Korg: releases decent sounding accessible synths Synth community: that doesn't look like Minimoog Phantom Premium full sized keys synth Korg is a blessing we don't deserve
@@AudioPilz same here. I understand why peoplewho can afford it are buying Sequential/Roland/Moog stuff. I don't understand why they hate lower tiers so much
^ Once a popularity threshold of any niche community is crossed, some % of this larger population will consistently behave like drama queens. Or outright morons. Old cliches about human nature become woefully more and more relevant. I try not to be bothered by things I can't change, particularly something as absurd as being bothered by _someone I'll never meet trash-talking a synth company in their spare time._
@@shaft9000 good point, but whole concept of Bad Gear show is built around analyzing community hate towards gear. And I'm usually OK with this and I myself must confess of unadequate hate of Roland, but sometimes it's just totally ridiculous
As someone whos spent thousands on gear, some of which has been hosted on your channel. The fact you have found the means to play or even keep some of the instruments you review is the greatest life hack a limited musician could have ever developed. I dont miss a video and appreciate you greatly!
This hundred buck pocket synth really smash the synth world. Not mentioning the tons of customized waveshapes/effects you could load and plenty of tweaking options, the reverb unit inside is incredible. I don't see much difference between it and bigsky. Yep, no saving option is a bigh shame, but if you treat it as a dedicated fx with a mono synth engine, the NTS-1 is really crazy. While Behringer keep cloning the legendary synth, Korg is leading the innovation with so many affordable and powerful products.
Gone are those days bro... Tats is nowhere to be found, Korg making leftovers mushes like Drumlogue and ex-Korg engineer now work for Behringer creating... tiny analog synths. It's a weird world.
The open platform means that you can code your own Patches and FX in C++. The toolchain works great on Linux. If you are a programmer and a synth nerd this thing is small enough to keep on your desk at work.
I spent a decade (“back in the day”) doing primarily C. C++ can be a scary beast, particularly since the powers that be churn the spec every 5 to 10 years. C++ is the real Bad Gear 😛
Be careful, dude. Too many more reviews like this and people will start to figure out that you don’t actually review bad gear. 🤣 Great review, NTS-1 is worth the price of admission just to be a reverb for my Lyra-8. I’ll be surprised if I don’t buy three more and possibly an XD module too. 👍
The NTS-1 has become one of my most important tools in my small setup for recording for sending a signal for stereo processing with the wonderful effects and for producing bass lines, leads, and arps with my DAW as a sequencer. For the money it has probably given me my greatest return. I have a mid 80s Roland SRV-2000 which I love to pieces, but I find myself using the Korg more often because it takes less time to get a great reverb for whatever instrument I am working with at the time. I have a few other much more expensive synths and plugins that sound top notch. But the little Korg makes it so easy to just plug in and create a solid riff or main melody. My only beef is that I wish it had an even smaller keys to anger keyboard purists.
@@Dash02 honestly I use the standard stock oscillators for bass. I love the triangle and square and will often stack them with the waveshape (multiple takes). A little envelope tweak gets it in the ballpark of what I am looking for and then post production compressors and EQs to solidify the sound I want. Sometimes reamping if I want a certain tonal character mixed in with the original track. All of the other wave forms I use from 3rd party creators tend to be used for high octave melodies or arpeggios. Sometimes even just ambient texture.
Also using a SRV-2000 as a reverb with the NTS-1 acting as delay on my Mackie VLZ PRO 1202 Mixer. The rest of the desk is a pair or TD-3, and Volca Sample, FM, Keys, and Drum Modules. I recapped several SRVs now. Great machines!
@@pileggitech I love my SRV. Taking the time to really dial in a great verb is fun and pretty easy, but it can be time consuming. I know it's a classic on snares but I love using it as A general send for synths and vocals.
TARDIS intro was a great choice, as the NTS-1 is much bigger on the inside than it appears. It's my most-used bit of gear - intuitive, inspiring, and sounds amazing.
