M50 Organs

boogieman · Post by **boogieman** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:24 pm

After having just "auditioned" Korg's ProPak for new EP/Clav patches, and finding them to be wonderful, and noticeably better than the ones that came pre-programmed, I'm wondering: will Korg do the same thing for organs? Are you listening, Korg? I love my M50, but as a part-time clonewheel user, I have to say that the organs in the M50 leave a lot to be desired. I've found very few that are truly useable on a gigging basis. A particular pet peeve is that almost all of them have that distinctive and not very authentic "percussion" to them. I can spot a Korg organ a mile away in cyberspace just by that little percussion thing that they all have. Percussion is cool at times for leads, but for comping it's often better to leave it off. And since the M50 has 2 switches and 4 knobs: why not make it a choice? Why not use the 4 knobs to control aspects of the sound as would a drawbar on a B3? It seems a shame to let all of these control features go to waste, when B3 patches above all cry out for some tweakability. Maybe a switch could be used for percussion, and one knob could be dedicated to increasing distortion. That alone would make the patches much more useable.

Dan Stesco's free sound download is on the right track with its approach to organs, and has some useable ones. I've also seen in the M3 forums guidelines for constructing a tweakable B3 patch from scratch. Maybe this could be adapted to the M50.

Other than the organs, I absolutely love my M50, and am having a ball with it. However, as a gigging musician, I'd love to be able to just take this lightweight beauty to a gig and not have to depend on another source for organ sounds. Korg?

mocando · Post by **mocando** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:44 pm

And why don't you create your own patches? I have created a drawbar version with all 9 bars as sliders in the combi, you can assign one of the two switches to percussion, control leslie, everything. Check the M3 forums. There is a step by step guide.

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:23 pm

boogieman wrote:Other than the organs, I absolutely love my M50

wow, that's kinda sad. IMHO, the EP's and organs are Korg's forte.

Have you attempted to modify any existing patches or create your own? I have not found an organ sound I can't get out of the M50 after only a few minutes. I used to think the Triton's organ patches were awesome, until I took a dive into the M50's.

-Mc

bsr2002 · Post by **bsr2002** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:01 pm

People don't want or like to tweek or program anymore, that's sad

mocando · Post by **mocando** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 10:18 pm

Not only that. On the M50 is sooo darn easy. You tell me the Triton LE or the TR with no touchscreen, well I might feel a little dizzy after a couple of hours tweaking stuff with the thumbwheel, but the Touchscreen? Man, that's a Godsend.

jpscoey · Post by **jpscoey** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:07 pm

McHale wrote:"I have not found an organ sound I can't get out of the M50 after only a few minutes".-Mc

I hate to disagree with you Mc - I do agree with most of your remarks on other topics on this forum.....

but your comment above says it all.

It does take a few minutes of 'tweaking' to get the best organ sound.

Once that's done, it's not THAT easy to adjust 'on-the-fly'.

As a one-off organ patch the M50 can definitely do the job -

but since I acquired my Nord Electro, the M50's limitations, in this department, were immediately apparent -

On the Electro the 9 drawbar adjustments + the leslie effect/overdrive etc make 'Hammond Organ' replications easy to do in real time -

this is achievable, but not so immediate on my M50.

Otherwise the M50 ROCKS!!!!!!!!

.

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:22 am

jpscoey wrote:I hate to disagree with you Mc - I do agree with most of your remarks on other topics on this forum.....

but your comment above says it all.

It does take a few minutes of 'tweaking' to get the best organ sound.

Once that's done, it's not THAT easy to adjust 'on-the-fly'.

As a one-off organ patch the M50 can definitely do the job

I never said the M50 was a Hammond B3 replacement. It will take longer if you want to create an organ that has drawbar simulation and other B3-like adjustments. But for creating an organ patch the emulates the organ patch of some other keyboard or song, I can do it on the fly.

Last night, ON STAGE, in the middle of a song I DID change an organ on the fly and created a brand new organ because the one I was using just wasn't cutting through the mix right.

If you want one of the best B3 simulations with drawbars and THAT kind of organ control, Hammond XK-1, hands down. Otherwise, I haven't found a single organ patch that can't be created quickly on the M50. I don't have any experience with the Nord stuff so I can't compare them at all. I do have a little experience with the Korg CX-3 and while I'm sure it uses the same organ sample set as the Triton series, it's use of the drawbars makes it 10 times more powerful as an organ. What's that mean? You can recreate ANY organ sound out of the CX-3 on the Triton or M50 but you won't have the thrill of using drawbars.

