Korg Minilogue XD

First off the Minilogue XD sounds great. The price is fair with the amount of synth you get. Compared to the original Minilogue which is also great, the additions, especially the digital oscillator make the XD really shine.

The synth is mainly used within a DAW/studio environment directly connected to a mixer/audio interface.

Build quality is of a high standard, with firm knobs, buttons and switches and a really nice front panel which feels robust. Mini keys are… mini keys, hate them or love them these keys are not bad. The screen is always a nice touch, values are shown depending on knob tweaks and of course it becomes an oscilloscope, which sometimes feels satisfying looking at it and sometimes it’s just helpful to “see” the sound. Presets are ok to get to know the synth and there are plenty of slots to make your own patches. The panel is pretty straight forward and all basic functions have a dedicated knob / switch.

The VCOs sound as they supposed to sound, but the digital oscillator adds really something to it. Some of the Korg oscillators sound really, really good plus user wavetables can be added. Still need to exploit more this part of the synth but there are lots of wavetables and effects available (both paid and free). The effects are ok, some of them are great sounding, some of them are just ok. All matter of taste. Again, the option to expand the engine with user effects is promising. Filter sounds nice but the overdrive is a bit limited (0, 50%, 100% overdrive values, nothing in between).

Modulations are also a bit limited but you can get decent results. Especially in accordance with the motion sequencer where you can add motion by recording motion movements. The sequencer is quite deep, intuitive and most of all fun to play with.

One setback, this synth is not able to properly communicate with a windows 7 pc. At least in my case Korg win7 drivers where not working properly, device not recognized no matter what, despite extensive troubleshooting. Fortunately XD works fine with a win10 pc. Just a note to those who use older Windows OS. There are some other issues for those who want to check, that hopefully can be overcome with a bit of help from the forums and YT. Speaking of pc connectivity, the librarian is quite useful to load and save patches, user wavetables and effects.

Despite this, the XD is a no-brainer synthesizer. Easy and fun to make patches, fair value, doesn't take too much space and most importantly great sounding, with the option to expand with more wavetables and effects.

Pros:
+ Great sounding synth
+ Good value
+ Knob per function for basic controls
+ Powerful sequencer
+ Ability to load user wavetables and effects.

Cons:
- Korg drivers can be tricky

My first analog synth, and it's great!
First of all - the build is solid, metal plated, doesn't give too much to pressure and all. The keys feel good and even with my sausage fingers are comfortable to use. Sometimes, in some places, a little hard to fit in to hit the white key between the black keys when playing on the top of the keys. But doesn't bother me much. Response is good and stable.

The amount of sounds is amazing, with around 200 factory presets demonstrating a lot of things it can do out of the box. Each can be taken and extended upon.

Very much enjoying the depth and ease of access of the sequencer. The feature of the motion tracks in the sequencer (used to record changes on almost all of the available controls) opens up a whole universe of sounds. The filter allows for a wide range of frequency control, supposedly sharing its design with the Prologue. Primarily, the synth excels at pad sounds, however, is great in other territories aswell.
The onboard post effects (reverbs, delays, modulation) are a great package to make it a complete standalone instrument. Honestly, when playing in my headphones, I probably orgasm every now and again from the sounds it can do :D

A separate big YES for the 3rd, user extendable digital oscillator, which allows you to get even more sounds that aren't available from out of the box. There are plenty of user oscillators and post effects (the post effect section is also extendable) out there to delve into. Both paid and free. I advise to look into Tim Shoebridge's page for some quality ones, but there are plenty more.
Process of installing those, and updating firmware (which gets periodical updates) is fairly easy and straightforward.

My only couple of gripes with it:
- I'd wish for a bigger immediate range of octaves (3 gets quite limiting when learning to play some pieces sometimes, when playing both hands). I realize that this can't be fixed at the price range though... Still, it allows to connect to a separate midi keyboard if needed, so technically can be extended. Or you can get just the synth module and a separate keyboard to begin with.
- Some options (albeit veeery little compared to many other devices) do require some menu diving. The menu diving is pretty simple though and is very shallow in it's structure. But there are still some things that I'd wish were available at the surface to be switchable quickly. But again, a question of price range ofcourse.

Beeing a total hardware head but following the trends of using VST's its hard to surprise me in terms of sound nowadays, but this synth did.
I was hooked, inspired again and forgot about days/nights/mornings/evenings playing with it after unboxing. Great sound, fat, warm, easily fits into a mix, additional effects are exeptional, presets are massive, just tweak some and off you go.
Its my nowadays favorite synthesizer along with small, tiny Arturia microfreak. People, just forget about VST's for some time, get back to tactile feelings of creating music and not just clicking with your mouse on your screens. Vst's are like rubber woman or beer without alcohol:) Peace to all of you.