
Every year, Mix contributors Rich Tozzoli, Mike Dwyer and Bruce MacPherson decamp to St. John, USVI, and temporarily turn a house into a studio where they record TV cues while also testing new equipment and software, resulting in a bevy of Mix Real-World Reviews written in a unique part of the real world.

USVI (May 13, 2024)—The Collection 4 from Korg takes some of the company’s greatest hits in hardware and offers them up in software form. The collection includes such goodies as the Arp Odyssey, microKorg, Electribe-R, Wavestation, Polysix, Mono/Poly, M1, MDE-X, Triton/ Triton Extreme, miniKorg, Prophesy, MS-20 and Kaoss Pad.
Having this collection available in my mobile rig on the island allowed me to embrace the old-school workflow while staying inside the modern software. In use, the Triton and Triton Extreme software was like having a huge yet familiar library of sounds at my fingertips. As I am used to working with the original hardware librarians, editing combinations and changing effects (or bypassing them completely) was simple and quicker than ever.
We also used the Mono/Poly 4VCO Synthesizer, which was completely reproduced with its four oscillators, with additional modern touches such as two multi-effects and an eight-way virtual patching matrix. Essentially, this puts a huge analog synth in full compliance with your needs, recording all your moves in an editable format. Not only was this massive-sounding, but a ton of fun to create with.

We made great use of the Electribe-R and Electribe-R MkII Rhythm Synthesizer, laying their tight, funky, rhythmic patterns, including 64th- and 128th-note flourishes, on top of drummer Ray Levier’s acoustic drum tracks.
Taking it a step further, we sent the Electribe-R through the Kaoss Pad to dynamically and sporadically apply effects such as delay, high-pass and low-pass filters, reverbs, and decimators. We used Pro Tools automation for creative choices of blending effects in and out on such things as reverb blooms. What’s also cool is that you can choose to sync to beat clock or randomly create off-time rhythms without sync.
We also turned to the classic sounds of the Korg M1 from the ’80s and the MiniKorg from the ’70s, with its dual filters. I would love to see my old Korg O1/W remade with all its extensive library cards—it was a mainstay in studios for years! Overall, though, Korg has a real hit with this collection, both in sound and function, and it became an essential ingredient in our tracks.