Korg Forums

Recently I bought my m3, and it sounds fantastic. So far i got nothing to complain about, except one thing:

it takes too much time for it to change between the sounds. I don't know how heavily this has been discussed earlier, but i have done a little searching, and found others who have the same problem.

Of course, it's the same on all the m3s, but I would really like to know if this is an issue that can or cannot be solved through an OS update, or maybe if there's a setting in some way that can improve the speed. I tried the oasys some time ago, and that was quite a different experience!:p not much more to say about that.

I'm thinking this is a huge con during live performances, as a fragment (but yet a very noticable fragment) of the sound gets completely gone as one change programs/combis.

Anyone knows anything about this that could be helpful?:)

Did you update to latest OS? Should solve timing issue.

If v.1.04 is the latest, then yes, my system is updated. However, i can't see in the OS notes that there is a fix for the speed...

It isn't written in release notes, yes, but people on this forum already posted about that issue and there were post about speed improvement after updating. Search a bit.

akuaku wrote:it takes too much time for it to change between the sounds.

Exactly how long is it supposed to take?

It should definately be instant. Try the oasys and you'll know what i mean... yes, i know the m3 isn't supposed to be like the oasys in terms of quality, but there are older keyboards who are much faster to do this than the m3 is. The m3 isn't 'slow', but due to the fact that this is korg's newest workstation at the market, my expectation to this was a little bit higher...

the main reason why i posted, however, was to try to get an answer to whether it is possible or not to fix this in a software update. One would think this is a hardware issue, but if someone knows the answer to this, i would appreciate it:)

Am curious about:

Is it the software change that bothers you, or the combination of the software change plus the button pushes?

If the button thing is a bother, try putting all your stage progs/combis in slots adjacent to each other in the same bank and in the order needed for your set list. Then, staring with your first, just make sure the prog/combi field is highlighted then you can INC/DEC instantly with the ^v buttons.

bctines wrote:Am curious about:

Is it the software change that bothers you, or the combination of the software change plus the button pushes?

If the button thing is a bother, try putting all your stage progs/combis in slots adjacent to each other in the same bank and in the order needed for your set list. Then, staring with your first, just make sure the prog/combi field is highlighted then you can INC/DEC instantly with the ^v buttons.

Seems that akuaku is complaining about the 'software change', the time between a button press and the moment when the new sound is being heard.

I've never played an M3 and don't know how long is that delay, but I have another question. When I'm holding down a note, either by a key or sustain pedal, and change to a new sound at the time a note is sounding, does the old note(s) continue to sound until I release the key or pedal OR does it stop sounding right at the changing moment? This feature would be particularly useful when playing live, I'd hold old notes with sustain pedal and move over to a new sound smoothly, without silence between two sounds. My Casio is able to do that, at the same time Motif XS stops the previous sound when selecting a new voice.

does the old note(s) continue to sound until I release the key or pedal OR does it stop sounding right at the changing moment?

As long as the key/pedal is depressed, the original sound plays. Change prog, release key and repress and you get the a new sound. It may not be as "clean" as it would be if you released the key then changed.

You can use this for some interesting FX.

bctines wrote:

does the old note(s) continue to sound until I release the key or pedal OR does it stop sounding right at the changing moment?

As long as the key/pedal is depressed, the original sound plays. Change prog, release key and repress and you get the a new sound. It may not be as "clean" as it would be if you released the key then changed.

You can use this for some interesting FX.

Well, I don't know if that is exactly true. If you hold the key down and change programs the sound will not cut off, but if you try to do this with the sustain pedal, the sound will cut off. At least that has been my experience. Don't even try with Combi's. The sound will cut off holding keys or sustain pedal. If you are looking for this feature, no one does it better than Kurzweil. Don't get me wrong, I love my M3, but for performance I always use my Kurzweil.
Also, don't get me started on lag time between program or combi changes. I started a thread like this a while back when I first got the M3, it's almost as bad as the original Trinity lag time when chaning programs. I personally don't believe it is a software issue, I think it hardware which means we're stuck with the slow time between changing programs and combis. Even my Triton is faster in changing programs/combis. OASYS is lightning fast, believe me I tried it.

thanks for all the feedback on this!

personally i use a pedal for prog/combi changes so i don't have to move my hands off the keyboard, but this doesn't change the speed of the change itself of course. when the sustain pedal is held down while changing sounds, the sound doesn't get sustained very well either, it is very noticable indeed that something changes, and this as well was a very disappointing thing to discover...

i also feared that this problem was in the hardware and not in the software, thus not allowing it to be fixed easily. still i would be glad to hear someone confirming the opposite:p

This is where I miss my Virus TI. I wish I never sold it. When you move from one sound to the other, the previous sound just decays naturally as it would if you were releasing without changing the sound, and the new one is always there waiting. No timing issues, no issues with cutting out the old sound etc. I wish Korg would take a leaf out of other companies books.

akuaku wrote:thanks for all the feedback on this!

personally i use a pedal for prog/combi changes so i don't have to move my hands off the keyboard, but this doesn't change the speed of the change itself of course. when the sustain pedal is held down while changing sounds, the sound doesn't get sustained very well either, it is very noticable indeed that something changes, and this as well was a very disappointing thing to discover...

i also feared that this problem was in the hardware and not in the software, thus not allowing it to be fixed easily. still i would be glad to hear someone confirming the opposite:p

Very interesting. I would also like to know if this can be fixed in a software upgrade. Especially while using a sustain and changing patches. Anyone know?

Maybe this silence between sounds is caused by unpacking of compressed samples, while Oasys' sounds are not compressed.
I got the idea from here.

The delay is produced by the overhead of having to reset an configure all the settings for a voice, specially the Insert and master Effects.

You don't get delay if you change a voice in combi or sequence mode because there's no such overhead.