Yes there was a guy who had a website who had modded his to have a seperate output for each sound,they are possible to clock to midi externally with mods too,Never bothered doing any mods to mine,in all honesty a reissue,unless it had total control over the timbres of the sounds and total editing options is a waste of time,infact there's nothing that the samples on the net and a decent sampler couldn't do better.
Korg have added several of the Minipops sounds in their PCM data on the Triton,although not stock PCM they were part of the Vintage EXB boards internal drum sounds,nowadays stand alone Drum machines are pretty dead investments,most people who would utilise a lone drum box unit would possibly already be using a device of some sort possibly in the guise of a groovebox,and would make use of sample sets,rather than waste money on reissues,and those who would buy a drum machine would be minimal numbers,that most manufacturers wouldn't justify such devices
The Electribes were fun,reissues of a basic TR Philosophy built for trend,would be nice to see a Minipops with similar attributes,Can't really see it being a design option for Korg in the future,as you could achieve that with the MP7 samples and an ES1
Dave Smith and Roger Linn(Who designed Linn drum and Akai MPC's and samplers) are planning to release an Analog Drum machine,this was due toward the end of this year,they did have a protoype previewing at one of the main music shows earlier this year,but it seems they have delayed the release for some reason,would be interesting to see what it does,and how it sounds,if it gets manufactured at all,based on the recent Prophet 8 and Mono Evolvers smith made,it would be well received,although I'm not a massive Fan of the Prophet 8,(Nord Lead and Virus TI can do more)I do like the sound of the Mono/Poly evolvers,based on some You tube vids I've seen.
