Korg multi/poly native - reimagined Mono/Poly Synthesizer plugin

[EnGee]

The GUI is really ugly! It looks like those editors for hardware synths. A functional editor without any artistic design I know that the sound what it counts, but for a company like Korg they should come up with inviting nice GUI. If they took the hardware design and just enhanced it a little, it would be much much better.

[frag]

The GUI is really ugly! It looks like those editors for hardware synths. A functional editor without any artistic design I know that the sound what it counts, but for a company like Korg they should come up with inviting nice GUI. If they took the hardware design and just enhanced it a little, it would be much much better.

Yep, really ugly. If you own hardware and plugin, you need to learn both synths. Plugin doesn't even look like an instrument, what were they thinking?

And the main question: does M/P Native have multi-threading?
It's unbelievable that Diva from 2011 is still the ONLY plugin with perfect, top notch multi-threading.
If this thing runs on single thread it's a joke, even newer CPUs will run into problems with some patches.

[IvyBirds]

It's 2025 anyone using a CPU from 2008 should absolutely expect performance issues, not sure how anyone would expect Korg or anyone else to spend any resources at all trying to fix performance issues on ancient PCs

Then allow me to assist. It’s called the minimum system requirements. Almost every plugin states these on their respective websites. In the case of OpSix the requirements are listed as an i5 or i7 CPU on Windows 10. If a company is only prepared to support CPU’s, from specific generations, those limitations should be clearly stated in their list of supported system requirements.

Your comment is unhelpful. Both because there is a long existing solution to your “post”, and because it distracts from the fact that the idle spiking behaviour, being discussed, appears to be present from Gen 1 through at least 8th gen Intel. Intel 8th Gen is a hardware config likely to remain supported, by Microsoft Windows, until at least 2030.

Personally I'm not impacted by the issue btw. But companies should fix the problems for configurations they claim to support.

And yet the plugins run on them, it's just that ancient PCs might have performance issues

So again if you meet the MINIMUM requirements the plugin will run but again there is no guarantee being made at all that you will not have performance issues. Logic would dictate minimum requirements will give you minimal performance

So your comment is really pointless and unhelpful

As long as the CPU meets the minimum standards it will run in that CPU

But again anyone using a PC from 2008 should go into it expecting to have poor performance and not have optimal results with modern software

When that chip came out Windows was still on Vista and Apple was using Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5)

The fact you can even still run modern Korg software on such ancient computer hardware is a testament to the programming skills of Korg's engineers and programmers and of the backwards compatibility built into Windows 11

Since that came out we have gone from Vista, to 7, to 8, to 10, and now 11

Not sure how anyone can expect or even want Korg to spend any effort or money optimizing the performance of plugins sold in 2024 and 2025 for 2008 era CPUs built to run Windows Vista

I would much rather then focus on performance and optimization for more modern systems, and working on big fixes

[felis]

The GUI is really ugly! It looks like those editors for hardware synths. A functional editor without any artistic design I know that the sound what it counts, but for a company like Korg they should come up with inviting nice GUI. If they took the hardware design and just enhanced it a little, it would be much much better.

I'm looking forward to getting it, but I've got to agree on the looks. Not very inviting.
People complain about the bloat with Arturia stuff, but at least it's good looking,
and that makes it easier to stay involved with it.

Seems like there should be some middle ground, where it has some resemblance to the hardware
without hogging all your computer's resources.
I think the hardware looks very good.
A look somewhat like the hardware, but with pages instead of deep menu diving might do it.
But I know nothing about actually achieving that, so it might be harder than it seems.

[tumface]

The interface looks fine to me. I don't mind the plugin version of a synth looking and being laid out differently than the hardware. After all, the interaction method is different. One cursor and screen vs. two hands and fixed layout.

The Korg ARP 2600 plugin released a few months ago has become a surprise winner for me. Even though it uses a ton of CPU power, the envelopes, filters, amp stages etc. on it are the best I've ever used of its type, I think. I don't see many people talking about it, but it surprised me with how good it is. The envelopes especially continue behave well when set aggressively. I'm guessing they run the envelope model oversampled and don't use interpolation?

Analog synth plugins are a really crowded market, but if this multi/poly plugin can give me the same kind of juice as the ARP 2600 plugin but as a layered poly synth, I might actually consider it.

[PAK]

if you meet the MINIMUM requirements the plugin will run but again there is no guarantee being made at all that you will not have performance issues. Logic would dictate minimum requirements will give you minimal performance

Why you continue offering incorrect statements on issues, for which you have no direct experience, I’m not sure. OpSix doesn’t give “minimal” performance. It’s broken, to the point of not being usable, on impacted configs - which Korg say are supported.