Bought it a couple of weeks ago, and for the money it sounds pretty impressive! The filter is good, the oscillators and reverbs are amazing. Paired with VCV rack (turing machine + quantizer + a couple of lfos and envelopes modulating the parameters via midi cc) = a powerful generative voice
This is insanely awesome if you think about what he said at the end. Take 4 of these and build them into an enclosure with flexible connections, routing, and mixing, and you could build an insane synth. Korg is giving you the building blocks and saying go for it. Super cool. :)
Wow, I bought one of these a month ago, to fill in the gaps that I have with the Volca Sample and Kaossilator Pro (both featured on Bad Gear before, and yes, I have the Retrokits 002 cable, and Pajen firmware, muchos gracias to those legends) as cheap hardware units to generate some more personalised / hand-played / organic sounds to fire into Ableton. Didn't expect to see this on Bad Gear so soon, but def a good choice. I thought it looked whack at first, then i realised what it's capable of. Amazing value for money
the best part is that you can pop off the top PCB and make your own hardware control surface with a sit ton of knobs that plugs right into it. I made my own. You can also add memory for saving patches and a better screen.
Amazing! As a stereotypical Volca and Pocket Operator owner this has been on my to-purchase radar for a long time and if the same instrument came out with Volca or Teenage Engineering level industrial design and save functionality this would be a pretty great addition for my lofi succulent DAW-less jamming.
I love my little NTS-1. I use it as a sample making machine for the most part and as an effect unit. And if you hold down osc and turn the type knob you get a whole lot more settings for the (custom) oscilators .
I love this synth. Just wished it had patch memory. Is a permanent component of my tiny eurorack setup. Also, it took me awhile to realize all the intros to your vids are developed using the "bad gear" tech starring IN the vid itself lol. Well done! Cheers :-)
What you have to remember with this device, is it's more of a public dev platform for developing/prototyping Minilogue XD/Prologue oscillators and effects - it just happens to be a device that can also be used on its own - bonus.
That’s actually a genius idea I’m from korg. A product that helps improve a different product while also making money and being a genuinely good piece of gear.
First time watching a video from you. At first I was put off by your manner of speaking and the ott video/illustration things. But after watching completely I won the impression you deliver good content in a quite unique and enterprising way. The piece of music from 7:42 was truly excellent! So thanks for making this!
I love my NTS-1 and was really excited to see it get the AudioPilz Bad Gear treatment! I bought it for the effects and to have another oscillator to sequence in home office DAW-less jams. Sounds great and is fun to play with! Best piece of $99 music gear I ever bought!
Forgot to mention, if you hold the ARP button down and turn the type nob you can actually change the division type, A will allow you to change the note count, up to 24, and B will let you set the tempo.
I love how you dropped the Haynes Electro Synth in there. I bought one last year at a Radio Shack I found still doing business. The NTS-1 is a great little addition to the tiny producer's tiny toolkit of tiny volcas and other thing like one pocket operator. Or two, even :)
I was expecting something like the Monotron Delay or Duo (which are actually good for lofi stuff). Didn't expect this one! I just researching the NTS-1 for GAS purposes and now you're reviewing it in Bad Gear... 😅 It's reverbs sound amazing though.
@@AudioPilz you're making kickass music with just this and the Circuit. Here I am with a Circuit Tracks, stuck in learning the thing with the presets. 😂 How long did it take you to compose and program those pieces? Thanks for answering and see you next time!
Got one to pair with my microfreak. Super happy with the effects, the drum machine synth sounds super interesting, I guess I should have a look myself!
Small enough to be worn as a fashionable pendant. Team it up with a QY8 and a 30X powerbank, and you can terrorise all your friends with a portable four bar eternal jam session. Blinky lights optional. I like the idea and the execution, and I'd have demanded one from my parents for Xmas if I was a techy pre-teen. The first step on the career path to Eurovision glory.
