The fact that the jam sounds pretty much the same as the effort from this tiny child proves it's all down to the power of the synth. To prove how easy the MicroKORG is to use, I spent 20 minutes button-bashing my friend Matt's one, and these were the results. We scoured the internet and these were the best original compositions to exhibit extensive use of the MicroKORG: Autumn Bliss, Yakitori and The YouTube MicroKORG song. But the intricacies of these are likely to be lost on Korg's market audience – people with a couple of hundred quid to spare who like playing with the vocoder. There are some sophisticated controllers for the oscillators that let you do fairly fancy things with cross-modulating and bending waveforms, allowing the user to create metallic or chiming tones outside of the scope of purely analogue synths. The Prodigy's Girls – the MicroKORG dominates Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned – comes a close second. What's the best ever MicroKORG song? It's gonna have to be Needy Girl. And that vocoder attachment makes it look like one of the freakin' alien ships from War Of The Worlds. Given that it's been designed to be ultra easy to use and comes packed with toys, the MicroKORG has arguably become the classic first synth. Why is it classic? It's a powerful and deceptively versatile synth, and it's surprisingly cost-effective (you can snap one up for around £330). Where does it come from? Launched in 2002, the MicroKORG was built on the engine of Korg's top-range MS2000 rack-mount synth, but presented in a teeny and aesthetically pleasing little box with lovely knobs and faux-wood panelling that seems to be partly inspired by Moog's vintage MiniMoog.

Each unit of sound is generated by two separate oscillators variously handling square, sine, triangle, saw and 'vox' waves – as well as 64 'additive synthesis' waves – and these units can be mixed and combined into layers. This is where it gets a bit complicated, so a degree in geek-speak might be necessary.

How does it work? According to Korg gearheads, the most attractive feature of this almost childlike looking synth is the way it replicates classic analogue sounds using DSP ( digital signal processing) technology.

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