Electronic Sound May 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 45

On the downside, this kit isn’t cheap, coming in at around
£900 at most retailers, and building a synth yourself is perhaps
not everyone’s idea of a good time, especially not when you’ve
forked out the best part of a grand for it. Just getting a sound
out of the MS-20 has never been the most straightforward
route into electronic music, never mind putting the thing
together yourself in the first place, so this is certainly not
recommended for the impatient. But if you do enjoy tinkering
about with bits and pieces, and in a pretty foolproof way
(there’s no soldering involved, just screws, nuts and plugin wire looms), building the MS-20M is a pleasurable and
rewarding experience.
I put this one together in a few hours and I am terrified of
electrical innards of any kind. Once I got my head around a few
vagaries of the SQ-1, in particular its apparently sluggish top
speed, solved by discovering the global parameter mode, and
shifted the thing from quarter notes to eighth notes (check out
the separate video to see how it’s done), the combination of
the two machines quickly became an addictive electronic sonic
laboratory. It offers huge potential both for playing live and for
writing material in the studio. As I type, we’ve just attached
the SQ-1 to our MS-20 Mini and the MS-20M – the sequencer
is capable of triggering both at the same time – and things are
getting truly out of hand.

watch the videos
constructing the ms-20m
www.youtube.com/embed/begrnRf1Sak

tempo explained

www.youtube.com/embed/YckRQXhVg
_k