Korg Forums

[meatballfulton]

I've heard the factory demos of the Radias, played with it a bit at GC and read the manual. Like most synths the presets sound very much of it's time...full of all kinds of trance/dance sounds but not the sounds I'm looking for.

I've owned my share of analogs (Odyssey, SH-101, Juno, Evolver, PAiA and synthesizers.com modulars) over the years and hearing the patch emulating the DSOTM sequence has me thinking the Radias can indeed do what I want: Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Subotnick type stuff.

Anyone using it in this way? Any sound samples you can share with me?
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I sing the body electric

[botega]

[meatballfulton]

My first few times playing with the Radias were pretty frustrating as I had not yet read the manual. Just hitting a preset and twisting knobs didn't lead me anywhere useful.

After reading the manual online I have some idea of how to actually edit the beast so my next encounter should be more fruitful.

I listened to the demos at fierlion's MySpace page and they were in the vein of what I'm looking to do so that's promising.
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I sing the body electric

[meatballfulton]

Back from another trip to GC.

So the Radias filters won't self-oscillate? I tried both filters and couldn't get either to fire off with no input signal the way a real analog filter will. I also tried the old trick of pumping in a short burst of noise but the filter seemed to have trouble staying in oscillation
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I sing the body electric

[botega]

o.k

1. if you're in to filters then you must have noticed that there are 4 different routing types for two multimode, resonant filter section - single; serial; parallel; individual, you might have missed it and probably used only one of them (default one)

2. you have the "analog tune" feature that lets you control the amount of simulated oscillator drift that will be applied. (from the manual)

3. modulation such as cross-modulation, unison, and VPM (Variable phase Modulation) can be applied to the analog synthesizer waveforms of Oscillator 1. Oscillator 2 can be used as modulating oscillator for the sync modulation(SYNC) or ring modulation(RING). (from the manual)


well...i dont know if that's enough, for me it's working



till next time

[nemmo]

[botega]

hey nemmo, did you send something new? it wont open here, try to send another link .

[nemmo]

Yup, i uploaded it but it seems that the ftp client kept uploading and uploading and uploading and uploading it....

[mhschmieder]

My own RADIAS-Rack should arrive tomorrow. It will be difficult for me to answer specific technical questions until I have a manual at hand, but I bought it primarily as an upgrade to my just-sold MS2000BR, and especially for its unique vocoding capacities.

I agree that the Korg official demos tend to bias a bit towards current styles, which are not my bag, but it didn't take much time in the store (on many separate occasions by now!) to convince myself that it is in a much higher class than the Alesis Ion/Micron and capable of as much breadth when it comes to emulating some of the more typical analog patches.

I just got back from the local Guitar Centre, where I was able to do a head-to-head of the Micron, RADIAS, and Virus TI for the first time all in one sitting. I would say that the Virus is slightly more accessible in its layout, and a bit more obvious when it comes to some of the more advanced synthesis techniques, but the character of the sound is quite different -- a bit darker, I suppose, but I had the most success when focusing on the types of pads and special effects that I used to do on my Nord Lead 3 (stolen last July and hopefully replaced in most senses by the RADIAS-rack purchase, but it'll take awhile for me to try to port all of my custom patches to the RADIAS architecture).

In other words, while both synths can sound a bit "digital", they are versatile and can sound much truer to analog if you focus on the right parameters and perhaps bypass others. The Virus is a bit deeper in that it has more fully fleshed out wavetable synthesis, but I'm not sure what the status of its reliability is after many OS upgrades. My recollection is that the wavetable feature was added a bit incrementally after the initial hardware release.

If I could justify the cost, I would buy a Virus TI, but I'm not convinced it is that much better than the RADIAS to qualify for a 3x markup. Granted, the RADIAS price used to be a lot higher, but I do feel it is fair to compare these two synths. The Virus TI can go crazy with self-oscillation and it is not too difficult to get it into a state that requires a reboot as it does not prevent you from creating extreme settings that get it into infinite recursion. The RADIAS seems a bit tamer in comparison, but I think also it might be slightly more difficult to master to the level of doing crazy stuff with it. Time will tell, as people with too much time on their hands produce voice banks for both instruments .

Keyboard-wise, the Virus TI has a nice hefty feel like early vintage synths, which means it's a bit closer to semi-weighted organ action. I think it also transmits aftertouch, which neither the RADIAS nor R3 do. The Virus TI has semi-waterfall keys so could be useful as a B4 controller. But the RADIAS and R3 keys have a pleasing heft to them as well, so it is good that Korg has gone back in-house for keybeds again. The RADIAS and R3 keys would rip your hands on organ swipes, but feel more responsive than typical modern day synths.

[nemmo]

Ok, here's the video....


http://www.robotgigante.cl/video/radias/selfosc.wmv


You can see and hear a self oscillating radias.

[meatballfulton]

nemmo,

Thanks for the video. For the life of me I could not get the self-oscillation to happen on the one in GC...I punched res up all the way on both filters and I could make it chirp but not when there was no signal from the mixer. I will have to make a return visit and play with it some more.

mark,

Brian Rost here...geez you are everywhere I go. I've been looking at Radias to replace the PLG150-AN boards in my Motif, I'm sick of using the computer editor esp. for the Free EGs (which the Radias mod sequencers would replace). I'm 100% happy with the sound of the PLGs, it's just the programming interface driving me nuts.
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I sing the body electric

[botega]

[Morten'J]

I could also make self oscillate.
use a init progarm make sure that it is 24 dB LPF in single way.
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Korg Kronos 61(soon)
Access Virus TI KB
Roland Gaia and SonicCell with SRX 07

[nemmo]

Yup. Before accusing any synth that its filters suck, you must make sure that the Filter Envelope is being actually applied (it means, turn select a 24 pole LPF filter, resonance up, and play with the EG1 Int and the ADSR EG1 Filter knobs).

[meatballfulton]