Korg Nu:Tekt NTS-2 Oscilloscope Kit

The modern musician's Swiss Army knife

The NTS-2 kit is compact and easy to assemble (no soldering required!), but don't let its size fool you – it packs a real punch! NTS-2 is an oscilloscope, tuner, FFT and spectrum analyzer that is accurate, intuitive and incredibly useful. But that's not all: using its dual stereo IN, dual stereo THRU/OUT and two separate OUTPUTs, you can wire it into your synth rig and use its dual waveform generators to give yourself an extra pair of oscillators or LFOs! It's the ideal tool for every synth lover and modular user from beginner to pro.

The oscilloscope, a tool for visualizing signals and voltages, has been around for many years, but as scientific instruments they might not seem like something a musician could easily use. Not any more: for the first time, an oscilloscope has been designed with the musician in mind! NTS-2's interface is simple, clean and easy to use; rather than twiddling knobs and trying to understand obscure parameters, you can look at your signals and understand them in a matter of seconds. That way, your artistic focus can remain where it belongs: on making your music.

4-channel oscilloscope

With its dual stereo inputs, you can study up to four signals at once, comparing and overlapping them with ease. A variety of display modes let you see your data in color, a huge advantage over the old oscilloscopes you've seen in science fiction movies! Its user interface is clear and quick, thanks to its dedicated menu buttons and clickable encoder knob, and its 240×320 pixel 2.8" color LCD is a joy to watch.

Dual waveform generator

But NTS-2 is much more than just an oscilloscope. The flexible wave generator mode has two oscillators with dedicated outputs, so you can test your synth rig or just get creative! Each oscillator can create a variety of waveforms – sine, square, triangle, sawtooth, pulse and noise – whose shape and phase can be adjusted to suit many applications. These sounds can be used in the audio range or as control voltage sources and they can be set to cycle continuously or act as one-shot impulses; that means you can turn them into LFOs, envelopes, triggers and control voltage generators as well as sound sources. Attaching NTS-2 to any patchable synthesizer instantly expands its power in useful ways, making it an analog synth player's dream tool.

Connectivity and ease of use

NTS-2 offers plenty of ways to connect to your studio despite its small footprint. Besides its four-channel input and dual waveform output features, its dual stereo THRU/OUT ports let you leave it wired into your system. It's much easier to understand what you're doing if you can see the signals and use them at the same time, rather than constantly plugging and unplugging cables. This handy function lets you maintain your signal flow at all times – even when NTS-2 has been powered off.