How different is the Radias compared to the EMX

sclvan · Post by **sclvan** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 5:14 am

Hello all,

I own an Electribe EMX-1 and love it. Unfortunatley this little box has made me want to buy another more powerful synth. The Radias looks good but I am concerned that since both the Radias and EMX use the same MMT synth engine, I would end up with two very similar sounding synths.

Does anybody know if the Radias can produce different synth noises than the EMX-1 or are they essentially the same synths?

meatballfulton · Post by **meatballfulton** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 2:38 pm

The Radias is completely different than the EMX.

Radias is truly polyphonic, has more filter types and more modulation options. Plus you get a vocoder and far more flexible FX processing. Radias can create a much wider array of sounds than the EMX can.

meatballfulton · Post by **meatballfulton** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 5:26 pm

I should have added what might not be obvious: when Korg says the Radias uses MMT that's just marketing, as is Roland's COSM, or Yamaha's AWM2. That doesn't mean that the software code is the same.

Korg has claimed that the Radias borrows from software developed for Oasys such as the anti-aliasing oscillators. The EMX came out a few years before Oasys and uses different (older) software.

Gospel · Post by **Gospel** » Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:01 pm

Can't the same even be said for the Radias to the R3, especially because of the PCMs aka DWGS. Or even the MS200 to the microKorg.
Because making the same thing over and over again is boring.

bkboy · Post by **bkboy** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 2:31 am

the r3 sounds a little phatter and warmer than the radias!

it may have 1/3 the polyphony and 1/2 the timbres of radias, but the overall oscillators, filters, etc seem 'fresher' than the radias, and no, its not just the programming! r3 is newer than the radias.

klangsulfat · Post by **klangsulfat** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:33 am

bkboy wrote:the r3 sounds a little phatter and warmer than the radias!
it may have 1/3 the polyphony and 1/2 the timbres of radias, but the overall oscillators, filters, etc seem 'fresher' than the radias, and no, its not just the programming! r3 is newer than the radias.

Sounds a little bit esoteric for me. I used them side by side for more than a week and I can't agree with you. BTW, newer is not automatically better, remember all those old Moogs

meatballfulton · Post by **meatballfulton** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:30 pm

Gospel wrote:making the same thing over and over again is boring.

After 25+ years of electrical engineering, I can tell you that a lot of product design is in fact very boring.

Products like the R3 and MicroKorg (or even the Radias-EXB board for the M3) leverage the designs of earlier products. There's big cost savings to be had reusing parts of earlier successful designs.

Synth makers have long followed the path of creating "flagship" instruments like Oasys then trickling down the design innovations into later products. Korg is more aggressive at this than most, follow-ons to the M1 of 1988 can be traced all the way to the X5D which was discontinued in 2006...that's 18 years.