Vox Continental ? Anyone try it yet?

blazerunner · Post by **blazerunner** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 11:04 am

Been looking at this keyboard but haven't heard anything about it other than a couple of online demo's. Is it a good set of keys or not? It has some of the Kronos and Grand stage engines in it. I'm wondering if it's the same sounds though. Would it be worth a purchase?

xp50player · Post by **xp50player** » Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:57 pm

I played it in the store. The drawbar system is different, with concave touch grooves. I would rather have Nord switches or just about anything else for that control surface. The APs/EPs were to my liking. I thought this was supposed to have the MOD-7 FM engine from the Kronos, but I guess not, they are sampled. This board has a decent selection of other bread and butter sounds and typical coverband synth sounds. You can save 4-part splits & layers and access them pretty easliy. If my primary interest was tonewheel organs, I would probably spend a little more and get the Nord Electro 5D, for the physical drawbars and better regarded tonewheel/rotary emulation.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:53 am

Yes i did... in a store...

The drawbars take some getting used to...

But in fact its nothing but a downgraded Kronos (as is the Grand stage)
However it would be great to have the 2 new organ engines in the kronos, they do sound great.

its a great instrument for people that like the simplified formfactor.

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:59 am

Hey Bachus

Did you think it is in any way a competitor to Nord?

Cheers
Pete

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:45 am

xp50player wrote:The drawbar system is different, with concave touch grooves. I would rather have Nord switches

The Nord "drawbuttons" are pretty useless for live manipulation. They can be globally set for one of two speeds... fast, which is fine for setting a drawbar fully in or out, but not useful for anything in between or more gradual; and slow, which is no good for quickly bringing something all the way in or out. At least the Vox should let you move the bars at whatever speed you want at any time.

xp50player wrote:You can save 4-part splits & layers and access them pretty easliy.

Layers, but no splits (except upper and lower organ registrations).

Bachus wrote:But in fact its nothing but a downgraded Kronos

...except it's 18.5 lbs for 73 keys, which is pretty useful (and lighter for 61). Also, it has the nutube.

karmathanever wrote:Did you think it is in any way a competitor to Nord?

Electro is the closest Nord.

Piano: Nord has a wider variety of different pianos (and I happen to generally like Nord pianos more than Korg's), but if the one in the Vox works for you, it might be all you need.

Organ: Nord is better for tonewheel organ. Even apart from whatever you think of the sound, Vox lacks a lot of controls (percussion pitch/volume/decay, C/V type, key click and leakage, any rotary parameters beyond being able to switch speed), and most people would probably prefer the real drawbars (of the Nord models that have them), though the touchstrips do have the virtue of always being at the "right" position. I couldn't say which is better for transistor organs.

EP: I'd probably lean toward the Vox, based on my feelings of Kronos vs Nord EPs, plus the tube.

Synth: Vox beats the Electro, in having pitch bend and controls for attack, decay, release, filer cutoff/resonance, LFO (vibrato) amount/speed.

In overall functionality, Nord lets you split sounds, and store a lot more of your own custom patches than the 16 of the Vox. Nord also allows you to add your own custom samples, and has better MIDI capabilities.

I'd say the Nord is stronger overall, but I might prefer the Vox for EP and synth.

ETA: Clarifying about the organ... As I understand it, there are factory preset organ sounds with different amounts of click and leakage (and you can still alter the drawbars from these presets), so you do have some variation here, but there is no direct control of click or leakage parameters.

JPROBERTLA · Post by **JPROBERTLA** » Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:50 pm

What is the keybed like? It is advertised to be somewhere between weighted and unweighted.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 12:29 am

JPROBERTLA wrote:What is the keybed like? It is advertised to be somewhere between weighted and unweighted.

Semi-weighted. Which is basically an unweighted action with some weight added to give it more heft, but is not like what people typically call a weighted action which would have a hammer mechanism in it. So it's closer to organ/synth than it is to piano.

JPROBERTLA · Post by **JPROBERTLA** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:56 pm

Was it comfortable enough playing acoustic and electric pianos?

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 3:55 pm

JPROBERTLA wrote:Was it comfortable enough playing acoustic and electric pianos?

I haven't been able to try it personally yet, though the people discussing the action in another forum seem pretty impressed with it for piano playing, as semi-weighted actions go.

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthread ... ost2887531

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:11 pm

Bachus wrote:Yes i did... in a store...

The drawbars take some getting used to...

But in fact its nothing but a downgraded Kronos (as is the Grand stage)
However it would be great to have the 2 new organ engines in the kronos, they do sound great.

its a great instrument for people that like the simplified formfactor.

No, its far far from the formfactor of the Nord stage..
Nothing comes close to the real time controll of the NS3...

Soundwise its a matter of opinion tough
The korg has written kronos sound all over..
I like the korg sound... some people however would never sell their Nord for a korg.

VOXCsoldme · Post by **VOXCsoldme** » Sun Mar 28, 2021 9:42 pm

Tried a lot of friends' keyboards but shortly after it came out became intrigued by the Vox C 73. About 18 months old now, and still like it a lot. The software upgrade was huge too.
As someone that is not used to playing with drawbars, I found the Vox setup much easier and more flexible than the physical ones. Can understand how physical ones would be preferred if that is what you are used to, but starting from scratch I appreciate the digital touch controls are faster and can be easily be moved quickly with one finger.
Really tried to like the Nord but simply found the keybed unpleasant to play. Guess it's personal taste.