Korg Forums

[microkorgy]

compared to before, it's what some have told.


If so, why? Did anyone ever complain that a synth sounded too 'warm'?


And do real instruments ever sound cold? No. Fluit, piano, guitar, all sound warm, compared to cold. Why would they do that, and stick with it, I don't get it. Only to then end up with a bunch of retro oriented synths as people crave the old sound? Why not just stick with the warmer sample frequency?


Is there a way to tweak the higher sample frequency in newer synth, to get the same warmer sound as the older synths?

[X-Trade]

AFAIK the 'warmer' sound of the older synths is exagerated compared to the real thing. But people liked it and so some people still see that kind of sound.

IMO the (real) EPs on the M3 and M50 sound much more like the real thing - or at least a finished studio recording of the real thing. It is mainly the synth waves that suffer.

The warmer sound has however become desirable. KORG needs to find a way to implement both. The drive and punch parameters go some way towards this but aren't really the same. I think you could probably get a similar sound with some clever programming - use of drive/low boost, limiter and decimator for example.

but also not sounding so warm or 'fat' helps to fit in better with a mix with other instruments. In modern rock particularly (up until recently anyway) keyboards have taken a back seat and need to blend in more than be heard.

I don't think the newer synths have to sound 'cold', and not being fat or warm does not necesarily mean that it is cold either. But I think the problem is not the synth but mainly a lack of programming. For example

I've mentioned a number of times when people complain that the Radias sounds cold and digital compared to the MS2000 or microKorg:
It does sound cold and digital, when you start from an init patch and do the same things you do on the MS2000. But when you bring in the other parameters like drive and punch and play with the EQ and compression you can get a really fat analog sound that is sometimes even more powerful than that on the MS2000. It can be all these things but you have to program the sound to be that way. It is just more flexible. For example I wouldn't go to the MS2000 for a really cold atmospheric digital pad because it would sound too warm, whereas on the Radias I could do a cold digital atmospheric pad and a really fat bassline at the same time.


Warm keyboard sounds only suit a percentage of the people who want these sounds, whereas the ability to do both suits a lot more people.
And from the perspective of a workstation, having realistic 'real' instruments is more desirable than having really exaggeratedly warm and fake sounding instruments.
_________________
Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[EvilDragon]

Of course they sound different. Korg's acoustic samples sound much better and more realistic now. Still not up to par in certain parts, but much, much better than what was on AI/AI2/HI.

[microkorgy]

Cool answer.

I didn't wonder so much about accoustic instruments as the synths overall warmnesses.

They could've used the frequency that best emulates real instruments for the acoustic instrument samples. But why change frequency for the whole synth?


Synthesized sounds will sound more 'real' when they're warmer, have more presence.



I agree it'd be best if they provide both in a synth so users could select themselves, and how hard would it be for them, and why given the demand for older 'warmer' sounds don't they seem to commit to it?

[X-Trade]

I don't think the 'warmth' is down to just the sampling quality, but probably a number of things. If you consider all that goes in to it: microphone/recording medium, processing (most samples are heavily compressed), sample compression on the ROM chip, digital and analog circuitry in the keyboard, particularly the D/A converters.

I think a lot of it is actually down to the D/A converters which were not so perfected back in the 80s and 90s and it was still an emerging technology for audio use.


And there is Korg's 'Decimator' which you can use to reduce bit depth and sample rate. I use this quite often in my own programs.
_________________
Current Gear: Kronos 61, RADIAS-R, Volca Bass, ESX-1, microKorg, MS2000B, R3, Kaossilator Pro +, MiniKP, AX3000B, nanoKontrol, nanoPad MK II,
Other Mfgrs: Moog Sub37, Roland Boutique JX03, Novation MiniNova, Akai APC40, MOTU MIDI TimePiece 2, ART Pro VLA, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40.
Past Gear: Korg Karma, TR61, Poly800, EA-1, ER-1, ES-1, Kawai K1, Novation ReMote37SL, Boss GT-6B
Software: NI Komplete 10 Ultimate, Arturia V Collection, Ableton Live 9. Apple OSX El Capitan on 15" MacBook Pro

[mocando]

Musicians have been using old sounds from way back to the 60s or 70 when synthesizers where just a dream. Take the Mellotron, for example. All Mellotron lovers (me included) forgive me, but they sounded horrible. All the wow and flutter and low quality tape recordings. Now, the fact was that it was the ONLY thing that could reproduce a brass section, or a choir or a strings section without having to haul the London Philharmonic around.

Fast forward 30-40 years and we find ourselves trying to recreate those sounds. Synths of today have amazing strings, brasses and choirs, BUT the problem is, they sound like the London Philharmonic or the English Chamber Choir. Now we must use decimators, or tape echo effects to "turn down" these sounds and make them sound more "like the old stuff".

That is one of the reasons people think sounds of old where warmer than sounds of today. Old synths had all the presets and samples with all effects and eq taken care of. Today samples are, as Tony Banks pointed out in a Korg interview, "nude". But that is a good thing, since now we can just apply the right amount of effects and eq to turn that nude sound into recreating the old synth sound we learned to love and cherish.
_________________
Martin Ocando

Korg Gear: Wavestation
Korg Software: KLC Wavestation, iWavestation for iPad
Non Korg: M-Audio Code 61 MIDI Controller, Nektar GX49 MIDI Controller
Music Computing: 16in Macbook Pro with Touch Bar Mid 2019, i9 32GB RAM 2TB Flash, MacOS Catalina - 2019 iPad Air 64GB
Software: Apple MainStage, Arturia V Collection 7, Arturia OB-Xa V
Visit: Synth Fans :: Everything Synths Twitter: @korgfans

[tpantano]

[mocando]

[Gargamel314]

[cminor]

well...
did some one try "other" stuff?
I had a fantom-xr, and I could say that my M3 doesn't have 50% of the "power" that I had in Fantom-XR.
The M3 sounds "warm" and "muddy" and "fluffy".
Altt the inserted fx (Ifx, Tfx) didn't get me the rich, powerfull, perc sound of me x-fantom
So you bettter compare it to other gear too... Korg sounds warmer then other keyboards, warmer then you think...

[Gargamel314]

you're right ... Fantom X does sound a lot colder than the M3 just after listening to some of the demo songs. not really sure why though. But still sounds pretty sweet. my question to everyone else is, how would you describe "cold-sounding?" cause i think this seems to mean something different to everyone.
_________________
Korg Kronos-61, 01/Wfd, SONAR Pro

[EvilDragon]

To me Fantom sounds way more sterile than Korg ever did. And Korg kills Roland in FX quality, IMO, especially the Leslie.

Then again, Kurzweil kills them both. In everything. Even with old samples. ESPECIALLY synth sounds, as VAST is.... well, vast. The most flexible synthesis available on a hardware rompler. For over 20 years now.

[microkorgy]

I must agree that cold sounding means different things to most.


The bottom line is, the Microkorg got popular because of its vocoder and sound power 50/50? The MS2000 got popular because of its sound power 90%? It couldn't be the knobs, as many other synths had more knobs. The MS2000 seems to sound more pleasant than the MK for sure, based on all demos I've heard. And the MS2000 has a warmer sound. That seems to be 'warm' enough to me.

The M1 sounds as well, get at you more I think than the M3's sounds. Warm is simply more comfortable rather than cold.

And whoever said Kurzweil beats them all. Nah.

[cminor]

[Gargamel314]