But at least we agree on the fact that the M50 just rocks. I find it a hell of a deal pricewise but a great gigging keyboard. Lightweight with a powerful feature set. I'm so glad I bought this after I bought my M3. I can't imagine gigging with my M3.

-Mc

kikedeolivos · Post by **kikedeolivos** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:03 am

McHale wrote:
jpscoey wrote:"... I do have a little experience with the Korg CX-3 and while I'm sure it uses the same organ sample set as the Triton series, it's use of the drawbars makes it 10 times more powerful as an organ. What's that mean? You can recreate ANY organ sound out of the CX-3 on the Triton or M50 but you won't have the thrill of using drawbars...."

-Mc
It's much more than the drawbars: the CX-3 (V2) its modeling synthesis vs EDS, there's NO way to replicate a sample against that kind of approach, not factoring in that, on the CX-3, well, almost everything is "on the fly", they are 2 different beasts.

I agree with the OP: Korg synthesized organs (M1, Triton, TR, X, M) they all have the distinctively "ping" that's almost impossible to get rid of. (except for church/pipe organ, but Jazz? Forget about it. Maybe that's the reason there's almost no organs on Korg demos, user Youtube videos, etc.

This is no Korg bashing: I've had an X5, X5D and a CX-3 V2 and I loved them all, so versatile.

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:25 am

kikedeolivos wrote:the CX-3 (V2) is modeling synthesis vs EDS

I played the CX-3 that came out when the Triton came out. I didn't think that it was modeled - it certainly didn't sound much better than my Triton did. I quickly returned it...

there's NO way to replicate a sample against that kind of approach,

agreed... no question.

I'm not a native organ player. I'm a synth player that likes his organ patches... and Leslie. But as I find myself playing more and more organ stuff, I'm debating ditching my Triton Pro and going with the Hammond XK-3c in my live rig (it will be my first non-Korg keyboard I've ever played live if I do). While the new M50 organs have a lot more growl than the Triton had, it's still missing something.

I've played the Voce V5+ and it was very good, but the XK-3c sounds so much more authentic. But one thing I do recognize is the old pros still lug around the really old B3's. There must be a reason for that... My bet, even the best clonewheels are still lacking.

-Mc

jpscoey · Post by **jpscoey** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:31 am

McHale wrote:... "the old pros still lug around the really old B3's. There must be a reason for that...-Mc

They have roadies to do the lifting !!!!!!!!

kikedeolivos · Post by **kikedeolivos** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 3:48 pm

McHale wrote:"...My bet, even the best clonewheels are still lacking..."

-Mc

This is specially true for Korg (and Roland BTW); the will never put killer and 100% tweakable organs in their synths / workstations when they have the CX-3 / BX-3 to sell.

Sad, but IMHO, true.

drama1 · Post by **drama1** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 4:23 pm

But at least we agree on the fact that the M50 just rocks. I find it a hell of a deal pricewise but a great gigging keyboard. Lightweight with a powerful feature set. I'm so glad I bought this after I bought my M3. I can't imagine gigging with my M3.

Actually, I can't imagine gigging without the M3. Because of Karma I have patch/hold switching w/o cutting off of sound using the sustain pedal. That feature alone makes it sooooo much more powerful in live situations. Plus the M3-73 action IMHO is much more suited for piano playing w/o the weight associated with an 88 keyboard.

bsr2002 · Post by **bsr2002** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:07 am

I tweek my own organs on all my gear, but like they say if you just can't get the organ or piano sound that "you" want then buy a piano or organ.

Cheers

jpscoey · Post by **jpscoey** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:35 am

bsr2002 wrote: ..."buy a piano or organ".

That's what I did do - Nord Electro..... superb piece of kit !

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:27 am

I think the organs on the M50 are a vast improvement over the organ sounds on the Triton series.
But I've also tried out a Roland VK-7 and a Nord Electro 2. I think the Roland came out on top, the Electro second...
The samples on any of korg's workstations are still far from the kind of quality you can get from a device that is actually designed to BE an organ. I'd still like to try out the CX-3 emulation engine on the OASYS though.

Actually, NI's B4 is quite good too. I've actually gone to the extent that I'm now taking apart an old Orla digital organ, to fit a PC inside (and a doepfer controller board for drawbars), so if I ever do want to use organ (or anything else not velocity sensitive, maybe put the KLC on there), i've got a great platform for it.

although I don't get to play organ. my bandmates tell me that it sounds too 'dated'.

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