What do I need?

[saucyjack]

Hey all,

I have spent the last years getting a project studio up to snuff with Mics,Pres,Monitor,etc.I'm now in the market for a Synth.I have been using Reason with my Pc and a crappy Yamaha PSR keyboard as a Midi controller and really like most of the Reason sounds and the interface, but this setup is too cumbersome at present for me.

 

I would like a standalone unit preferably on the smallish side.I'm not a real keyboard player but like to use drones/pads and the occasional odd Piano/organ sound.

I have played around with the Novation K Station and Korg ms 2000... most of the sounds are cool with some tweeking but I end up missing string sounds,Piano,Mellotron.Both seem pretty cool for the price.

 

Are there any other Keyboards(old or new) that can do droney/ambient sounds as well more natural sounds and do them well???

[progfusion74]

Well, I recently got an alesis qs7, and I can cerainly say that I have no regrets. I use it more as a controller than a sound source, but the reason I went with the QS, was that it can function as the perfect gigging board for me, if I ever do that. Its strengths are certainly in the synth and pad sections, which is where my needs will lie, but I am sure that the acoustic instruments will be up to your needs, certainly much better than a PSR510, which is what I was using till I got the QS.

 

You might also want to take a look at the EMU PK-6, or the Roland XP-30, both of which should be fine for your needs.

 

prog

[saucyjack]

Have done a little digging around....

 

What about a Korg Z1?....seems to fit my needs except acoustic piano.

[progfusion74]

What's your budget?

[bearded yeti]

If you're only going to get one synth, you need a workstation.

[Superbobus]

I needed a synth like that, phat leads, warm pads, big strings and useable piano, Rhodes and organ patches and went for Yamaha CS6x. It's got the coolest realtime controllers and all sounds are big and phat although you will need some tweaking to get there. Acoustic pianos are baaaaad but you can add the piano plugin. If you want weighted keys you can go S80 but then you'll need the AN plugin. You can hear my CS6x and Yamaha P120 on this site:

 

Soulstars

[Mark Zeger]

House of Guitars here in Rochester has a demo Kurzweil K2500 for under $1500. It was there 2 weeks ago. That's a good deal on an excellent workstation. Check other topics on this forum for raves from Kurzweil lovers (including me). No knobs, but that ribbon controller is killer for analog effects.

[RABid]

I second the E-mu suggestion for what you describe. Get something like an XL-7 , throw in a Sounds of the ZR rom, and connect it to your current keyboard. Check out the MP3's of the XL-7 and the optional expantion ROM's to see if you like them.

 

Roland and Korg also have good units for mixing ambient and natural sounds but you take a big jump is price.

 

Robert

[Magpel]

Saucy, I'm one of several Z1 owners here. From my perspective the scoop is this: Z1 is a beast, great board, but be prepared to roll up your sleeves. The presets don't tell half the story and are, in most instances, kind of uninspired. I bought one with the express purpose of developing programming chops, so for me it's been wonderful.

 

Also keep in mind it's not well suited to being a multimbral unit. It does it, begrudgingly and with only 12 voice polyphony (18 with an impossible-to-find expansion board).

 

Z1 is unique and powerful, totally cool.

 

I also have a QS8. Unlike Progfusion, I don't love it as a bread and butter unit. I'm getting most of my bread buttered by Gigasampler these days.

[progfusion74]

Just thought I'd clarify after Magpel's post that my bread and butter sounds come from Sonic Synth (software), but in case I am away from my computer the QS suits me just fine.

[saucyjack]

Thanks for all the replies....

I guess my budget is around $500-700,weighted keyboards would be nice but not a deal breaker for me.Multitimbrality is not a huge issue, either.

 

I really don't want(or think I need) a fullblown workstation....I want something relatively easy to get some experimental/ambient "analogish" sounds as well as some decent organs/strings.I know this is asking a lot for my budget.I have ben happy overall with the sounds in Reason but really need a standalone unit.

