Korg Collection (V2.0 released, GUI update!)

[WasteLand]

two old reveiws, sound on sound, quite good reviews most of the times, about the korg plugins/soft synths. they were compared to the originals. they already sounded in that time great. with some different behavior, the resonance of the polysix (if i remember correctly), and the mono/poly sounded fatter as a soft synth.

i like vintage synths, although i made a step, to vst synths that aren't emulations. but i always judge them how they sound as vsti.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ko ... ion-part-3

(there more to find..)

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/ko ... cy-edition

in a way, did korg a really great job, at that time, for modelling. and even for now, in my opinion. i like the way they sound, really like.

[kritikon]

All the synths sound brilliant, but in general, how do guys see the relevance of these synths in today's music scene considering these are quite old?

Thought it would be an interesting discussion and some knowledge sharing.

I was using these synths from 1989 onwards (Wavestation must have been 1990 I guess), and most of them are as useful now as they were then.

M1...must admit I struggled to get it to be useful in acieed tracks, but it still got some use both for drums and for piano etc...how can you NOT use an M1 if you're making any kind of euro house with piano riffs? Overall, it's still a bit meh, though. I wouldn't choose to buy it if it wasn't part of the bundle that included all the other good stuff. Very limited compared to other synths.

Wavestation...one of my favourite synths ever. Again, not necessarily a trance machine, but I did and still do use it on all kinds of electronic music. Ambient, spacey, hippy kind of shit - it's almost impossible to beat. You CAN use it for some superb vocal, string and build up pads even for kiddie dance if you want. It's no slouch on dance floor pads. And it's so unique and weird sounding, you would be strange not to use it for experimental stuff...I still think there's nothing remotely as distinctive and creative even today. Except, of course the Wavestate (which I'll buy after the stupid lockdown shit ends).

PolySix...it's pretty vanilla, but it's still useful. People still want Junos etc and use them for all kinds of modern electronic music. Polysix is very equivalent to a Juno.
MonoPoly same. Only better. It's less vanilla, more powerful and might be the equivalent of having a full set of Junos. I could happily use that in acid, trance, techno, dub, even glitchy shit if I was into that. Monopoly should be a stock item for creating predictable dubsteppy type fat basses. And I know of people who happily use it for industrial type noisey music.

Odyssey...it's as useful as any bang up to date analogue being sold today...far more character than some IMO.

MS20...are you serious? You don't think that's an essential piece of kit? I have an original, the s/w and plan to get a new full size one day. Simply can't get enough of it. I can't think of any style of electronic music where an MS20 can't be useful and distinctice and creative and powerful. Seriously, it's that good.

I've piddled around with music since 1989 through so many styles and Korgs have been extremely useful for all of them.

[LoveEnigma18]

Thanks to all those who responded to my question.

@kritikon: Wow! That's an excellent post and the kind of answer I would not have imagined to get. It was an interesting read and very informative. Thank you for your time.

[WasteLand]

All the synths sound brilliant, but in general, how do guys see the relevance of these synths in today's music scene considering these are quite old?

Thought it would be an interesting discussion and some knowledge sharing.

I was using these synths from 1989 onwards (Wavestation must have been 1990 I guess), and most of them are as useful now as they were then.

M1...must admit I struggled to get it to be useful in acieed tracks, but it still got some use both for drums and for piano etc...how can you NOT use an M1 if you're making any kind of euro house with piano riffs? Overall, it's still a bit meh, though. I wouldn't choose to buy it if it wasn't part of the bundle that included all the other good stuff. Very limited compared to other synths.

Wavestation...one of my favourite synths ever. Again, not necessarily a trance machine, but I did and still do use it on all kinds of electronic music. Ambient, spacey, hippy kind of shit - it's almost impossible to beat. You CAN use it for some superb vocal, string and build up pads even for kiddie dance if you want. It's no slouch on dance floor pads. And it's so unique and weird sounding, you would be strange not to use it for experimental stuff...I still think there's nothing remotely as distinctive and creative even today. Except, of course the Wavestate (which I'll buy after the stupid lockdown shit ends).

PolySix...it's pretty vanilla, but it's still useful. People still want Junos etc and use them for all kinds of modern electronic music. Polysix is very equivalent to a Juno.
MonoPoly same. Only better. It's less vanilla, more powerful and might be the equivalent of having a full set of Junos. I could happily use that in acid, trance, techno, dub, even glitchy shit if I was into that. Monopoly should be a stock item for creating predictable dubsteppy type fat basses. And I know of people who happily use it for industrial type noisey music.

Odyssey...it's as useful as any bang up to date analogue being sold today...far more character than some IMO.

