Hey - a quick update - I don't have access to an original KingKORG to test preset compatibility, but regardless, while the Virtual Analog and DWGS oscillators are identical, and some of the original PCM samples have made it over, others are new and different (and there are about 10 more of them), so a preset on the OG may not sound the same even if you can load it up here. I'll update this comment if there's more info or if I get my hands on an OG...
@@indirektdjs Thanks for offering! I won't make another "vs" video, but would love to hear your thoughts on the new PCM sounds vs the old ones (I got through all of them in the video), how important you think the tube circuit is to the overall sound, and, if you don't mind checking if NEO presets work on the OG, I'm happy to mail you a couple (contact me at my email in the description)
@@pyrotek45i know better is subjective but as an owner of a Mininova the King Korg does sound a lot better to my ears. Not that i dont love the Mininova but the filters aren't great and is definitely less flexible in the oscillator department.
Yes, agreed! At first I thought like `Oh ok another not innovative synth...` so the enthusiasm was kinda limited after reviewing the features, but after I read the price tag in the comments, I was really shocked. If Korg keeps it up like this, they will be bankrupt soon. I mean the competition is big and they don't have a real niche besides `it`s a Korg synth´, imho.
I love how I see new synthesizers that I have never heard of (but want to) right here on this channel before I see them anywhere else. These videos must be made by a very hard-working person at the peak of the game. Don't change Mr. Loopop!
Love the video, as always. Just wanted to mention that the notes section contains text summarizing differences between two devices not related to this video. Normally your notes section is super useful and relevant so I wanted to mention it in case it was unintentional. Thanks for all you do! You’re the best there is and your videos are a constant reference for me.
Thanks for the heads up and for the very kind words! RU-vid lets me import descriptions from old videos as a "getting started" template and I missed that - fixed and added the differences between KKN and the OG for good measure :)
I think they've been spreading themselves too thin with their massive lineup. They have to operate with the high margins of a much smaller company and profit off of loyal collectors quickly before lowering the price to what the rest are willing to spend. It's something people might look past with a small company but I don't know here. I guess good for them trying to cast a wide net and figure out a future product strategy but the market has become insanely competitive, and the customers price conscious.
All gear of most companies is going up quite a bit. Even the new midi controllers are at a price point where synths use to be and synths now higher. Even the older synths prices went up quite a bit.Think this will be the new price levels of gear in the future.
@@liviou2004 it lacks the vacuum tube, it adds some PCM waves: it doesn't really look like a big downgrade IMO. However, I'm not going to sell my OG to buy this new one for sure. But, when it came out, KK was largely ignored because of its front panel (more similar to a workstation than a proper synth) and the reviewers were focusing more on performing funky solos using some lead preset sounds!
I always liked the sound of the OG KingKORG. I like this form factor more. I just wish they'd give it dedicated set of controls for at least the filter envelope and for both LFO's. There's still enough space on the panel for this. But ok, it's workable the way it is. The sound of this thing - not many modern analogs sound this silky and warm, and it seems it has a very wide sweet spot. I've yet to hear it sound bad, which I can't say for most modern analogs. VA has come a long way, but I have to say that out of the new digital synths you've mentioned, none sound as pleasing, smooth and warm.
15:45 I really love Korg presets.. Rain Pad reminds me of Ice*Rain and First*Snow on the Korg X5.. Absolutely love those presets. It made me fall in love with the synth.
Yamaha Seqtrack is a genius move then we have korg just releasing dud after dud drumlogue ,Kaoss replay just make a proper ES3 groovebox for pete's sake
I've always wanted a KingKORG, was literally just thinking about it the other day, wondering if Korg still makes it. I have a Korg Kaossilator 2, and I love the sounds on that, and I once read somewhere that it uses the same engine as the King KORG, not sure if that's true, but I do think they sound similar. So stoked for this.
I remember when the king korg came out and reading that it was a new engine, but a spiritual successor to the korg radius engine, which the microkorg, r3, kaossilator pro and to some extent the emx1 use. Similar but evolved!
