Korg updates its Legacy Collection with a new Arp Odyssey emulation

[Harry_HH]

Korg kakaku (小売価格) means "retail" in japanese.
I don´t know if the name of the company has anything to do with that etymology.

The name of the company comes from KeiO ORGan. "Korg was founded in 1962 in Japan by Tsutomu Katoh[1] and Tadashi Osanai as Keio Gijutsu Kenkyujo Ltd.. It later became Keio Electronic Laboratories

In 1967, Katoh was approached by Fumio Mieda, an engineer who wanted to build keyboards. Impressed with Mieda's enthusiasm, Katoh asked him to build a prototype and 18 months later Mieda returned with a programmable organ. Keio sold the organ under the name KORG, created by using the first letter of each founder's name plus "RG" from their planned emphasis on products targeted for the organ market (emphasizing the letters R and G in the word "organ")"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg

That´s interesting. The link say also: "Under the Vox brand name, Korg also manufacture guitar amplifiers and electric guitars." When did that happen, Korg manufactures Vox amps?

[SciFiArtMan]

Has anyone pointed out yet that KORG is GROK spelled backwards?

I only hope KORG can GROK that they now need to focus on those larger GUIs!

[v1o]

On another note, did anyone see the new Prologue that is supposed to be announced at NAMM soon? I wonder if they'll eventually make a software version of that.

They have a huge backlog. They haven’t even made a Microkorg, Radius or MS2000 yet.

[MFXxx]

MS2000 = would be very interesting.

[BONES]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought the whole shebang today. My Dog that Odyssey sounds good but the CPU usage is terrifying. Luckily we won't ever be using it on stage, so It's not really much of an issue.

[Weasel-Boy]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought the whole shebang today. My Dog that Odyssey sounds good but the CPU usage is terrifying. Luckily we won't ever be using it on stage, so It's not really much of an issue.

I wrote this way earlier in the thread...before it went off the rails with 20+ pages of off topic nonsense:

I have a theory regarding the huge CPU hit many of the Odyssey’s presets are presenting. My guess is that the programmers did their work on the stand-alone version, initially starting with the voice count set at 16, regardless of whether the patch called for it or not. That and the suspicion that the voice allocation routines were not optimized in the code when the plug-in was released. I say this because they may not have noticed the CPU hit if they were programming in this manner. Just a guess. EvilDragon notes multiple core optimization as a possible issue. I agree, that too, needs to be looked into.

I went through dozens of the presets to discover that reducing voice count on a good deal of them dramatically improved CPU usage without compromising the sound of the preset. I would suggest dropping the voice count when you encounter one of the overloading presets, to see if it improves CPU usage vs the sound of the preset for the particular song you’re working with. It’s worth a shot.

[BONES]

First thing I tried was reducing the voice count and it made zero difference on any of the patches I tried it on. Reducing the number of unison voices worked on a few but on others it ruined the sound. Changing modes from Poly to something else can have a big effect, as can the usual things like reducing the Release time on the envelope. But even after all that, it's still higher than I'd like.

EDIT: I just did a few more tests and I was surprised to discover that the actual CPU usage is way less than what is being reported by Orion. So a patch with five voice unison that I thought was using more than 20% CPU is actually only using about 8%, which is lower than the same sound in the standalone version (10%). Those are figures I can live with.

[sin night]

MS2000 = would be very interesting.

I think I would buy it, but it would cut into microKorg sales, so I think it won't happen as long as the microKorg is avaible (and it's been in production for something like 15 years, so...).
It could be handy for studio use (daw integration, more voices than microKorg and so on), but I think I'll have to stick with the microKorg, I have no hopes for a plugin version of the MS2000 anytime soon..

[EvilDragon]

That´s interesting. The link say also: "Under the Vox brand name, Korg also manufacture guitar amplifiers and electric guitars." When did that happen, Korg manufactures Vox amps?

Korg owns VOX for quite some time now (since 1992, actually).

[Aloysius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGUFfqFW6Kg

Korg MS2000 Synthesizer VST Emulation

[chk071]

So musical! Almost better than those UPROAR24 Youtube demos.

[Harry_HH]

So musical! Almost better than those UPROAR24 Youtube demos.

[BONES]

I've read a few complaints in this thread about the preset system in these synths but I love the way it works with Odyssey - you tweak a preset, choose "save as" and it takes you straight to the User bank, which is empty until you start putting things into it. To me that's pretty much perfect, exactly how I want it to work - all my presets in one place, separate from the others.

[BONES]

Another quickie - my Odyssey VSTi seems to randomly show the gold UI now and again. Is there some way of selecting which UI you want to use? I couldn't see anything in the on-line help or on the VSTi itself.

[BONES]

Still, price aside Oddity2 has taken the game beyond the hardware version. (Oddity1 was more true to the Original). Korg currently has a sequencer but things like 1 ADSR. Come on ! I hope Korg will develop this further.
For me is not a question of price, but of vision. The Korg is more a 1:1 emulation as Oddity1 was.
I think the time for 1:1 emulations has passed. Give people the possibility to experience the orginal hardware (1:1) but also provide more if they want to go beyond that. Just having 1 ADSR is pretty limiting in a software implementation.

Firstly, KORG has introduced plenty that take their Odyssey beyond the original, like 16 voice polyphony/unison, effects and a wonderful "Drive" slider in the filter section, plus all three filter types from each version of the original. Secondly, things like a single ADSR envelope are in no small part what makes an instrument like this what it is. Limitations like that force you to be creative in finding ways around them, which contribute in no small part to what people perceive as the character of the instrument.

The preset system is very primitive. No tags or categories. So basses, leads, pads are all mangled. This is very oldschool and serves no purpose.

As I said above, I really like the preset system. I'd have to say it's the best I've ever used. I think the difference is that most people who buy something like Diva or DUNE mostly use it as a preset player, so the presets are really what everyone pays for and devs understand this. OTOH, I don't think KORG see things the same way, so they make an instrument first and their preset management is much more about what sounds the user wants to create and save, not what sounds it ships with. I get why you'd want to use some unusable monstrosity like z3ta+ as a preset player but, honestly, if you are taking something as easy to work with as Odyssey, with every parameter on the front panel, and using presets for anything but basic inspiration, you are missing the point of it, I think. I've only spent an hour or so with mine and I already have around a dozen presets of my own for it.