MS20...are you serious? You don't think that's an essential piece of kit? I have an original, the s/w and plan to get a new full size one day. Simply can't get enough of it. I can't think of any style of electronic music where an MS20 can't be useful and distinctice and creative and powerful. Seriously, it's that good.

I've piddled around with music since 1989 through so many styles and Korgs have been extremely useful for all of them.

the relevance of these synths today. of course not everybody like the sound, i need the sound.
but of course they will be relevant, if you work with them and create sounds that work in your songs, and give tension or whatever, that you like. a violin is still relevant. is the odyssee of homerus still relevant? the word relevant is a strange term... it suggests a value, combined with time. everything can be relevant, the music of edgar varèse, the state of plato, the hymns of pindaros. relevant is most of times also a hype term, nowadayws the cassette players are back, again.. are they relevant? relevant is also something that is made relevant.
but "think for yourself" (immanual kant), relevancy is term abused, by politics, art (dealers), etc.
in way the word means setting it into a spotlight. so relevant means also, that someone sets in a spotlight, and people crave for it.
so no not relevant and yes relevant. how do they sound, how do they work, what can you do with these instruments.

the polysix doesn't sound vanilla to me, it maybe a synth that has not a lot of control, but the sounds you can get..... i have jup-8 v of arturia, not really a juno.. really, for me a different beast, that i only recently, or a year, discovered the potential of it.

[robotmonkey]

All the synths sound brilliant, but in general, how do guys see the relevance of these synths in today's music scene considering these are quite old?

Thought it would be an interesting discussion and some knowledge sharing.

Well, not really imho. This Thread is about the GUI update and associated problems. It might just clutter up the conversation for people who are trying to find solutions.

If by today's music scene you mean extremely nasty dub-step styles or something, then perhaps look elsewhere.

Agreed. This thread should be kept for bug reports and complaining. And maybe throw in some MAC vs PC d1ck measuring comparisons.

[robotmonkey]

But they spent their dear time to make the installer pages SCROLL INTO VIEW FROM THE RIGHT, making the installer slower and sluggish to use. Really weird stuff.

I think this is the first time I have seen anything like that in an installer. It's great! Innovative approach and makes installing plugins much less boring.

[ramseysounds]

If a sound sounds good, use it, regardless of where it comes from and how old it is

[revvy]

If by today's music scene you mean

Get off his lawn

[Aloysius]

[kritikon]

All the synths sound brilliant, but in general, how do guys see the relevance of these synths in today's music scene considering these are quite old?

Thought it would be an interesting discussion and some knowledge sharing.

Well, not really imho. This Thread is about the GUI update and associated problems. It might just clutter up the conversation for people who are trying to find solutions.

If by today's music scene you mean extremely nasty dub-step styles or something, then perhaps look elsewhere.

Agreed. This thread should be kept for bug reports and complaining. And maybe throw in some MAC vs PC d1ck measuring comparisons.

Dunno about that. The original post was:

"Hey all,

The Korg collection is currently on sale and I'm wondering if it is still worth it. I'm also interested in the Arturia V collection but I'm waiting for Black Friday with that one. I'm mostly making pop/rock, but I use synths quite a lot so I wonder if I should get both or if one is simply better than the other

Looking for input, thanks"

So it wasn't really about bug reports or complaining originally, though obviously we all love to complain. We can do that anyway.

[Aloysius]

Fair enough. Sorry for throwing a spanner in the works. I clearly never read the content of the original post.

[EvilDragon]

But they spent their dear time to make the installer pages SCROLL INTO VIEW FROM THE RIGHT, making the installer slower and sluggish to use. Really weird stuff.

I think this is the first time I have seen anything like that in an installer. It's great! Innovative approach and makes installing plugins much less boring.

It's just annoying and really makes clicking through slower than it should be.

[noxxle_]

I see numerous upgrade options in Korg's online shop. Do they bundle the complete collection with any of their hardware synths?

[kritikon]

I see numerous upgrade options in Korg's online shop. Do they bundle the complete collection with any of their hardware synths?

Not that I know of, but I wish they'd throw in a cheap Wavestate as a tempter to get the s/w collection. I'd happily pay an extra $100 or so.

[Jace-BeOS]

But they spent their dear time to make the installer pages SCROLL INTO VIEW FROM THE RIGHT, making the installer slower and sluggish to use. Really weird stuff.

I think this is the first time I have seen anything like that in an installer. It's great! Innovative approach and makes installing plugins much less boring.

It's just annoying and really makes clicking through slower than it should be.

I don’t remember the Mac installers doing anything odd. Korg do seem to have a tolerance for slowness. Their website looks slick in places, but I’ve not seen any other website load slower without the server literally being unavailable. Korg dot com. Slow dot shit.