I was thinking that Korg could sell a zillion of these if it came with a "gold" chain lanyard and some hipitty-hopitty 'patches' out of the box. ...and then I came to my senses and remembered the DIY inclinations of said demographic.
It is amazing how nice it really does sound. I have previously stated that i am a korg fan but personally i am afraid of the NTS1 being too fragile and also it is, like the brits say, "too fiddly". i also counter the argument "But it is worth the $100 for the reverb alone" with: " No, for effects alone you spend $129 and get a zoom MS70-CDR which is on another plane of usefulness instead of that little breath-mint tin".
Use a power bank. There is plenty more that korg could have done to make this thing a better, more useful product but they very deliberately chose not to. Patch saving for example. This is probably just a matter of a few lines of code, the hardware itself allows for saving custom oscillators that surely take up more memory than a patch would. They developed this tech to be included in more expensive products, but I guess they figured they could get some online buzz by making a super-minimalistic unit and selling it as cheap as possible, let the internet loose on their open source platform and see what comes out of it.
@@JH-lo9ut Yes I know I can use a power bank, it would just be nice to have a battery/battery compartment actually inside the unit to make it truly portable
I've Had One Of These Little Fellows On My Gear List For Ages But Still Haven't Got Round To Buying One . After Watching This Episode You Have Convinced Me To Buy One Immediately . Sound Quality Is Great For What It Is And It Will Be Well Worth It . I'm Still Amazed At How Well Put Together And Produced Your Videos Are And This Is No Exception , I Appreciate How Much Work You Put In To Them . Thumbs Up From Me Every Time .
This is the first of my gear on here, and while I did expect to see some of it on the show this one does hurt me a little just because I love my little NTS-1 a lot, especially its wonderful effects.
@@AudioPilz Yep, and I am especially in love with the space and & submarine modes. Its not just a "it will do fine", no, its an actually REALLY PRETTY reverb that I WANT to use.
Ultimately, it was Korg that got me back into hardware again a few years back, so I'll happily confess to being a big Korg fan. They've released an impressive variety of synths over the last few years and their role in anologue revival has to be commended.
I mainly use mine as an fx unit with my MS20mini. I wish the ms had midi out as I could use it as a third oscillator. I also loved the tiny Action Man sized screwdriver that came with it.
Best music drops you’ve done in a while, Florian! You must’ve gotten some real inspiration from this box! PS: the “B” in “debt” is silent…pronounced “DET”
Damn, another synchronous occurrence with my friend at Bad Gear. Been binging Doctor Who recently, and just saw that episode with Micky, Rose and the David Tennant doctor!
1:01 "...a legit high-tech music production tool." Laughing my ass off that you used a picture of the Commodity Fetishism "module" for this. Nicely played.
If it could save presets for the effects and the custom oscillator (aka a fourth effect), it could be a perfect multi effects unit for live playing. But even as a studio unit it's a crazy good value
@@AudioPilz Hopefully a firmware update will fix that (wishful thinking, I know). It's been fantastic looking forward to your videos on Fridays! Keep up the great work in 2022!
before i sold my minilogue XD, one of my favorite custom oscillators was 'souper' by hammondeggsmusic, generating up to 10 detuned saw, pwm or triangles per digital osc. another one of my absolute favorites, and that really expanded the capability if the XD was 'Extra', also by hammondeggsmusic, that used the digital oscillator to generate multiple paraphonic voices, up to 3 per oscillator instance (so up to 12 voices on the XD). does make me wonder why i sold it now, especially seeing some of the recent developments.
Your sound demos sound really good!(especially the one that featured the circuit, even though I didn’t like the drums on that one but the synth sounds great!)
This is an amazing piece of kit for the price! One of the things NOT mentioned in this video is that the effects are available to ANY audio you pump into this thing! Yes, it has an Audio In jack! So essentially you get an effects pedal that does more than most effects pedals do. Oh, and did you hear about the price? For under $100, you get more than you can fathom really...if you're just starting out in synths, this is really a no brainer...you really get a sense of exactly how sounds are made. And the immersive hands-on starts at the very beginning! I cringed when I had to break the PC boards out of the Fiberglass matrix to create the walls, top and bottom of the unit! I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand the basics of synths!
