What I like/dislike of my M50

[FifthElement]

I'm currently playing in a blues band and am looking for a board to complement my Roland VK-8. Right now the 2 choices in the $1000 ballpark are the Korg M50 (new) and the Nord Electro (used). I don't like the Electro's pushbutton drawbars, but since I'm mainly wanting a board for electric pianos, who cares?

1) it sucks that the M50 has no aftertouch. My DS-8 had aftertouch back in 1987, and it had only 1% of the features and sound quality of the M50

2) it also stinks that the M50 uses a wall-wart. does Korg realize that GUITAR CENTER is often staffed by morons who LOSE the wall-wart? that's why my Karma has a Triton wall-wart. UGH. pony up the extra $30 and build keyboards with their power supplies INTERNAL, so we can use standard 3 prong power cords already.

3) is there any way to assign a button or keyswitch or knob to the FX? I'd like to turn fx off / on for patches like I used to with my DS-8. ALSO the guitar center sales guy had no idea how to change an electric piano sound on the M50 by adding Distortion to get a more angry, lo-fi sound. the Nord Electro rules at that, and if I could get the Korg to do something similar, I wouldn't even consider the Nord.

If you just want EPs, go for the Electro - they are still the best around and the Hammond emulation beats the VK-8 too IMO (I've used both in my blues band)

Better still, save up and go for the Electro 3 as it also has the acoustic piano samples from the Nord Stage (it can take all the the samples from the Stage, in fact) and still has the great Electro waterfall keybed - the best compromise if you don't want weighted 88.

The M50 is not really a comparison. It's a performance synth with a sequencer. All it's sounds are excellent but you can't compare it to a dedicated B3 and EP clone.

Korg have released a classic keys set for the M3/50 which has some excellent Rhodes and Wurlies, with all the effects you need, but they can't quite match the Electros ability to "cut through" the mix in live play - it's close though!

Hope this helps.

[michelkeijzers]

Dislikes:

Aftertouch: Yes I would have liked that very much (even if the price would be some higher).

Sequencer: I never use it

External power: I possibly want to use this live and I don't like additional items to setup. Besides I have a bad experience with a broken adapter-pin (not with Korg tough).

More combi/program banks: I just like to have all in one set ... besides I don't think it will cost that much extra.

Light build quality: but light is also a good thing, it doesn't feel that it breaks. My Korg Triton Extreme has some broken corners due to uncarefull case placing but it still works fine.

Likes:

Great sounds (and I have a Extreme 61 to compare to), especially strings were nicer.

Keybed: I haven't tried it onstage, but at home it didn't feel that plastic.

UI: Tough the quality of the touchscreen is not as good as the EX61 it feels nice to have such a UI on a 900 euro synth.



About playing live: I haven't played in the band with it yet but the sounds are comparable with the EX61 (M50 even better but the 'feel' is equal). I had the same problem that some sounds (especially piano) was a littled 'washed' away in the band mix. Easiest solution is to remove or lessen all reverbs and delay effects. This way you get a more 'live and direct sound'. What I also do on the EX61 is to combine multiple programs for one sound but I think I will step of this idea since it costs a lot of programming work.

[Masterfo]

What exactly is keyboard aftertouch?I can't find a simple answer online.

[jerryv]

What exactly is keyboard aftertouch?I can't find a simple answer online.

From Wikipedia ... A feature brought in in the late 1980s, whereby dynamics are added after the key is hit, allowing the sound to be modulated in some way (such as fade away or return), based upon the amount of pressure applied to the keyboard. After-touch is found on many synthesizers, and is an important modulation source on modern keyboards. After-touch is most prevalent in music of the mid to late 1980s, such as the opening string-pad on Cock Robin's "When Your Heart Is Weak", which is only possible with the use of after-touch (or one hand on the volume control)

While the m50 keyboard doesn't generate aftertouch data, the synth itself can deal with it .. so using an external keyboard could allow the use of aftertouch on the m50 ... at least that's my understanding of things ..

[X-Trade]

I might add, the most common use of aftertouch is to apply vibrato for example to synth leads when the other hand isn't free or the mod wheel/joystick is used for something else. so pushing down on the keys generates aftertouch messages, used in this example to generate vibrato intensity.