Korg Forums

axxim wrote:IMHO the only Roland I would consider today would be the VP770 but only for less than a half of its actual price!

Since their older models I had, it seems to me, that there is a lack of impressivenes on their latest synths. This may be because the consumer profile tends more to a mainstream where lots of sound banks and controller options seem to be more important than their sound programming capabilities.

wait, is the vp770 pretty much just a fancy dancy vocoder or does it use some other tech?

from demos it doesn't seem worth $2000, who's going to use so many choir-esque sounds

The VP-770 is a vocal harmonizer, which is completely different than a vocoder.

xmlguy wrote:The VP-770 is a vocal harmonizer, which is completely different than a vocoder.

hmm, im a little bit confused...
it obviously has the features of auto voice tracking and auto harmonization, where it automatically harmonizes with your voice.

but what about when its in normal mode, where you speak to control timbre and rhythm but it controls pitch? isn't that essentially a vocoder? the sound definitely sounds like a distorted version of you own, not yours simply copied and transposed to another pitch...

idk, im clueless

A vocoder doesn't change the pitch of your voice or use the voice to create additional vocal parts, even though the result you hear will be a different pitch and contain notes/chords with harmony. It uses the frequency of your voice (formant) to apply to a synth tone, the pitch of the synth being controlled by the notes you play. A vocoder strips your voice (source) and replaces it with a synth (carrier). A harmonizer takes your voice and processes it by pitch shifting, changing the characteristics, and using the voice to generate additional vocal parts which each can have their own pitch and characteristics. Think of a harmonizer as AutoTune on steroids. A vocoder is like an automated EQ, where the EQ levels are set to match the levels for each band in your own voice.

A vocoder doesn't change the original voice at all - it throws out the audio of the voice and only the levels are used (using envelope followers). That's why so many people are confused about the R3 formant motion recording, thinking that it's a sampler, when in fact, it only samples the levels of frequency bands and stores those levels. Those levels are called formant data, the frequency shape of the source. You can't recover the voice from the formant data because the signal of the source isn't stored.

I own an R3, it was my first hard synth, but ever since I started using the incredible Rob Papen and NI soft synths I've sadly only used it as keyboard controller. what a waste, I know, but I find patch programming on the R3 to be kind of a hassle, because I just hate having to scroll through menus to get to the right parameters and not seeing it all laid out in front of me. that in combination with the flexibility and total recall of VSTs has pretty much made my R3 obsolete.

however, my big problem with VSTs is the lack of tactile control. I have bought controllers like the Novation Nocturn and Remote Zero to counteract this, but the layout is never ideal, and I always have to make compromises.

enter the Gaia. I'd been doing research for a long time to find an affordable hard synth with a dedicated control surface; that is, one knob, button or fader per function. with the exception of $1500+ analogue synths that I can't afford and that lack the digital flexibility of the Gaia, there's nothing out there with 100% dedicated controls - please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still looking.

point is, I want to buy the Gaia to have a really fun and inspiring synth with lots of physical components to play with. and the other advantage is that it's very well integrated so I won't have the analogue hassle.

please tell me your thoughts on this; I haven't tried or bought the Gaia yet, but I'm quite set on doing it. this forum has been really helpful in the past, I'd appreciate the advice!

Argus, you may find a completely different experience programming the R3 if you use the software editor instead of menu diving. You're missing out on the best way to edit the R3 without the software editor.

xmlguy wrote:Argus, you may find a completely different experience programming the R3 if you use the software editor instead of menu diving. You're missing out on the best way to edit the R3 without the software editor.

that's a great idea and I'll definitely give it a go, but it doesn't change the fact that it'll lack the tactile control I'm looking for, and the software editor doesn't even have the advantages of a plugin. I really think the main selling point of the SH-01 is the hands-on control (plus I like the architecture with one filter, amp and LFO per individual osc).

thanks for the advice!

Argus wrote:...what a waste, I know, but I find patch programming on the R3 to be kind of a hassle, because I just hate having to scroll through menus to get to the right parameters and not seeing it all laid out in front of me....

Well if you haven't used the R3's sound editor you have been missing a lot. I always open my recording software in parallel with the sound editor (formerly R3, now Radias) and can't imagine "working" without it!

Argus wrote:... I'd been doing research for a long time to find an affordable hard synth with a dedicated control surface; that is, one knob, button or fader per function. with the exception of $1500+ analogue synths that I can't afford and that lack the digital flexibility of the Gaia, there's nothing out there with 100% dedicated controls - please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still looking.