I honestly expected 400-500. For the price it is, id buy two synths. Or a synth and something else. I'm honestly in shock at the cost. It sounds nice but nothing that makes me go WHOOOOA
With Hydrasynth Explorer and Arturia Minifreak at $600, 1K is way out of order. What I am saying is right now at Sweetwater you can get BOTH the Minifreak and Hydrasynth Explorer for only $1,200 . Korg is way out of bounds here.
I've loads of synths, it's an addiction and this one as good as it sounds (and it does sound nice) it's far from worth the cost. In the past 12 months only I've bought deep mind 12, MPC one and a wavestate, and all in that was £1300 . And there's a lot of fun to be had with just those.
That's a nice combination of tools. I wouldn’t call your description an addiction. There was a recent story in Music Radar about various guys with music spending addictions spending $20-80K on gear every year never having written or produced a single song AND some of them opening their new gear and never using it. One guy bought an OB-X8 for 5K and admitted he never plugged it in. THAT'S an addiction. @@-The-Darkside
The capabilities are SO similar to the original KingKorg, if it is down to buying this Wavestate form-factor KingKorg (with its disappointing keybed) for $1000, or an original classic KingKorg with a 5 octave keybed for $600...I'm going with the original.
The KingKorg Neo is an almost identical copy of the KingKorg (just compare the Parameters Guides), more expensive with two important "minuses": the overall Tube effect (a rare specificity of the KingKorg which had the advantage to add warmth to the sound) no longer exists in the NEO and of course this very small keyboard.
I bought the KingKorg Black Edition for $900 new from Kraft. This is pretty, but for the price and being smaller, less keybed range with no tube (even if it is a gimmick), this is likely going to stay on the shelves.
I have a black Kingkorg and it’s such a great synth, and always wanted a smaller version of it. However the price is ridiculous. Should be about £500/£550.
Congratulations, your channel has come full circle. Your back to the Electribe 2 sound! But I guess if Novation is still using the MiniNova engine, then Korg can keep using the kingkorg engine.... ?
Ha not until there's an Electribe 3!! Re the engine, for sure - the fact that something has aged doesn't mean it's bad, and with lo-fi and vinyl coming back, perhaps on the contrary
Unless they've physically blocked it in the NEO, contrary to the original KK documentation, the 200 presets CAN be overwritten with USER patches, thus the KK and probably the NEO, can store 300 user patches overall, not 100 - Regarding the additional 10 OSC types, over the original KK, they seem to have removed some of the cheesier DWGS waves, and expanded the PCM with more synthy sounds, and again, dropped most of the cheese. But compared to the KK, you lose the Tube Valve, CV out, and no cute little led light in the R of Korg on the back :-D ..
I think this is unacceptable. $1k (give or take), 3 octaves, no aftertouch, only bitimbral? It's VST in a box, why can't it be fully multitimbral? It was done in the 80s and 90s - we don't get that now? I'll fault Hydrasynth and Rev2 on this too. There's no reason modern synths need to be limited in the polytimbrality. At this price point, in this year, I expect a Virus killer.
Agree 100000 % I have quite lost interest in new gear annoucement at all . Just thinking to Korg M1 straight from the 80s ... 8 parts multi-timbral (at least, If not even more) I dont' get why manufacturer limit multi-timbrality in modern digital synths ... ( or better, I get why... )
yes !! analog requires electronics components to be replicated for each voice ( I'm not an expert ) Digital requires a lot less effort ( UI and DSP software remains basically identical and CPU power is kinda low cost ) @@lordundhimself1310
0, I guess, I've changed it to '0'. Still, I get a lot of synth reviews in my reccs from other channels I'm not subscribed to. You'd think it'd surface the subscriptions more regularly.
Korg pricing is completely out of control. Just as like they don't want to sell anything... Blofeld Keyboard 849€, actually built in Europe and 49 keys WITH AFTERTOUCH. What is Korg smoking?
The latching problematic is awesome. I also find it just as awesome that on my Minilogue Xd there is Latch only for the Arpeggiator but it cannot be used as a Hold for simply Holding a Chord or a Note playing without the Arp on. Some weird design choices there imho. Every synth should have the Latch-Hold functionality of the Bass Station 2
Sad they dropped the over drive. That is the one thing I have been very interested in lately is distortion, fuzz, and over drive. Looks like a good starter synth for a lot of people though.
