M50 vs M3 vs others

[Rudo]

Hello, new here to this forum.

I'm in the market for a workstation and I lost my interested in Korg since I had a Korg wavestation what was a cppmplete disaster for me.

I posted on the Roland forum and on the Kurzweil forum, cause of my interest in the Fantom G and the PC3.

Recently I listened to a M3 demo and I was very impressed. I want a workstation to make contemporary pop / rock music, using piano's, basses, guitars, orchestral sounds and some saxes and other sounds. Most of the time I use 8 to 10 tracks.

I've used a Fantom XA before, but because the sounds really needed the effects to make it sound full and warm, and three inseerts for all those track didn't do it for me.

The XA was a trade in for the GEM equinox, wich did work fine for me and I was expecting that the XA would be a step up, but I was wrong

How do you think the sounds of the M3 will handle such music as rock and pop?

Is the price difference between the M50 and M3, worth it. I will only use the synth at home and never used a sampler before.

I watched some video's on youtube and itlooked very simple to use the board and it's sequencer.

Was wandering how you guys think about it.

Thanks in advance....
Rudo

[LiqMat]

The M3 Editor VST plugin is one of the best features of the M3. Very powerful sound creation and fairly easy to work with. You may like the sequencer like others do. I prefer off board software alternatives that are more geared toward my style which is more loop and pattern based. (electronica, ambient, trance). Personally I use Ableton Live with the M3 VST plugin and this makes a very powerful combo. My 2 cents.

[Christian Baum]

Hi Rudo,

IMHO, all the recent workstations of all the manufacturers are quite capable of your task, be it Yamaha's Motif XS, Rolands Fantom G (which has much more FX power now), Kurzweil (I always found those a bit pricey) and Korg's M3 or M50. I think it's just a matter of taste:

1) Which sound character do you like best (Roland: HiFi, Yamaha: loud and clear, Korg: crispy and slightly "colder", Kurzweil: broad and warm - these are my subjective impressions).

2) Which user interface do you prefer?

3) What extra features help and inspire YOU to make YOUR music?

They're all the same in very high sample quality, and they all HAVE to use a lot of FX to achieve the great sound and realism. Only today, CPUs are capable of many more FX at the same time, so you can stop worrying about this.

User interface: Do you want a touch screen or do you prefer Yamaha's and Kurzweil's rock solid buttons that feel like you really PUSHED something? Do you like faders (M3) or are encoders your way? Do you need a D-Beam to survive (Roland) or are pedals, ribbons or wheels better for you? Do you want to be inspired by automatic accompaniments of some sort (M3's Karma or the very sophisticated arpeggiators of the others)?

As you can see, there's no way around going to the dealer of your choice and check them all out. Let the dealer explain the basics, and see if you come to grips with it or if it is against your very own sense of touching and playing.

Concerning prices: M3/Fantom G/Motif XS are one range of high-end workstations. They are well built, have wonderful keyboards with channel pressure (aftertouch), several in- and outputs, can be expanded, can sample.
The M50 is nice, but it's on a different level: Looks and feels a little more plastic, no aftertouch, no colors, no special performance extras, no sampling, less controls and outputs and so on.

I love my M3, even though I don't use the sampler. It inspires me just like it is with Karma, with the great synth sounds (never cared much for saxophones) and all those faders and pedals and the X-Y mode and the best synth action keyboard I ever had under my fingers. So that was my choice and I never regretted it. But that's me...

Best regards,

Christian

[Gargamel314]

Hello, new here to this forum.

I'm in the market for a workstation and I lost my interested in Korg since I had a Korg wavestation what was a cppmplete disaster for me.

I posted on the Roland forum and on the Kurzweil forum, cause of my interest in the Fantom G and the PC3.

Recently I listened to a M3 demo and I was very impressed. I want a workstation to make contemporary pop / rock music, using piano's, basses, guitars, orchestral sounds and some saxes and other sounds. Most of the time I use 8 to 10 tracks.

I've used a Fantom XA before, but because the sounds really needed the effects to make it sound full and warm, and three inseerts for all those track didn't do it for me.

The XA was a trade in for the GEM equinox, wich did work fine for me and I was expecting that the XA would be a step up, but I was wrong

How do you think the sounds of the M3 will handle such music as rock and pop?

The M3 is great at all of those. It has some really great guitar amp effects that accurately reproduce just about any guitar sound you could want. The drums are phenomenal, and all of the other sounds are very expressive and versatile when played. Some of the acoustic guitar samples aren't all that great, but you can load in your own pretty easily, so it's an easy fix if they're not to your liking. The stock M3 piano sample sounds wonderful, and there's are two other pianos in the EX libraries if it isn't what you need. It's really nice to have a lot of choices on pianos. Orchestral sounds are WONDERFUL. The stock woodwind and brass sounds are a little thin sounding, but the EX1&2 libraries surely make up for that, they are very realistic and convincing.

Is the price difference between the M50 and M3, worth it. I will only use the synth at home and never used a sampler before.

Totally. The M50 is very inexpensive for what it gives you, but with the M3 you get a lot more for your money.

With the M3, you gain all these features over the M50:
Sampling
Sample RAM (so you can load in any multisamples you like - can't do this at all on the M50)
EX1-4 expansion libraries - free and included (which include some excellent piano and multisamples)
Karma Engine
The ability to add expansions
Better Sequencer UI (Track view, Piano Roll Editor, Sysex Editing)
Velocity metering
Much better quality keybed
Ribbon Controller
X-Y controller,
Touch-View panel is in color
Sliders
SP/DIF ports
Velocity Pads
USB ports so you can connect USB drive, CD burner, etc

Definitely worth the $700 price difference...I find all of these features to be a necessity

The only feature you lose from the M50 is the Dual Apeggiator...but it's a pretty fair trade for the KARMA engine.