Maybe you should consider the Radias, which is one that may fulfill all your control needs beeing one of the few that offers these analog/digital advantages you are looking for.

In my case I doubt I would buy a new (complex) synth which has no comfortable editor and would force me to dive in an 8cm x 4 cm x 100's of levels deep shaft.

One of the GAIAs plus I can see are those sliders for such parameters like the ADSR which are easier to visualize. Of course I can't judge it without having tested one which here at my location will be very difficult, due that the most music stores have very few or no synths at stock (one of the disadvantages of online shopping!)

@ Argus:
I'd consider the second hand market. If you're lucky you could score, let's say a Novation Nova for the same price as a Roland Gaia. The Nova is a fantastic synth with massive hands on tweakability, vocoder, programmable arp etc. The desktop is also a great option, and probably a lot cheaper as well. There are of course a lot of other models with the same desirable features, especially from Access. Also look for Novation KS, or better yet, the SuperNova I or II.

ok, I'm back, and wiser.

I bought and owned the Gaia for a week before I returned it.

now, if I had a studio with 2-3 other synths, I would have definitely kept it, because it's perfect for some things. specifically, I haven't ever heard of a synth with such flexibility for shaping evolving sounds and pads (filters, LFOs, amp and filter and even a pitch envelope per oscillator), and it was a lot of fun to layer filtered oscillators to really sculpt sounds. for that, it was great. but that was about it.

when it came to the raw power, and especially the filter, it just didn't make the cut. I'd read a lot, in general, about quality differences in filters and never thought it would be that much of a difference, but it really is. first of all, the filter only really has an effect from the 9-3 o'clock positions on the cutoff, and the resonance so quickly turns everything into a purely overtone mess that there's no way to do good sweeps or do anything with more than minimal resonance.

and most importantly, the filter just doesn't sound good. it doesn't have the aggressiveness or bite that I want from a synth, and I don't see how I could make any kinds of basses or leads on the Gaia.

therefore I felt I had to return it and am now stuck with 579 euros of store credit. well. now I have to decide whether to invest in a reliable quality synth of a significantly higher price range, or find someone to build me a custom controller for Rob Papen's Preadtor VST, which has not once disappointed me.

any other synth recommendations are highly welcome. thanks for the help!

Argus:
How about a Waldorf Blofeld? If you can't afford the keyboard version, the desktop is an excellent option. There are a few minor limitations, but these shouldn't be a deal breaker at all.

Argus wrote:(filters, LFOs, amp and filter and even a pitch envelope per oscillator),

Doesn't the Radias also have all of the above?

@Hugo: thanks, and I know the Blofeld is a great synth, but again it has almost only assignables, and I'm looking for something with dedicated controls.

@Pillbug: yes, the Radias probably comes relatively close to what I'm looking for, but somehow, I've never really been able to work with it well. it sounds great, and I'd probably need to have it at home for a few days to really try it, but since I already have an R3 with very similar capabilities, I'd rather have a synth with a different sound.

I realize I'm being picky here. but it's a lot of money for me and I really want something I know I won't regret. let me try to re-state the factors I'm looking for:

- hardware synth with dedicated controls (ie. one knob/button/fader per function)
- ideally a desktop or rack module
- 2-3 oscillators with at least saw, sine, square, noise, and ideally a sub each as well.
- a good filter with bite and power, maybe even with some kind of pre-filter distortion
- software integration, like a software editor, or, even better, like the Virus TI series. but this is not a must.

I know I'm asking a lot, so I'll leave price considerations out of this for now to not limit this too much, since I am willing to spend more on something that will really work well for me. but my upper limit is probably somewhere around $1500.

thanks again for all the contributions!

Radias has all of the features you listed.

Hugo wrote:Argus:
How about a Waldorf Blofeld? If you can't afford the keyboard version, the desktop is an excellent option. There are a few minor limitations, but these shouldn't be a deal breaker at all.

i own a radias and blofeld both are nice synth the radias will be the more expensive one, with more controls. but you can control all aspects of the blofeld with hardware midi controler. and if you get the sampler pack then you get 60mb of ram to sample to like. i love both synths, its good to have a rich palit to work from. imagin if some painter only had blue and red his pictures world be defined bye this. argus said " I'd rather have a synth with a different sound. " it comes down to what you want out of the synth and the price you can afford.