KVR Audio

hbasm · Post by **hbasm** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:59 am

What are your thoughts on the KORG Z1 synthesizer?

What I want:

1) a wealth of warm pads and newage drones
2) cool and rare presets

What I don't care about:

1) easy of use
2) expressiveness

I'm going to sample the whole thing in bits and pieces anyway...

twolegstoneworks · Post by **twolegstoneworks** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:11 am

I had a Korg Z1 for about 1 year..

1) Warm pads.. there's loads of pads in the presets but not many that IMO can be characterized as being warm.

2) Cool and rare.. I didn't find much that I couldn't find just as cool elsewhere. There's some really interesting physical modeling presets, but I couldn't find myself using them over samples of the real thing.

Ease of use: good thing you dont care about that coz it's not the easiest thing to navigate. Too many clicks and page-switching for my taste.

Expressiveness - that is where the Z1 shines. With the xy-pad, 2 performance switches, a great aftertouch and knobs for controlling filters and envelopes, you can get plenty of expression from the synth. Many presets - atleast the factory ones - utilize these functions and you can have a lot of fun with that.

Btw. I sampled what I liked and sold it.

hbasm · Post by **hbasm** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:37 am

there's loads of pads in the presets but not many that IMO can be characterized as being warm.

Okay, but cool, evolving soundscapes? That's what I want

I guess there is a reason why these hardware synths are illegal to emulate? They sound unique? Some very talented people were hired to make the presets, as opposed to most soft-synths today which have the same crappy presets.

metal wrote:I sampled what I liked and sold it.

You still have these samples?

MitchK1989 · Post by **MitchK1989** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 6:50 pm

The Z1 is an amazing synth if you actually program your own patches on it. They didn't make that an easy task though, which is a shame.

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:03 pm

Z1 is THE SHIT for pads, atmospheres, and evolving stuff. You have a bunch of envelopes and LFOs to toy with, you have your knobs, and you have XY pad, which is an absolute joy to use.

You will not be mistaken if you get it, especially because it can be found rather cheap nowadays.

If you want easier editing, you have PC editor and that's cool too.

Speakeasy · Post by **Speakeasy** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:21 pm

i have Korg Z1...and its a dope synth as is my Yamaha Vl-1 m2
tho im still looking original Korg prophecy patches for it...
i have expanded it to 18 voices and have that 4mb Pcmi card...
its Mint condition synth..

i am wondering how many psytrance makers
are really using it...cos u get so sick sounds with it...
2 multiosc,powerful sub osc,noise,4lfo,4env,sick modulation capabilities
and quite good sounding efx units...

its good for athmospheres,pads,basses and fx sounds...

that firstgrade band demo song is dope...

i have made 24bit/96khz multisamples some of my selfmade patches they are made
with 64 velocity stages....sounds stunninng!

ps.it belongs to those really unique synths that you must own...
Kawai K5000s,Yamaha Vl-1,Korg Z1,Korg Oasys,Waldorf Microwave II XT....

still looking cheap used mint condition Oasys....

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:06 am

Speakeasy wrote:still looking cheap used mint condition Oasys....

Wait for a decade.

Or not, the price might rise even more

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:12 am

The Bowed String model can be warped in some really amazing ways. It's truly a unique sounding synth.

I was also going to recommend the K5000 but Alchemy trumps it.

Speakeasy · Post by **Speakeasy** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:17 am

i might buy Oasys in near future...who knows! if the price is good for me atm!
its sickest synth i have ever seen or used!

longbongsilver · Post by **longbongsilver** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:45 am

hbasm wrote: I guess there is a reason why these hardware synths are illegal to emulate?

Z1 technically wouldn't be illegal to emulate, since the sounds are modelled instead of sample-based. Though Korg would probably sue if someone actually called it a Z1 or used the word "Korg" to refer to it without permission.

A Z1 emulation would be cool IMO. I like the concept of a physical modelling synth that can do more than just the standard VA stuff.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:50 am

longbongsilver wrote:A Z1 emulation would be cool IMO. I like the concept of a physical modelling synth that can do more than just the standard VA stuff.

Tassman:

http://www.applied-acoustics.com/tassman/overview/

peterdh · Post by **peterdh** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:52 am

@hbasm If you like to do your own sound design, the Z1 really has a lot to offer. I programmed 2 freeware soundbanks for the Z1 and I love this machine. If you're only after (commercial) presets...I don't know enough of this, so I can't advice you.
I'm curious why you don't care about expressiveness? The Z1 excels in this and I don't understand why someone wouldn't make his music more dynamic, especially if you're after evolving soundscapes (and cool/rare presets

).

Speakeasy wrote:....tho im still looking original Korg prophecy patches for it...

@Speakeasy Try the Yahoo sysex group, there you'll find many converted Prophecy patches...and lots (2000+) of other patches/soundbanks.

8ightbit · Post by **8ightbit** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:57 am

Patching the z1 sucks

tranel · Post by **tranel** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:13 am

hbasm wrote:What are your thoughts on the KORG Z1 synthesizer?

What I want:

1) a wealth of warm pads and newage drones
2) cool and rare presets

What I don't care about:

1) easy of use
2) expressiveness

I'm going to sample the whole thing in bits and pieces anyway...

The Korg Z1 is just nuts—you can do absolutely anything you want with it (sound-wise ne). For drones, pads, bass, keyboards, analog emulations, windy-sounding thingies, FM-madness.... it is an extremely versatile instrument (with a bit of a learning curve though...) and one of the finest that Korg has ever produced.

Just as an example, for any one patch made on my MOSS board (same architecture), I have:

two oscillators, with a choice of 13 synthesis types for each
An analog-modeled suboscillator
Noise generator
Feedback generator
Sound mixer, enabling you to set sub-osc, noise and feedback volumes separately for each main osc
Two multimode filters (including a "double-bandpass" one) that can be routed in various ways
Four tempo-syncable LFOs
Five envelopes
HUGE modulation options (though sadly not the X-Y pad found on the Z1)

But, as already said, you really SHOULD care about expressive possibilities with the Z1, otherwise you're missing out on a lot. Just recording playing back samples will not do it justice—at all.

hbasm · Post by **hbasm** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:21 am

peterdh wrote:I'm curious why you don't care about expressiveness?

What I mean is, expressiveness should be in the presets. I don't play "live". I prefer to tweak a presets a lil bit and use the synth as a sampling resource.

Uncle E wrote:Tassman

Tassman is too CPU intensive for my PC so it crashed and I deleted it. Besides I didn't find any kewl sounds there.

Uncle E wrote:I was also going to recommend the K5000 but Alchemy trumps it.

I have never tried Alchemy. Does it sound as good? Can the presets from these hardware synths be easily converted to a softsynth?

Korg Z1 for newage DRONES and PADS ?