Korg Forums

[Reuben]

Completely out of the blue I woke up with an unexpected Christmas present from my lovely wife - an iPad Air 2. Now what to do with this new toy? Well I couldn't help but purchase the Korg Module app and the Ivory Piano expansion. Here are my initial impressions after a couple of hours of use.

The stock pianos that Korg provide in the Module are in my opinion better than the Factory pianos in the Pa3x. They have more soul and are more easily configurable with EQ and other effects on the front screen. They are a little cheezy at the top end but there are a variety of piano types available so you can pretty much get what you want. Tonally I would give them 6 or 7 out of 10. (The factory pianos of the Pa3x I would only give 4 out of 10).

Moving to the Ivory expansion pack pianos - these are very nice indeed (2 GB of samples) - and the detail and tone is really nice. Quite a pleasure to play. I'd give them 9 out of 10.
Both the Korg Natural and the Ivory pianos have pedal down resonance effects but don't appear to have sympathetic resonance.

Now the downside - polyphony is a concern. With both the Korg Natural and the Ivory add on, the maximum number of notes available (on my iPad Air 2) is 18. This might be fixable with an update because at the moment polyphony is not managed very cleverly (even hitting the same note with the pedal down still only gives you 18 ). I do remember with the Korg Pa1x they increased "apparent" polyphony with an update that allocated it better (by giving priority to low notes and not wasting it on repeated notes). It could also be fixed if an option to play without the resonance effects were to be made available. The problem is that 18 stereo notes with resonance take up 72 in polyphony allocation. Without resonance you could presumably play 36 notes which would be quite acceptable. Having said all this I must confess that under normal playing
I didn't notice the polyphony limits but only when I purposely did long runs with the pedal down. A serious concert pianist would not like this at all.

Moving onto the other sounds available under the Korg Module I must say I was very impressed with the organs and EPs. I think Organ players would love the ability it gives to change things easily on the front screen interface. Right there in front of you is rotation speed (which can be changed with your damper pedal), vibrato on/off, chorus effects and overdrive. Really, really nice. Similarly the EPs are very configurable with EQ, Tremelo depth and speed, drive and an Amp switch. Also available are Modulation and Ambient effects.

As for the other sounds I would say that apart from the Wurleys (which are downloadable for free at the moment) there is nothing amoungst the Brass/Synth/Strings that are particularly better than the equivalents on the Pa3x and in fact in most cases the Pa3x sounds are far better.

Just a comment on ease of use/connectivity and latency:
It was complete plug and play I just plugged a USB Device cable into the Apple Lighting to USB adapter and it just worked straight away.
Latency was not noticeable at all but bear in mind I was using the Air 2 which has the fastest processor available. Sounds were completely playable without lag. There is a latency setting built into the app and at standard setting I did not notice any. In addition I was able to move the setting to the top (minimal latency) and I still didn't get any pop/sound issues.

To sum up. I think the $39 odd dollars for the app are more than worth it just for the Organs and EPs. If you haven't got a better piano than the Factory Pa3x pianos it makes it worth it even more. Perhaps you might be surprised at this but to my ears the free Steinway from Antony Sharmann is a tad better than the Korg Module Natural piano (and doesn't have any polyphony issues) while the Ivory add on is very nice to the ears but still has those polyphony issues discussed above.
I haven't delved deeper into the program at this stage (set lists, midi files) and can't really see the point at this stage given that the Pa3x does all this stuff with style anyway.
Cheers,
John

[Jo Martins]

Hi Reuben,
I didn´t tried the Ivory piano yet, neither the Korg module but I think if you´re looking for the best piano emulation app for IOS, is CMP grand piano. There´s also an add-on that is darker and more complex harmonically than the stock piano. It´s perfect for classical music.

Latency is almost inexistent in my Ipad air 1 and polyphony is over 128 notes.