I see it as a very affordable and space saving effects unit for my other synths, I would guess that is how most people are using this little unit. And nice video/excellent demo as always!
Yeahy! Finally! 😁 Was wondering when the NTS-1 would show up. I bought this little box, cause i wanted to dabble around with the Korg Multiengine API, but i quickly learned that DSP programming is a whole other world than building office applications. 😂 Instead of a development board, i now use it as an FX unit for my MicroFreak or my Modular. I especially loooove the Submarine reverb. It can sound sooo massive!😊 Nice video again!
I've tossed around buying one of these, but not as an instrument, but for its effects -- I already have a Korg Monotron Delay that I absolutely love, and I think this would complement it well
FRAGILE! If you play tug of war with NTS-1, you’ll win. The slightest cable tug can destroy any input/output jacks. Take precaution to place no stress on this device, unless you’ve rehoused it, e.g. in an effects pedal enclosure.
@@AudioPilz If Minilogue XD (either version) had audio input, I would have bought one long ago. Because the audio input broke off the PCB on my first NTS-1, I’ve bought 2 NTS-1, but I’m too afraid to even use the 2nd one! 🤪
@@dingalarm That might be a great idea to try doing, if ever I want to make an NTS-1 more durable before giving an old one (warranty already expired) to a small child! I think the electronics manufacturer for whom I work regularly uses such adhesive in their assemblies!
The USB noise literally only happens when you hook the USB power up to the same laptop you try to record to. It has to do with how most laptops just have no ground or shielding there either. You shouldn't run into this issue on a desktop PC or Mac. It's less of a real issue from the NTS-2. And technically, you could use one of those USB cables with a ferrite bead / ferrite choke, to just eliminate the problem altogether. Or use a separate powerbank which isn't a terrible idea anyway. I mean, why occupy a USB slot on your laptop and have it to be close to your music gear. It can be super clumsy. I do think and agree it should come with an USB cable with a ferrite choke by default though, as apparently there's also zero shielding inside the unit itself which could be seen as a con. Overall though, the sound is 100% clean. Heck, the Korg Nu:Tekt NTS-1 is outright _loved_ by the people that own it. For its price, it has some truly insane sounds. Custom oscillator support is just unheard of. Soundwise it is better than any of the Behringer 303 clones and can even compete with some of the $200-250 range synths out there. There are FX boxes and pedals out there that are four times the cost and do not sound nearly as good. It might be worth it for the FX alone. I also disagree about build quality. Plenty of synths literally have a plastic casing that is not much better than this and it would never come up as a problem. I dare say if we wouldn't have to put the unit together, this whole thing would not have been brought up at all.
Perfect device for those of us working from home. Just fiddle around on it, come up with some cool synth line on it, then record it to your mix after work. I’ve used this thing multiple times in songs.
TB-3 and Novation Circuit: *exist* Florian: *makes a bad gear episode for them * Florian two months later: *uses each a lot in other episodes * Florian: “Perhaps I treated you too harshly”
If I wanted that technology I would rather buy a Pro-8 or 16. These barebone gadgets tend to get easily broken. All the input controls are surface mounted potis and buttons. That's not minimalism. It's just shit. It's like buying a car without doors, seats, windows and suspension.
I thought this was the best episode of the year, a good review of the Korg dilemma and the all music featured sublime… wait this isn’t a better gear episode
Thinking of what to review after you run out of 'bad gear' boggled my mind but could prove useful for your channel. Thought of 'Bad Mixers' - 'Bad Effect-pedals' - 'Bad Wiring' - 'Bad Tunes' but just like 'Bad Gear' can turn out good, these can turn out good too! Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy Christmas and a Mysterious yet Wonderful New Year!