You also continue to create arguments out of things nobody has stated. It's like you read half a sentence and then add what you want into it. Why you’d want to waste your time doing this I’m not sure. But I certainly won't spend mine responding to any of it.

[IvyBirds]

You also continue to create arguments out of things nobody has stated.

This you?

OpSix has spiking issues on the 1st Gen i7 920's too......Once a very popular CPU, it’s 17 years old this year,

Seems like you very much are complaining about Korg not supporting ancient CPUs

That is what I was responding to

You jumped onto a Korg thread to complain about issues with your 17 year old CPU get called on it and then run from it and gaslight and pretend no one said anything about it

Either it's an issue it it's not for Korg to support 17 year old CPUs

You rather clearly think it is, if you didn't there was no need to even bring it up

I don't think there is any need for Korg to worry about CPUs made to run Windows Vista

The original Pentium from 1993 was once a very popular chip also, maybe Korg should support that also

[bmanic]

Opsix Native (and all the new Korg digital synthsÍ) sounds exactly the same, it is exactly the same code running.
I own the Modwave Native and Modwave mk2... my presets sound exactly the same in A/B comparison, so should work with Opsix (though have not tried it.)

I think it is just a matter of taste, I really like the GUI of Multi/Poly Native

They won't sound identical if you use analog outs on hardware

They will sound the same.
I compared my Roland System-1 with the HW and the only difference was the volume and when they where matched they sounded identical.

Modern soundcard doesn't Color the sound like it did in the past when the Quality was all over the place and a good sound card should have a neutral sound.

Using analog outs into a modern sound card doesn't give you some magical analog fairy tale sound from the HW.

We've had this discussion before and as always, I disagree. YOU may not hear the difference between sound cards / ad-da conversion but that doesn't mean there aren't any. You can go search my post on Gearspace (somewhere around 2015 - 2018, were multiple super high-end converters and some low end ones were compared) where I show exactly what happens with different ad/da setups once you process them (meaning you add any basic non-linear plugins or hardware effects to them, so compressors, saturation etc.).

If you listen to only a single audio track and do no processing (which _never happens_ in a record -> mix situation), then they may sound very similar.. but as soon as you add processing the differences usually become quite noticeable.

Now are the differences critical? No, that falls into the subjective side of things. Are they there? Yes, absolutely.

I'll try to create a thread of this with actual audio demos at some point as I happen to have quite a few different era converters here. Kurzweil K2500 (early 90's), Sintefex Replicator (late 90's), Prism Orpheus (late 00's high end), RME Babyface Pro (late 10's).

[BONES]

The GUI is really ugly! It looks like those editors for hardware synths. A functional editor without any artistic design I know that the sound what it counts, but for a company like Korg they should come up with inviting nice GUI.

I don't think the GUI is ugly, as such, but f**k me! there are way too many screens and pages. It reminds me of one of their hardware workstations, where some parameters are buried 3 or 4 layers deep into the GUI. It is a complete workflow killer and it wouldn't matter how pretty it was or how good it sounded, I'd never have any interest in it.

As is often the case, it's the layers that f**k it up. Without them it would be reasonably straightforward but the way they've implemented the layers means you can't just ignore them, like you can with DUNE, for example. It's a total clusterfuck.

And the main question: does M/P Native have multi-threading?

That's not a question I have ever asked myself about anything. In 2025 everything just works, doesn't it? That has certainly been my experience of the last few years. I think maybe when I had an 7th Gen Core i5 was the last time I had any issues with plugins and CPU power, and that was back in 2016-17. In fact, surely it makes more sense for each plugin in a project to have it's own thread, rather than have one plugin hog them all, doesn't it?

The Korg ARP 2600 plugin released a few months ago has become a surprise winner for me. Even though it uses a ton of CPU power, the envelopes, filters, amp stages etc. on it are the best I've ever used of its type, I think. I don't see many people talking about it, but it surprised me with how good it is.

Abso-fuckin'-lutely! The best sounding softsynth I own, it is a really special thing.

