Wavestate (also) for loading piano sounds

[tedsorvino]

Hi everyone. New in here. Since i’m considering the wavestate as future purchase i think i’m in the right pkace to ckarify cert ain things.
I don’t like to play pianos with plug ins, vst and generally anything that involves latency - even 10 ms or so - so I’m in the lookout for a synth that is also able to load sample banks and patches (Soundfonts 2 or wav) but i’m trying to avoid big workstations because:

A) i have some brilliant keybeds (both piano and synth actions)
B) i will never use the extra stuff that comes with a workstation ( sequencer, million of rom sounds, drums etc).

So since modern rack modules that are able to load sample sounds from usb are pretty rare (only dexibell has decent ones) and simple synths-samplers with that feature are also not common (nord comes in mind), wavestate seems like it’s up for the task since it has 2 gb of space for user samples (along with the brilliant synth engine).

So i have to ask you if any of you have used it for loading acoustic pianos, classic electric pianos and analog synths?
Are there any proffesionally made such banks especially for the wavestate synth or any wav-soundfonts 2 sample collection would do the job?
Is the wavestate a good choice for such a task or should i look elsewhere (a different korg model - i don’t mean kronos, nautilus etc.)?

Thanks in advance

[Sharp]

wavestate seems like it’s up for the task since it has 2 gb of space for user samples

It has 4GB of space for User Samples.

So i have to ask you if any of you have used it for loading acoustic pianos, classic electric pianos and analog synths?

Yes, both my Wavestate and ModWave are full of orchestral sounds, piano’s and generally my most favourite samples.

Are there any proffesionally made such banks especially for the wavestate synth or any wav-soundfonts 2 sample collection would do the job?

I don’t think anyone is selling ready to go wavestate sample libraries, so you would have to be prepared to assemble your own content.

Is the wavestate a good choice for such a task or should i look elsewhere (a different korg model - i don’t mean kronos, nautilus etc.)?

If 4GB is enough space for you, then the Wavestate or Modwave are good options for size, weight and cost.

Regards
Sharp.

[tedsorvino]

Yes, both my Wavestate and ModWave are full of orchestral sounds, piano’s and generally my most favourite samples.

If 4GB is enough space for you, then the Wavestate or Modwave are good options for size, weight and cost.

.

Thanks Sharp for the reply. 4gb is a great amount of space. Some more question just to clarify things on the task since there is very little info online.

32 notes polyphony seem very thin for natural instruments playing. Just 8 key chords with on-off sustain are 16 notes and for continuous msgs is more.So that’s quite problematic.

What amount of samples the memory can handle? Usually decent piano libraries are around 1 gb.

Have the sample libraries you ‘ve loaded in the synth been sampled by you or are they libraries you ‘ve downloaded from the net? In what format are the samples (wav or sf2 or something else)?

Do wavestate and modwave treat external samples the same way or are there differences and one is more appropriate than the other for such a task?

[Sharp]

32 notes polyphony seem very thin for natural instruments playing. Just 8 key chords with on-off sustain are 16 notes and for continuous msgs is more.So that’s quite problematic.

It’s 64 notes for the Wavestate, 32 for the Modwave.
The wavestate can layer 4 sounds together, the Modwave can only do 2. Honestly, I don’t find it a problem either way. Even for long release sounds, poly count is managed quite well. For the most part it’s unnoticeable. It can become more obvious when you layer sounds.

What amount of samples the memory can handle? Usually decent piano libraries are around 1 gb.

I find that the size of a Piano in GB generally has very little to do with the quality. A lot of notes at different velocity layers and natural decays of 40+ seconds long for low notes are just a waste of memory. So like anything with memory limit, it’s best to optimise your data to get more out of the available space.

Have the sample libraries you ‘ve loaded in the synth been sampled by you or are they libraries you ‘ve downloaded from the net? In what format are the samples (wav or sf2 or something else)?

I mainly use Kontakt libraries in my Wavestate and Modwave. I used software (Extreme Sample Converter + Jbridge) to resample my favourite sounds from my Kontakt libraries.

I also have a vast AKAI library I use for certain sounds. Choirs for example, “Symphony of Voices” were coverted using Extreme Sample Converter into Wave formats for the Wavestate and Modwave. Loading them into the Wavestate and Modwave is pretty simple as Extreme Sample Converter names the files with a note value on the end that the KORG software understands. So I don’t have to manually map samples out over the keyboards. It’s all fairly automated.

Do wavestate and modwave treat external samples the same way or are there differences and one is more appropriate than the other for such a task?

They are both the same.

Kind regards
Sharp

[tedsorvino]

Really thank you Sharp. The way you present is pretty convincing.
I wonder why nobody has done a video to show this really useful feature of the synth. Even korg itself. I mean it would be a selling point. I guess a big one.
Having a sampler for other libraries it could be huge. In combination with a big keyboard controller could be all a keyboardist would need for everyday use.
Maybe the wavestate is not that capable.
Why korg and these “pro” patch sellers haven’t crsated such classic key, piao, orchestral patch compilations for the synth? They only provide classic “wavestation” flavoured sounds (pads, ambient sounds etc).
Korg seems to support only nautilus and kronos for classic key and piano sounds.
I have to admit that 80s-90s wavestation and fm style synth sounds are not for me. I checked the factory multisample sounds list and it’s full of 90s flavoured stuff ( i mean M1 pianos and organs etc).
Nothing like the big sampled or modelled natural sounds (similar to some kontakt NI simple but great sounding libraries) i’m looking for.
Is there any such online video, or could you provide one or even some audio clips?

Kind Regards

[Sharp]

Having a sampler for other libraries it could be huge. In combination with a big keyboard controller could be all a keyboardist would need for everyday use.
Maybe the wavestate is not that capable

It’s more than capable, so much so that KORG did announce a Wavestate SE 61 and demo it in a video. I don’t get why this hasn’t been release at all yet. Surly it would have been hugely popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG-lZ2O5DaQ

Nothing like the big sampled or modelled natural sounds (similar to some kontakt NI simple but great sounding libraries) i’m looking for.

For hyper realistic sounds, Kontakt is certainly the best way to access content like that. As a Kontalk user myself, I do however enjoy having my favourite Kontalk sounds sampled into my Wavestate. It’s not the same thing, but it’s pretty close.

Is there any such online video, or could you provide one or even some audio clips?

There’s nothing online to look at that I’m aware of. I’d have to record something specifically to show you, but basically it sounds like Kontalk.

Regards
Sharp.

[tedsorvino]

Thanks Sharp for the info anyways.
If you ever manage to record something to compare the sound through kontakt and wavestate (simple pianos like grandeur, gentleman or even the factory library pianos and epianos), it would be fantastic for any future reference