I watched some video's on youtube and itlooked very simple to use the board and it's sequencer.

Was wandering how you guys think about it.

Thanks in advance....
Rudo

Check out this series of videos, i found it to be extremely informative before I bought mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwmv9tDhzjY

The sound quality of the video isn't all that great, but it answers a lot of questions about features and shows you what the M3 can do.

[Randelph]

Rudo,
Considering how cheap you can get an M3 ($1,200-$1,500 for used and new B-stock), it's not that much price differential.

I was considering the M50 as well, liking that it was so lightweight, and the price is pretty compelling considering what you get. What dissuaded me though was the how cheap and uninspiring the keybed felt, reading reports of problems with the keybed, lack of external inputs for microphones and lack of sampling (which is great for adding new, 3d party sounds).

I'm surprised why this isn't trumpeted from the rooftops, but in my experience the M3 sounds AMAZING. I get tremendous playing satisfaction, it feels like a real instrument, very expressive (of course not all sounds). I also have a Motif XS and believed the hype about it being the best- it's not, at least for me, I don't get near the satisfaction. And KARMA is surprisingly good too, much better than regular arpeggiators.

Randy

[Rudo]

Thanks for the replies, very helpfull.

With the Equinox there was a thing in it made by fruity loops. Some times very inspiring, but it didn't recognize any chords, so after hearing the sequence looped a few times in the same key, the fun was gone.

So I wish also for something like an automatic accompaniments. It cane be very helpful to get the mood going en to get some ideas. Is Karma gonna be helpfull in that way.

Ofcourse I have to listen to the Korg in real life, really like te find a store in Holland who has alle the boards in stock so I can compare them side by side.

Rudo

[Shakil]

Rudo....

I think an arranger keyboard will work for you better. If you wish for auto accompaniments, then you want an arranger. KORG makes some of the best out there. PA800 and PA2X.

Closest to arranger keyboard Auto Accompaniment is M3's KARMA. There are a 16 simultaneous Arps in Kurzweil, but I am not sure if there is chord recognition. Motif XS also has 4 arps at a time with chord recognition and 5 scenes.

There is no chord recognition patterns in Fantom-G. So, you can cross that if you really want patterns with chord recognition. Fantom-G's unique feature is it's RAM based audio tracks and per part effects, but don't get bit by the hype. Most of the per part effects are used as EQ, which M3 already has. Also, the effects routing is really flawed in Fantom-G and Motif-XS.

So, M3 makes the most sense for you, it has good overall sound, sequencer that works for most situation, sampling is fine if you can live with 100MB RAM, has EQ for each part, and 5 insert effects. One thing you have to keep in mind that the 5 insert effects are shared among 16 parts. So, you will have to spend some time at mixing in a song or combination, like you will have to do on any other workstation and studio. M3 makes it easier since you can store effects presets and copy effects from any program/combi/song to any program/combi/song. I really like the filing system of M3 as well. Any item can be exported/imported program/combination/song/sample/multisample by itself. I really love the SoundFont import capability... it's like having free source of sounds... I have TONs of sound fonts, both commercial and free, from a decade... and all of them just got reborn.

So, go ahead and listen to M3. If you like the sounds.... other features will not disappoint you.... you can also search used M3 to save money.

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Rudo,

Just to confirm that Karma on the M3 does have chord recognition. It also has real-time control of the type of backing that is played via the use of sliders. What it does not have are the following features that are present on the Pa800 and Pa2x:

a) Fade in/ Fade out control via push button or pedal
b) Multiple variations that can be selected via push buttons and pedals
c) Multiple "fill in" and "break" patterns suitable for breaks and bridging phrases in your playing.
d) Multiple "intro" and "ending" phrases for start and end of song.
e) Push button selection of different arrangements, where you can switch from one to another in fractions of a second.
f) If you change the sounds that are playing on the M3 to use a different sound, there is a noticeable 2 second period of audio garbage while that happens. On the Pa800 and Pa2x, you can switch sounds instantly and there is no audible drop-out or distortion while itr happens.

Having listed all the above reasons why the M3 and Karma is not IMHO suitable for use as a real-time arranger keyboard, it does have many strengths when composing music in the studio. IMHO you can achieve better results on the M3 compared with Pa800 and Pa2x if you multi-track and post-edit your music and take time during each recording to use the sliders to modify the Karma accompaniments. The downside of the Pa800 or Pa2x is that their accompaniment variations play a pre-programmed pattern that cannot be varied in real time unless you switch to a different pattern by the use of the push buttons.

Of course the best solution is a hybrid one where you use a 2-up rack and both a Pa2x and an M3 together, each used for their strengths.

Best regards,
Rob

[Rudo]

Hello, thanks for the suggestion that I would be needing a keyboard workstation, but no thanks.

Patterns that recognize chords would be great, but like I said, it is something I want to get some inspiration, or for easy playing. It is on my wishlist, but not really needed, sorry if I wasn't clear about that before.

Well for now I put the M3 on my list as well, and have to make a selction later based on my own review in the store.

Rudo

[Shakil]

Rudo: "Patterns that recognize chords would be great, but like I said, it is something I want to get some inspiration, or for easy playing. It is on my wishlist, but not really needed, sorry if I wasn't clear about that before. "

OK, then you can add Fantom-G to your list as well, as long as you understand it's limitations.