I have now had the M3-61 for close to a month, and the EXB-Radias option for a few weeks less. Time for an assessment.
Just about everything I have tried on the M3 has been a rounding success. I love the sound, I love the sampling, and I love the FX. I am getting used to the panel layout, and really starting to appreciate it. I have not yet gotten it setup as a controller for Live yet, but I can not see how that would be difficult. I love the keys, I love the pads…I love it.
The Radias option has left me in somewhat of a quandry. As some of you know, I do already have a Korg Radias Rack. I got the EXB free as part of a Korg promotion, so it didnt cost me any extra. I figured having it for stage use would be excellent, and it might just replace the rack radias. This last point is where I was wrong..maybe.
I have owned, at one time or another, every VA synth and or expansion board Korg has produced (with the exception of the monophonic prophecy add-on to the Korg Trinity – which I also did not own). In the case of the Triton/Moss board, it definitely sounded better than the Z1 did. Better, more flexible FX and significantly better DA converters gave it a punch and sheen that the Z1 just couldnt get to. I found the Z1 tended to sound a bit muddy, and the FX were less than spectactular (a sight better than the prophecy’s but not by much).
With the EXB-RADIAS and Radias-R, the difference in sound is much less noticable. The sounds of the two are close, but I actually have to say the Radias-R has a bit better sound – particularly in the low end of the range. It has a very nice and agressive punch I havnt (yet) been able to coax out of the EXB. I plan to start attempting to convert some of my patches over to it, but thats going to run into issues Ill discuss in my next point.
Except for halving the polyphony, the Triton/Moss and Z1 had the exact same feature set. There wasn’t any sound you could program on the Z1 you couldn’t recreate on the Moss and vice versa (FX differences not withstanding). This is, sadly, not the case with the EXB and Radias-R. While most everything is there, the few items that are missing, are definitely missed.
For starters, the Arpegiator from the Radias is gone. Did I use it a lot? not really, but it was fun in performance and for combining with the modsequencers. the M3 provides Karma integration, but for doing simple up/down or patterned arpeggios, its like using a shotgun to kill a flee. One month is not enough to get your head around Karma, so for now I have just kinda given up on this one. You also loose the step sequencer, which was fun but I didn’t use it much.
The next great loss is the drum mode. its just gone. This was one of the more interesting features of the M3 and one I did, in fact, use. If I keep the Radias-R, I am seriously tempted to dedicate it to drum mode. Its sounds were nothing if not unique, and paired up with my EMX and ESX electribes it would be a fun rhythm station.
The last bit, and in my opinion most unfortunate, of change is in the voice programming itself. Because the drum mode is gone, the Drum Wave oscillator type is also gone. Creating wild and evolving pseudo-wavestation effects by using LFO’s and the ModSequencers to change the wave played is one of the Radias-R’s most fun and creative features. The EXB just cannot do it.
They also, regrettably, removed some of the wave forms from the sample memory. This means that certain sounds I created just simply cannot be recreated. The thinking here, I believe, is that you would probably want to use the standard S+S synthesizer in the M3 to get those sounds and increase Polyphony. I can understand that. It still annoys the hell out of me.
And again, as with the Triton/Moss and Z1, the FX are different between the machines…but this time the situation is a little more complex. in the Radias, you always have two Insert FX, an EQ, and then a Master effect per layer in a radias program (and you can layer 4 programs). If you use the M3’s combo mode you can *almost* get the same, however the M3 only has 7 insert FX. If you really had a 4 layer patch that went apeshit on FX, you are just out of luck. Also, while its really hard for me to say weather the FX on the Radias R sound any better than the M3 (or vice versa) i can say that they sound different. This is, again, in favor of keeping the Radias R because I found its FX much more..well..synthy. For creating the types of sounds the Radias is good at..thats a very good thing.
So I don’t know. Do I get rid of the Radias-R or not? Its a hard choice. Probably, I can live without the missing stuff. but, ya know…I love the radias. I don’t really want to loose any of its features. I guess Ill just hold on to it and see. At some point, though, something is bound to catch my fancy and Ill sell it. Time will tell.