I have several pianos like iGrand, Sound Fonts, Garage band, etc. CMP is close in sound to Pianoteq 5 (which I use in my MacBook Pro)

Good Luck!
Jo

[pablomariana]

thanks reuben...so .... what is wrong ??
i take from korg web
Devices and Approximate Polyphony
iPad Air 2: 72 voices

[Dikikeys]

But are they stereo voices? And do samples in Ivory cross-fade from one to another?

Both of those chew up polyphony. Not to mention, things like damper effects and sympathetic resonance can need voices too.

72 mono voices becomes 36 stereo voices, and a layer of sympathetic resonances (or a crossfade sample system) might bring that down to 18.

Not to mention that a reverb processor might reduce the iPad's processor overhead to the point that it can't produce as much polyphony.

This is why totally computer driven instruments have long struggled in the marketplace, despite being capable of amazing sound... Processor load is dynamic. Depending on what it is playing, what type of synthesis, and how efficient (or not!) each VSTi is, polyphony can vary drastically. And few systems have an intelligent voice allocation system (which all hardware keyboards do) to stop a potential overload from choking the entire system.

So, on the one hand they can sound amazing. But load up too many processor-hungry plug-ins at the same time and they can crash... Not good news on a gig! And that's on a multi-core modern computer... an iPad has a fraction of that power.

If other piano libraries can get more polyphony, it's probably because their sample playback system is simpler. I've used Ivory on big computer rigs, and it is amazing. But it WAS a bit of a processor hog with all the options turned on!

[Reuben]

Yes on the iPad Air 2 you get 72 voices but each notes takes up 4 leaving you with only 18 notes. Its definitely a polyphony allocation problem. I can put the pedal down and hit two notes all day without running out of polyphony. But if I put the pedal down and hit a low note once and then hit two high notes repeatedly the low note cuts out right on 18 hits. The problem only happens on piano sounds.
This is not a deal breaker as I'm really happy with the app and as I said its not noticeable with "normal" playing but surprisingly even when you choose piano sounds that don't have resonance you still only get 18.
I think (and hope) Korg might be able to address this with a software update.
As I said the app is worth it just for the Organs and EPs. Its also real nice to be able to play the Ivory Piano for $20. The equivalent for PC is $295.
Cheers,
John

[Dikikeys]

The PC version is considerably different. You aren't getting the PC version for $20!

The PC version has many, many more samples, more velocity layers, multiple mike positions, more sympathetic resonance and other subtle sounds, player perspective and audience perspective samples, and many, many more things. It is an amazing virtual piano series (they make several different models) and can fool some of the most discerning ears.

But it will never run on an iPad!

I'm sorry, but for me, 18 notes polyphony is a deal breaker. 64 is the minimum practical need for full sustain pedal usage, 128 is the current norm in any mid-line stage piano and workstation/arranger. 18 voices is so 80's!

[Reuben]

Just to be clear - Korg Module has 72 voices on the iPad Air 2. This compares to 62 voices on my old Pa1x that never ran out of notes even when using the Grand Touch Piano which also used 4 voices per note. So there was definitely some better management of the polyphony and I remember this happened following an OS update.
Famous quotes:
"it will never run on an iPad"
"1 megabyte is more than anyone would ever need"
(Bill Gates said one of these)
Just having some fun here - not being serious.
I think we are at the threshhold of some very big changes.
There are startup ventues out their making bluetooth devices you plug into your midi ports so you can connect your musical keyboard wirelessly to your laptop or iPad. The Korg Module already has bluetooth midi built in.
This means you dont have to worry about your iPad running low on battery because you can continue to charge it as well as receive midi wirelessly.
If I had an old midi keyboard laying around then I would not be getting rid of it. With a simple bluetooth dongle and an iPad app you can bring it right up to date. I'm not saying this about the Korg Module in particular - though it is certainly giving us a glimpse of what is coming. Happy 2015 to all.
John

[Dikikeys]

I completely agree that virtual instrument designers need to work long and hard on voice allocation schemes. My 48 voice K2500 does a better job of masking voice stealing than any modern PC.

Making the sound simply is not good enough...