtle ways. Serum’s “Squarify” mode can be found here in the first option “Odd Only”
Each Osc also has an A/B mode, allowing you to crossfade between 2 tables for some interesting additional movement. When you consider “Layers” A and B and that each Osc can hold 2 tables, you can essentially load a total of 8 tables simultaneously per “performance” preset.

*FM: The fm isn’t great, it seems to filter the wavetable down into a sine wave before applying FM from Osc 1, however it does retain Osc 1’s shape entirely. Considering how noisy FM can get with complex waves, you may consider this a bonus, but I felt it was important to mention

And finally each Osc can also work in sample mode, a fairly simple sample engine with very few options, but a massive collection of samples to choose from. Everything from pianos, to drums, to strings and choirs and all sorts of various waveforms.

Filter: After the Osc section, comes the filter section, which I’ll come right out and say, lacks comb filters. I absolutely love comb filters, and they feel missing here, especially considering how close it’s been to Software counterparts so far.
If there was any update I’d want for this synth, it’d be comb filters. With that out of the way, there are quite a few options, the Polysix and MS-20 filters both sound great and are full of character, and with the multi filter you can combine nearly any standard filter types to get some interesting results, but there’s a significant lack of frequency control meaning you can’t create custom spreads.

Effects: The effects are odd, this is where you come to find out how much the Modwave relies on its software editor to hold its hand. The effects are all selected via presets, you get a few controls you can access from the effects menus, but the majority of the juicy fun parameters are locked behind the software editor. The mod effects are fairly basic, the delays are simple, and there’s essentially 2 reverb algorithms. The reverb sounds rather pleasant, especially when you get into the editor controls and design your own you can get some incredibly long dense lush ambiences, it’s just a shame these controls are tucked behind the editor.

The Master EQ controls luckily are all available via menu options at least
I almost wonder if it wouldn’t have been worth sticking a few encoders near the display to handle the effects section and a few other UI pages.
The preset system is especially a shame considering how many wave shapes can be found in the editor, There are 60 wave shapes to choose from but only 33 presets, many of which utilize the same shapes.

The wave shaper is incredible for mono basses and really compliments the synth engine with an extra bite of tonal shaping.
I suggest creating a preset for each shape so you can gain access to them w/o the editor, it might be nice to just sit down with the editor for a session and create a few presets that you know you’ll use regularly
I saved the Pre-FX last because I actually really like these, the inclusion of guitar cabs and wave shapers can really give some unique character to your sound previously only available in software (or ofcourse with real amps)
ring mod and decimator are also super fun, and things like compressors and graphic EQs can really sculpt a sound perfectly into a mix.
Earlier I mentioned how the loading screen breaks immersion, really makes it feel like “software in a box” people who hate on digital synths always complain about, well only being able to access some of these controls via the editor only adds to that feeling.

Modulation: The Modwave’s modulation options are immense, between 5 LFOs and 4 Envelopes per layer there is already a load of motion you can add to your patches. You also get an additional 4 motion sequencing lanes, with pitch, shape, and timing sequences per layer, and finally a Kaoss Physics controller that acts on both layers. I covered the modulation routing up top, but I neglected to mention nearly every control can be modulated besides the FX parameters*, including things you just wouldn’t expect like sequencer start and end points, and even individual step parameters. It is absolutely astounding how much they let you control here.

*FX: You can’t modulate FX parameters with lfos or envelopes, you can however use modwheel, macros, etc. or Kaoss Physics to control effects.

LFO/Env: The 4 envelopes are fairly basic, classic ADSR style with simple curve controls for each stage. They also allow you to trigger them via any modulation source, meaning you can loop them with LFOs, trigger them via the step sequencer, or even do fun stuff like activating them from Kaoss Physics regions.
The 5 LFOs are all labelled based on their default routing, but are freely assignable wherever you’d like. The can be free or tempo synced, and go down as slow as 0.001 Hz, over 16 minutes a cycle, absolutely incredible to see such slow LFOs. On the other end they just barely top off in the “audible” range at 32Hz. Shapes include all the classics, a few neat curves, and a nice variety of random flavors. There’s start phase options and a fade in control, and an interesting “curve” adjustment if you want just a bit more control over your LFO shape.