[zvenx]

To the opsix specs:

[Mac]

- OS: macOS 10.14 Mojave or later (Latest updates)
- CPU: Apple M1 or better, or Intel Core i5 or better (Core i7 or better recommended)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM (16 GB or more recommended)
- Storage: 8 GB free disk space (SSD recommended)
- Others: An internet connection is required
- Plug-ins: AU, VST3, AAX (64-bit only)
- Operability confirmed DAW software* (latest version) * as of Mar 22, 2022
---
Ableton Live 11 / Logic Pro X / GarageBand 10 / Cubase Pro 12 / Cubase Pro 11 / Studio One 5.5 / Digital Performer 10 / FL Studio 20 / ProTools 2022
---

[Windows]

- OS: Windows 10 64bit* or higher (latest update) * 32bit environment is not supported.
- CPU: Intel Core i5 or better (Core i7 or better recommended)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM (16 GB or more recommended)
- Storage: 8 GB free disk space (SSD recommended)
- Others: An internet connection is required
- Plug-ins: ST3, AAX (64-bit only)

from: https://korg.shop/software/natives/sing ... ative.html

where it does indeed say i5... however..
according to intel's website, https://www.intel.com/content/dam/suppo ... -chart.pdf

i5s started in 2011. Its now I believe up to its 13th generation which came out 2022 I believe...
surely the expectations can't be all i5's...
Or is the expectation that Korg tests all iterations and say which ones work with their opsix?

Opsix native has a demo version so each person can test how it plays with their system.

rsp

[BONES]

I'm looking forward to getting it, but I've got to agree on the looks. Not very inviting. People complain about the bloat with Arturia stuff, but at least it's good looking, and that makes it easier to stay involved with it.

I dunno, I recall that a few years ago a lot of people were complaining what massive system resource hogs Arturia synths were because of the way they draw their GUIs.

We've had this discussion before and as always, I disagree.

And, as always, you're wrong.

YOU may not hear the difference between sound cards / ad-da conversion but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

Of course there are differences, given that there are differences between devices, like there are differences between how one hardware MiniMoog sounds compared to any other. The point is that it doesn't f**king matter. Nobody, including you, can listen to a song from a CD, from vinyl or even lossless audio via Spotify or Bandcamp or wherever, and be able to say whether it was recorded in a high-end studio with a really good high-end digital interface, a really cheap digital I/O device or using shitty old analogue gear. That you have to go totally anal-retentive and do A/B testing in non-real-world scenarios to hear any of these differences proves the point.

I'll try to create a thread of this with actual audio demos at some point as I happen to have quite a few different era converters here. Kurzweil K2500 (early 90's), Sintefex Replicator (late 90's), Prism Orpheus (late 00's high end), RME Babyface Pro (late 10's).

Unless you run the same sources through each, it's not going to prove anything. In fact, the only thing you're likely to prove is just how much it doesn't matter.

[bmanic]

The point is that it doesn't f**king matter. Nobody, including you, can listen to a song from a CD, from vinyl or even lossless audio via Spotify or Bandcamp or wherever, and be able to say whether it was recorded in a high-end studio with a really good high-end digital interface, a really cheap digital I/O device or using shitty old analogue gear. That you have to go totally anal-retentive and do A/B testing in non-real-world scenarios to hear any of these differences proves the point.

Straw man, straw man, straw man! Oh look.. it's a STRAW MAn!

Didn't expect anything less from you BONES. So well done for keeping your character going.


Anyhow, in case you really want to try to understand my position (no, you probably don't but somebody else might) here goes:

I'm looking forward to getting it, but I've got to agree on the looks. Not very inviting. People complain about the bloat with Arturia stuff, but at least it's good looking, and that makes it easier to stay involved with it.

I dunno, I recall that a few years ago a lot of people were complaining what massive system resource hogs Arturia synths were because of the way they draw their GUIs.

We've had this discussion before and as always, I disagree.

And, as always, you're wrong.

Nope. But you go right ahead and keep believing what you believe.

Of course I can't vouch for your hearing. If it's damaged you may possibly not be able to tell the difference. Can you tell the difference between a Sine wave vs Triangle wave? If so, you'll be able to tell the difference between different AD/DA converters that have gone through identical stages of saturation. The harmonic series usually shifts enough to make it quite noticeable.

I'll try to create a thread of this with actual audio demos at some point as I happen to have quite a few different era converters here. Kurzweil K2500 (early 90's), Sintefex Replicator (late 90's), Prism Orpheus (late 00's high end), RME Babyface Pro (late 10's).

Unless you run the same sources through each, it's not going to prove anything. In fact, the only thing you're likely to prove is just how much it doesn't matter.

Of course the exact same audio sources would be run. Duh..

I've done these tests before and I'm not at all talking about a super subtle result. Almost anybody who has even a modicum of critical listening skills, which means pretty much everybody here on these forums who are arguing in synth threads over differences between Jupiter/Moog/whatever emulations, should be able to hear the differences.

Weather these differences matter or not is a completely different discussion. The whole point to my argument is that there ARE differences. That's it.