Hi, can a timbre be in stereo , ie, paned hard L R with the 2nd timbre in mono to create a patch? I'm thinking Stereo Bass. Or, could timbre 1 be routed to the stereo FX (chorus) and the 2nd timbre no FX (mono) or perhaps a compressor ? Thank you
I like Korg, and I also like your synthesizer video review, but I really don’t feel anything about the king korg neo. This product looks like Korg took parts of all previous products and put them together with a very basic framework. . I own a Wavestate, and Modwave is also very attractive to me. I hope Korg can launch more things like Wave Sequence 2.0 instead of simply remastering old products.
I own it, very pleased from sound and possibilities. But: - No Patch Manager / Librarian ? How export/import patches? - No PCM import? Maybe in the future?
Missed opportunity not adding the Logue engine to update the older now a bit dated KingKorg sound with all the awesome 3rd party OSC/ Filter /FX algorithms like the Sinevibes Dense for example would of made this more of an expanding contender to the Gaia 2 rather than a trickle down repackage .
Had a Minilogue XD and sold it after a month. Korg somehow managed to make the most sterile characterless analog synth ever made. The only interesting part was the digital oscillator and not what i bought it for. The King Korg sounds better, i even think the original Microkorg beats the XD as it least has some character.
Great review as usual. It does sound pretty awesome, but it would be nice if Korg would make a new version of the radias or at least include the radias concepts on the neo.
$599 would of been my sweet spot for price. I picked up a gold King Korg 6 years ago for $500 used, and I don’t plan to get rid of it. Regardless, I like the Neo form factor, in fact I always wanted a desktop version. Perhaps the future used price of the Neo will be comparable to the OG’s used price.
Original KingKorg, with black and gold design was way prettier. The vacuum gave the OG one a nice analog feel. Im also assuming that the keybed is the same as wavestation/modwave/opsix which is not great. I think in all mentioned synths KORG should either release a module version and also an option for the user to safely unmount and mount the keybed with a few screws and one plug. Id doesn't seem to be that hard to make.
There’s a ton of vacuum tube preamps/overdrives/distortion boxes available, yeah. In all sorts of form factors, like guitar pedal, synth module, rack module, or home hifi box. As standalone products, or as DIY kits.
I bought the Modwave for half of what the KKneo costs and honestly from what I can see here, it is a better option, even if it has no vocoder... I would recommend anyone interested in the Kingkorg to look at the Modwave as an alternative
Im looking and listening and the modwave blows this thing out of the water. Sounds way better, is cheaper, and seems far more powerful / flexible. Looking at all options but so far im leaning hard towards modwave
@@xgskrillax I have the Modwave. It's very good. There are some good offers with the MK1 still available. And whilst I'll get the NEO at some point - I'm fairly sure the modwave can do most of what the NEO can, plus it has the 4gigs of user sample data too. The only downside for the Modwave, is that many of the presets don't quite show-off it's versatility. The sounds are very good, but they tend to keep within the floaty atmospheric style which it's so good at. The up side being that I've really had to learn how to program it rather than just tweak it. And it can make some very good live-performance lead sounds.
@@David3Wise i really like the way it sounds but i don't want to pay full price for a new mkII version. I asked Korg today if the firmware updates enabled free running LFOs on the original Modwave too and they said no unfortunately. If I get one I want a mkII because I use LFOs a lot and would be pretty frustrated not having the option of letting it free run. All the other stuff I could be fine without that the MKII has but that. I'll just wait for a sale or a good deal on a second hand one on Reverb I guess.
I just picked up the old KK. Not that many about! I'm very happy with it. Great fun! This one looks great for transportability and to fit in with a larger studio rack or stage rack. I don't know whay they stopped at 300 sounds including user patches . Why not 999? Does this one store more than 300? For a moment i was wondering if you used Freddie's voice there. lol
Meh. Just like the original, there is no channel aftertouch. A keyboard is not the king of anything without it. These days, it pretty much has to have poly-AT to deserve the label "king."