Kaoss Physics: The Kaoss Physics absolutely surprised me, I was expecting a typical touchpad with maybe some gimmicky motion applied to it. However I found it incredibly engaging and responsive, even playable as a performance tool.
If you want, you can set it up to behave as a classic XY pad, but there’s quite a few options when it comes to the physics engine. You can set friction so the ball slows down over time, you can make the edges more or less bouncy, you can “tilt” the axis’s so the ball falls in certain directions, and you can even introduce a bump or divot which interacts with the ball in various ways. All of which can be controlled via the balls location its self.
I found with the right settings you could get some rather responsive motions, with predictable arcs but expressive motions, a nice balance between traditional modulation and an expressive controller. 

Sequencer: The sequencer is where I really fell in love with this machine, an absolute dream for generative sequencing and meandering melodies. The lanes are divided up into 4 motion sequences, 1 pitch sequence, a shape sequence, and a timing sequence. The interaction between these lanes is rather unique and novel, but worth understanding if you want to get the most out of them.

First the pitch lane isn’t exactly what you’d expect as the entire sequencer is per active note. This means rather than programming out a sequence of midi note numbers, you’re instead crafting a pitch contour relative to the starting pitch of whichever note you are pressing. This is a bit complicated to explain on paper, but essentially, if you program a melody, that melody will play transposed on even pressed key at once. You do get to lock this to scales to make things more “musical”.
*it’s worth noting because of this behavior, the envelopes do not trigger per step by default, but this can be activated with the envelope trigger parameter

Next the 4 motion lanes let you sequence different values per step between +- 100%
each motion sequence can be routed to multiple destinations with varying depths, it’s not just 4 total motion sequenced parameters

The shape lane allows you to sequence a pattern of envelope shapes per step, this can be applied to any of the previously mentioned lanes, does not over ride their modulation, but interacts with it.
and finally the timing and shape lanes are quite different, the timing sequence lets you set the division per step, this acts on all sequences at once and can really stretch the capabilities and intricacies of the 64 steps far beyond what is normally possible with traditional 1/16 based sequencers.
Both these sequences are a bit too complex to explain here, as there’s a fair amount of nuance to what they do, so I’ll simply move on

One thing that makes these interactions so interesting is the ability to set unique start and end points per lane, creating all sorts of polymetric interactions. 
On top of this each step can have its own probability, and unlike most sequencers where this step would simply be replaced with a rest, the step is skipped for that particular sequence, thus offsetting the sequence by a step.
This happens per key, leading quickly to some interesting generative step interactions.
As I mentioned earlier, you can modulate everything, you can have start and end times linked to Kaoss Physics, you can modulate, probability of individual steps with an LFO, and many more settings, it really is a fascinating sequencer engine.
Especially when you remember each layer can have their own sequences with unique patterns, probability, and timing.

on top of all this there’s a few neat little extras, it’s always nice having an arpeggiator, the inclusion of macros is fun and can really stretch what a preset can do, there’s a little randomizer if you just want to randomize everything, and a nice little analyzer to show the waveform of whatever is currently playing. All this adds up to a pretty dense and unique keyboard which really feels like a powerhouse. I still haven’t decided if the few lacking areas really compromise this synth much after considering all the modulation and various other possibilities. At many points while reviewing and playing with Modwave, it became my absolute favorite hardware keyboard based synth. It’s a tough call though, which means it is honestly probably not. I asked Zzounds to send it over to me fully expecting to send it back, but it might just feel enough rolls in my setup to at least be a keeper. 
I’m really impressed with this line of Korg products so far, and I hope they continue in this direction, there’s many things I miss from the Opsix that I simply assumed would be in the modwave, now I’m wishing they’d combine the best of both worlds, and make something even greater. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll test the Wavestate, I think it’s the best looking of the 3, and the joystick is exciting, but we’ll see.

if this article helped convince you to purchase the MicroFreak, please consider using one of my affiliate links below. (after you have searched to make sure you can’t get a better deal elsewhere)
Modwave: https://bit.ly/3RpUnss
Zzounds: https://www.zzounds.com/a--3979412