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Goodbye to the nice synth due to missing support

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:35 pm
by jimknopf
After the excellent Kronos experience, and after also enjoying excellent support, with fine sound libraries and a first class editor, for my Microkorg XL+, I was confident to get a similar experience after byuing the Kingkorg. But that never really happened.

I still think it's a nice synth with a great VA filter design. But
- that filter design did not fit well together with some limitations (modulation matrix etc.).
- the OS has never been updated to make it slightly more flexible (I don't know, if it had any development headroom at all)
- as I said, the librarian has stayed absolutely basic and never became a well working editor or even VSTi plugin

So I'm selling it right now. Bottom line to Korg: I will be much more cautious before buying new Korg gear in the future, being aware that other new devices might miss development and dedicated support as well (I would pay for both by the way). The Kingkorg project has clearly been a missed Korg opportunity from my view. What has not changed on my side, is that I will keep on liking my Korg Kronos and Microkorg XL+ as much as I do!

Not too sorry after all, because Dave Smith has just offered an expensive, but really great sounding and well working polyphonic analog alternative. :wink:

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 10:51 pm
by OpAmp
Hi,

It is indeed a pitty that KORG provided only the librarian functionality for the KK.

I think their philosophy is the following: for mKXL(+) we need a decent editor, because the parameters are quite difficult to reach and control only using these 3 knobs (deep menu diving...).
For the KK, quite some buttons/knobs are right away available on the front panel, so they think, editing is 'easy' and thus no editor needed.
Which proves to be wrong...


I'm not sure how far stephenwiley has pushed it or what his intentions are with it, but he was busy with writing its own editor for the KK...
See http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=96315. Maybe you can ping him.

Bye

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:13 pm
by jimknopf
Yes, it's quite easy to shape sounds directly at the Kingkorg, but it could be done with even better overview and additional VSTi functionality by help of a dedicated editor/VSTi.

My general impression was that Korg has decided to leave this synth as is, and more or less have abandoned it fast while moving on. It meanhwile also has lost a lot of it's original price and reselling value, probably due to this kind of user perception.

It's still quite a nice synth. Korg has added two patch banks with mixed quality (see other thread) after quite a while, but that's about all that happened. Without patch Morpher on the iPad I would probably already have sold it a year ago. Beyond that, neither Korg nor third party developers nor users have shown much activity in developing sounds or utilities for it. As I said, even my Microkorg XL+ offers a bit more patch variety, plus a great editor.

No hard feelings: I now just simply have done the same, as Korg seems to have done in the first place from my view: leave it behind.

Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2015 12:53 am
by Oldretro
Sorry to hear you are so disappointed with the support (or better said,
the practically none-existent support) that you are selling your KingKorg.
I must admit that I am still very pleased with it. Just today I had a session
in my studio and was again surprised what you can do with it and how it
sounds. But I guess it's because I use it as it is, I don't need an editor
and don't need to use it as a plugin. I have bought it mainly as a sort
of add-on to the Kronos, because IMO the AL-1 engine is lacking
character a bit. And also for taking it along when doing sessions in other
studios as it's so incredibly lightweight. Anyway, I'm sure you will like the
Prophet 6. If I'm not mistaken the design of the filter is based on the SSM
chips, so you can't go wrong concerning the sound.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:22 am
by skinmechanic
There is a commercially available editor with new librarian now over at Soundtower,

http://soundtower.com/kingkorg/index.html