You may recall my email of several months ago, speaking of my acquisition of an MS20ic (and subsequently the MS20 Korg Legacy Collection for digital sound production). There I described an article I wrote on how to use the MS20ic as a general purpose MIDI controller, including for Csound. My ultimate interest, however, was to compose a live-performance work for the controller and MS02ic-controlled "software synth." And so I did: the first version of "In the beginning . . .."

I also wanted the piece to be performable on the "original" hardware incarnations, the MS20 (which was part of the UNCG Electronic Music Studio I headed many years ago), as well as its later (retro) version, the MS20 mini. So I purchased an MS20 mini to "tweak" the piece for the two hardware synths. 

Was I in for a surprise! I needed to redo more than one-half of the knob settings (that is, I needed to make a second version of both original setup and score). I had to go through the entire piece, checking each setting (the MS20ic and MS20 mini side by side) trying to get the mini to sound as close to the MS20ic as possible. The resulting hardware "clone" of the piece was only modestly successful (in some places much better than others).

Bottom line: for works that depend on precise timbre control, the differences between hardware synths and digital emulations of them can be significant. And in the case of the Korg MS20's, in spite of the fact that the engineers made every effort at an "exact" clone - overseen by the original engineer! So here is perhaps a classic case of "Digital does not = Analog." At any rate, don't expect the crossover to be quick, easy or precise.