 

Will the Korg MS2000/K Station even approach any "real" sounds.I keep coming back to the Korg and K-station because they were the most inspiring while goofing around at Guitar center

 

The Z1 looks cool...read that it is a bit hard to program but fairly easy to come up with new/experimental sounds plus I like the XY controller...

Thanks

[RABid]

The units you mention are great VA's but you will not get decent piano and strings unless you get a ROMpler. In your price range you can get one or the other but not really both. If your main priority is the VA sounds then go with the Korg or K-Station, live with poor piano sounds, and someday pick up a module to handle the other instrument sounds. If you really need variety pick up something like an E-mu PK6 and later pick up the rack version of the Korg or Novation. The Korg, Novation and E-mu units are all in the price range and will all make a decent basis for your system.

 

One other question, do you use two hands when playing piano parts? If so, the small keybords of the Korg and Novation may be a problem. But then, I have played piano parts on stage using a Casio with a 2 octave mini-keyboard. Speaking of mini-keyboards, have you checked out the new Korg? I forget the name.

 

Robert

[Superbobus]

You almost said it yourself: MiniKorg. I have to tell it again. If your budget is $500 to $700 a second hand CS6x will do. I think this is the direct competitor to the Z1. It's a ROMpler with a to analogs. BTW, is the Z1 a VA or a ROMpler?

[Markyboard]

The Z1 is a VA and it is deep. For "bread and butter" sounds make your own and you will have your own identity. This synth is not hard to program - it just lets you do a lot. An FS1R is hard to program. Or as others suggest get a Rompler workstations .....yawn

[Magpel]

Originally posted by Superbobus:

You almost said it yourself: MiniKorg. I have to tell it again. If your budget is $500 to $700 a second hand CS6x will do. I think this is the direct competitor to the Z1. It's a ROMpler with a to analogs. BTW, is the Z1 a VA or a ROMpler?

Z1 is half VA, half Physical Modeler. No samples onboard.

 

I should also mention, to saucyjack, that the Z1 has no drum sounds. Well, a couple of bippy buzzy electronic snare-like patches and a really cool thing called the "Physical Urdu" but no realistic trap sets of any kind.

 

As I mentioned before, don't look for it to be a multimbral unit that you rely on for multiple parts in an arrangement. I usually use for 1 sound per mix, and I exceed that, I record the first part to audio before adding the 2nd.

 

For emulative sounds, it's got a nice variety of electric pianos, some almost acceptable organ sounds, and all the rest of the "modeled" sounds: brass, reeds, plucked string, bowed string. Of these, bowed string is the weakest model. Some of the saxes and trumpets are passable and are nicely different from sampled horns.

 

Most Z1 owners I've communicated with love the Z1 as an incredibly flexible virtual analog, and love it somewhat less as a physical modeler. As long as you don't expect breathtaking realism, the physical models are actually very cool to play with and can programmed to be extremely expressive and dynamic.

 

The X-Y controller is cool, but it's only the beginning of the Z1's assignable real time controllers.

[RABid]

Is the Z1 the basis of the MOSS board that goes in the Triton series? I have considered adding this to my Karma but hate to spend that much money.

 

Robert

[Magpel]

Yes, Robert, the MOSS board, the Z1, the Prophecy and the Oasys PCI are all part of the same family. Many seem to think that the Oasys was the best incarnation of the MOSS technology.

[saucyjack]

Thanks,

Magpel I don't really care about drum sounds....I played around some more with the Korg ms 2000,Emu Proteus pk6 and the Microkorg.The Microkorg seems pretty cool but not as a primary keyboard,The Emu kinda surprised me....seemed to have good sounds..not as "analogy" as the Ms2000 and a cheesy interface but it could be a contender.Is the Emu stuff well thought of?

 

The Korg z1 or Ms2000 seem to be what I need/want.What's a good price on a used Z1?

 

One aspect of the Ms2000 I like is just grab a knob and start tweeking out sounds...is the Z1 similar??

[Magpel]

I've only tinkered with the MS2000 in the store.