The toy keyboard isn't AT, but hey, you can just go buy a midi controller for another 700.00 buck to get real keys and AT. 😂Or, just wait for SE version for $2100.00. 🎉
@@SPAZZOID100 LOL. Yes, yes they do. I love my little Hydra Explorer with poly AT. I have my eyes on a few more poly AT keyboards as well. It adds a level of expression you can't really get on standard keys. Try it. You'll like it :)
Thank you very much for the review Loopop! I really like the new King Korg, but in my opinion the arpegiator could be programmable so the user could capitalize the split function creating unique performances, performing using the 2 timbres simultaneously. At this price, I would expect and a basic step sequencer as well. Great synth overall, but in my opinion Korg should reduce the price. I would like to ask you if you can make a review and for the new Korg Mikrokorg 2 as well. It looks like this is going to be a hit on the market, like the original model. According to Korg, the Microkorg 2 it has a ''record loop function'', on which you can create performances since the synth is multitimbral with 8 voice polyphony. So, I can't wait to see you to test this feature which is very interesting in my opinion. Thank you again!
Looks and sounds nice, although the white panel is a bit too bright for me, but maybe it looks better in real life compared to this video. 1000 euro is too much for this form factor however.
i have the old KKorg, and love it. the vocoder is great with the tube. sold the ultranova,microfreak, and microkorg, weak vocoders compared to my other ones. but if you want real vocoders that sound just as good but different then the KKorg land a jupiter xm w/ vocal designer, waldorlf stvc, or a radias. and a vocoder in my modx is also very good.
Had been considering a used KingKORG for gigging, and I was instantly interested when I saw this announced, but if it has a seriously cheapo feeling keyboard similar to the OpSix, I will pass...especially for the price. I might as well keep looking for a used KingKORG. On the plus side, maybe the prices on used KingKorgs will drop a bit now.
Someone please tell me there's a stand alone or cheaper alternative to that vocoder. That has got to be the most smooth sounding vocoder i've ever heard.
3 octive keyboards are nice, but they really shouldn't start at the C note. F or G would be better so you can play leads in A# minor and still have 3 octaves.
It's not a Raspberry Pi. I've done a teardown of the original KingKorg. There are two identical DSPs in it. They're Analog Devices ADSP-BF523, and cost about 15 bucks when bought in volume. So out of your 1000 dollars, about 30 go into the sound engine.
@@crosswick Yes, absolutely possible. But i doubt it. Why would they redesign the hardware when the original chips are still available, and cheap enough. Also buttons, knobs and displays look like they're completely identical to the original KK. I think they just repackaged what they already had into a new casing with shorter keyboard and called it a day.
@@valuemastery but looking at the external connections at the back, the PCB is highly similar to that of the opsix, which runs an RPi. Reusing that new hardware platform makes more sense to me than adapting the 10 year old ADSP design
I had the original KingKorg many years ago. While I did like the sound a lot, I found it frustrating to edit, so I sold it and got a real 1 knob/function synth instead (System 8). Because I like the sound, I would be tempted to buy this smaller version of it (which now has 10 year old tech inside, let's face it) - if it was half the price. Sorry Korg, you messed this up. Back in the days, I opened up my KingKorg to see what's inside. I found a tiny circuit board with two cheap DSPs on it (those cost just a few bucks) and not much else. With the NEO, Korg had no software development cost, they just repackage what they already had for a decade. There's absolutely nothing here that justifies the ridiculous pricing. What also disappointed me about the KingKorg was that even if it has a quite simple but powerful effect unit, you have to decide between delay and reverb. You can't have both. To me that's a serious design flaw.
I’ll stick with my original King Korg thanks, which went down to £799 (UK) brand new when I bought it. I like the style/look of this, but far too expensive and I love the analogue tube feature on the original.
I have the original, best VA 10+ years ago and I still like the way it sounds. However they should have upgraded the sound engine with this one. Internal sampling rate of the filter should be 500+ khz as well as fully modulatable cross mod, sinc, 1024 steps on the encoders, dual filter per voice/extra low pass, more patch memory, knob per function/better navigation/mod matrix. Also Jupiter/Juno filter models, though the Acid filter already sounds Rolandish.
@@alvilagialvilagi6098What would you say the Blofeld is good and bad at, thinking about buying it soon:) Love the White simple look. Have gotten too much black in my studio. I need to get more white gear, because white color makes a room/studio look bigger:)