[kritikon]

To the opsix specs:

[Mac]

- OS: macOS 10.14 Mojave or later (Latest updates)
- CPU: Apple M1 or better, or Intel Core i5 or better (Core i7 or better recommended)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM (16 GB or more recommended)
- Storage: 8 GB free disk space (SSD recommended)
- Others: An internet connection is required
- Plug-ins: AU, VST3, AAX (64-bit only)
- Operability confirmed DAW software* (latest version) * as of Mar 22, 2022
---
Ableton Live 11 / Logic Pro X / GarageBand 10 / Cubase Pro 12 / Cubase Pro 11 / Studio One 5.5 / Digital Performer 10 / FL Studio 20 / ProTools 2022
---

[Windows]

- OS: Windows 10 64bit* or higher (latest update) * 32bit environment is not supported.
- CPU: Intel Core i5 or better (Core i7 or better recommended)
- Memory: 8 GB RAM (16 GB or more recommended)
- Storage: 8 GB free disk space (SSD recommended)
- Others: An internet connection is required
- Plug-ins: ST3, AAX (64-bit only)

from: https://korg.shop/software/natives/sing ... ative.html

where it does indeed say i5... however..
according to intel's website, https://www.intel.com/content/dam/suppo ... -chart.pdf

i5s started in 2011. Its now I believe up to its 13th generation which came out 2022 I believe...
surely the expectations can't be all i5's...
Or is the expectation that Korg tests all iterations and say which ones work with their opsix?

Opsix native has a demo version so each person can test how it plays with their system.

rsp

Indeed, and I'll demo M/P very closely this time. I bought Opsix sight unseen, stupidly expecting it would work on a less than 2yr old laptop on the latest Windows and latest Cubase. Personally, I really DO expect Korg to release plugins which work properly on that system, whether they test them individually or not. Maybe we should expect sw to only work on the latest chips, but I don't think that's reasonable. A new laptop/PC/Mac every year or else your music making ability goes tits up? No. It really saddens me because I'm quite the closet Korg fanboi. Have loads of Korg stuff, love their hw synths but actually Korg wrote the only plug-ins I have that regularly crash on me. Opsix unusable on a recent system, Odyssey regularly crashes when changing presets whilst playing. They have history where sw is concerned. I want them to be good like their hw. Sadly they're not.

[BONES]

Didn't expect anything less from you BONES. So well done for keeping your character going.

Seriously, that's the best you got? You acknowledged the fact yourself, if you bother to look at what you wrote. Of course, that didn't stop you getting your knickers in a twist over it, like it actually does matter.

Of course I can't vouch for your hearing. If it's damaged you may possibly not be able to tell the difference. Can you tell the difference between a Sine wave vs Triangle wave?

That might depend on the sound source. As we all know, waveforms differ vastly from synth to synth. But, honestly, it's not something that matters in the slightest in the context of producing original music. It might if you are desperate to reproduce the tone of some favourite acoustic instrument or other but it's completely irrelevant to anything I have any interest in doing.

If so, you'll be able to tell the difference between different AD/DA converters that have gone through identical stages of saturation. The harmonic series usually shifts enough to make it quite noticeable.

All of which may or may not be true but, again, it doesn't matter because you have to boost the signal massively to even hear the difference. You are literally creating a problem that doesn't otherwise exist, just to prove it's a problem. Anyway, at worst it will only affect how I hear something, it won't change how it is in my computer and it won't have as big an effect as which speakers I choose, where I position them, where I sit in relation to them or a dozen other things.

You're tilting at windmills (something I have some experience with). Save your energy for things that actually matter, like making some f**king music.

Of course the exact same audio sources would be run. Duh..

Can you do that with a Kurzweil? I was always a Korg man myself.

Weather these differences matter or not is a completely different discussion.

Yes and the critical difference is that it's the discussion that matters. Yours is the classic straw man argument.

[tumface]

Indeed, and I'll demo M/P very closely this time. I bought Opsix sight unseen, stupidly expecting it would work on a less than 2yr old laptop on the latest Windows and latest Cubase. Personally, I really DO expect Korg to release plugins which work properly on that system, whether they test them individually or not. Maybe we should expect sw to only work on the latest chips, but I don't think that's reasonable. A new laptop/PC/Mac every year or else your music making ability goes tits up? No. It really saddens me because I'm quite the closet Korg fanboi. Have loads of Korg stuff, love their hw synths but actually Korg wrote the only plug-ins I have that regularly crash on me. Opsix unusable on a recent system, Odyssey regularly crashes when changing presets whilst playing. They have history where sw is concerned. I want them to be good like their hw. Sadly they're not.

For what it's worth (not very much) opsix native runs fine on my 8 year old Windows PC. I can run a bunch of instances of it.

edit: The GUIs for the Triton plugins do take forever to show up, and those have also crashed on me when changing presets or initializing. They're the only plugins I use which I know can crash, which is normally something I don't tolerate. I like the Triton too much, I guess.