The Z1 is very knobby, but not quite as much as the MS2000. I think there are 18 knobs on the Z1.

 

For each of the two filters, you have dedicated knobs for:

Cutoff, resonance, EG intensity. These are obviously great knobs for shaping the sound in real time. Careful though. At high resonance settings, the filters will squeal like hell, and they will self-oscillate, creating pitched overtones that can be esceptionally cool when modulated by an LFO or an envelope. You get little ghostly tunes inside your tunes.

 

There are also 4 knobs dedicated to the amp envelope, which are, of course: attack, decay, sustain release.

 

There are also ADSR knobs for the filter envelope, which by default is envelope 3 (The Z1 has 4 freely assignable enveloped plus an amp envelope but eg 3 and lfo 3 are assigned by default to filter parameters--easy enough to change).

 

There is the X-Y pad, and you can use X +/-, X+, X-, Y +/-, Y+, and Y- to control as many paramerters as you want. The X-Y pad has "hold" mode in which the last position you touch on it stays in effect when you lift your finger. Or, um, non-hold mode, where it resets to the middle position (neutral) when you lift your finger. Hold mode is great for filter effects, non-hold is best when you have any pitch-modulating parameters assigned to the pad, becuase you can can always restore perfect pitch by lifting your finger.

 

Then there's the bank of what they call Performance editor knobs. 5 Multi function knobs that can control anything and also double as the knobs you use in manually editing patches. Each P knob can have 2 or 3 different assignments in a patch. In the presets they are used to control things like waveform, tuning, and effects levels.

 

Then there's the arpeggiator section, which has knobs for resolution, tempo, gate, and velocity.

 

There are no dedicated LFO knobs, but the P knobs can be easily assigned to the LFOs. Once you've gotten your brain around the Z1's system of modulation sources (MS) and Modulation intensity (MI), it becomes immediately apparent that you can route pretty much anything to anything. Why just the other day, I created a patch that I hardly even remember--all I know is that it used all 5 envelopes, all four LFOs, to control the cutoff and resonance of the two filters in weird, inverted, contrary ways. I had random LFOs controlling the speed of a stepped LFO that modulating the intensity of the envelope that was modulating filter one cutoff, and an inverse enevlope modulating other envelopes and more than I can remeber. Good god, it made a hideous sound that evolved for almost two minutes, and was different on each key strike because of the use of several random parameters. Totally unusable, but cool, a "just because I can" kind of sound.

 

As you can tell from my effusive outpouring in this thread, I love my Z1. I've been taking programming seriously for only a little over a year (after 15+ years as a preset junkie) and in the Z1 I have a beast that seems almost bottomless.

 

Incidentally, the new RGC sofsynth, the z3ta, is *a lot* like the Z1. In fact, after playing around with the demo, I'm thinking it was maybe somewhat modeled after it.

 

More than you asked for, I know...

[RABid]

Originally posted by saucyjack:

...The Emu kinda surprised me....seemed to have good sounds..not as "analogy" as the Ms2000 and a cheesy interface but it could be a contender.Is the Emu stuff well thought of?...

The samplers are top of the line. The budget keyboards and modules may not have quite the same clarity as a Roland or Korg but if you scan through Keyboard Mag or other music magazines you will see an Emu in just about every rack. The Proteus has been around for a long time. Some think it is getting a bit old but recent price drops have made the series a huge value. The XL-7 Command Station I payed $1250 for when it first came out now sells for $700. Check the MP3's at the above link, listen to the demos of the expansion ROM\'s and read the reviews. Keep in mind that most of the reviews were written when the XL-7 was still $1250. If you can get by with the keyboard you are currently using, connecting it to an XL-7 may be a good choice.

 

Robert

[bearded yeti]

Go for a Triton, or if it exceeds your budget, a Triton LE.

[RABid]

Oh, you might want to look at the Yamaha DX200 and AN200. At a current price of $200 for either unit it is easy to match one with a low end rompler keyboard.

 

Robert