KORG OPSIX Plugin - Playing Korg's Monster FM Synth At Last 

hi matt, well, glad to be doing what you enjoy most again!

i so appreciate that comment, thnk you!

we sure do! thanks for the compliment, have a good one!

so many plugins so little time... :D

@@WoodyPianoShack lol .

yes, of course, it was Lately Bass! thanks, couldn't remember in the heat of the moment, sure it wasn't the same but quite similar vibe! cheers m8

it was our way of helping make sense of all the sounds and seeing what one operator does. glad you like it :-) overall opsix was inspired by old games and 80s style, more so on the hardware.

that's what I'm here for! I'm just as happy when I concince somebody not to buy something, there's nothing in it for me, after all!

that should have been the video title, thanks!

@@WoodyPianoShack

good question, well Fantom and Nautilus are going in this direction with all the sound engines and models, modx has two engines. I guess it comes down to the challenge of making a single control panel that works for all the synthesis types.

Novation Peak and Summit can do most of not all of this. Well, to elaborate, they have wavetables into analogue filters and amps, NCO oscillators into an otherwise analogue synth, NCOs being much closer to vcos than traditional VA, finally they both have FM synthesis. You can actually mix any and all 3 of these in one patch as you have 3 oscillators per voice, which could be any of the above ie: subtractive, wavetable or FM.

Isn't that what the Kronos tried to do?

The Korg Z1 had a lot of different engines, everything except PCM in fact. I guess a Korg Trinity Workstation with the Z1 "MOSS" board had ALL types, this was 25+ years ago too!

@@lundsweden The SY99 was a FM + PCM engine. For the time, the samples were great. They are a bit dated now, but the FM portion, especially if you're into the FM style Electric Pianos, well, the SY99 is unbeatable. Maybe the Montage and Mod-X (and the Korg OpSix) can reach the same level of FM goodness?

appreciate the comment, thanks!

clever chap, i'll take that!

i'm sure the sound engine and algorithms are identical, but the sound of the D/A converters on the synth, and on your USB audio interface may have a slight, although probably negligible if you have a decent transparent interface, effect on the sound quality.

@@WoodyPianoShack - ^ This is yet another reason why I cherish my Universal Audio Apollo x4. More expensive up front, but probably saves money in the long term. Crappy audio interfaces that are cheap can become more expensive later due to time and effort researching and buying their replacements.

that's funny, i tend to do that, even wiggle the keys as if they respond to vibrato!

Yes, just an arm...... or two arms if you were to buy OPSIX and Wavestate. $149 intro price and $199 from April 5th.

very cheap, and some times cheaper, thats why i bought the wavestation vst for 24$ , i think it was on black friday, i ended up buying 4-5 vst from korg.

@@henrik3657 it’s actually cheaper if I realize that I already have so many VSTs that basically do the same thing as these do, and I then don’t buy these.

Having these as audio units on iPad would indeed be nice. I have the iOS M1 and Wavestation emulations, but they only run standalone. I suppose I don’t NEED these, since I recently got the Nautilus, but iPad plus Casio (controller) is easier to take out if there’s ever again an open mic night around here.

@@Roboprogs I think it will come, hopefully!.

Are they M1 native?

didn't notice any sluggishness, but I do wish you could change presets using PC keyboard when on the main synth page, it only seems to work like that from the browser. good summary of the genres, but that's just how the presets are, with some work you could get any genre from either ! and thx for the kind words.

@@GregoryDumont2 yes, both opsix & wavestate works without any problems, on M1 with 16gb....

hi! actually opsix was running in my daw, and I was capturing audio from the output of the plugin, i'm afraid that if the output of the plugin clips, it won't help to pass it through a imiter. plus, I prefer to record the raw output of the synth without any effects. thanks for the tips though, but I would prefer that plugin manufacturers make sure that the output does not clip the bus!

@PEPINILLOS AZUCARADOS Probably feeling the need to atone for all the jet black livery of the 80's 😆

Same here

yeah, i hear you. a bit more contrast wouldn't go amiss either. here's hoping for skinnable GUI in the future.

@Digital Eclipse oh wow! this is the first time I see this feature in action. What a generous gesture, thank you

hi, and thanks! no I haven't dug into the controls yet, I'm not a huge fan of controlling soft synths with mouse, so will wait until I get a decent knobby controller, or perhaps pick up a hardware unit one day. interesting topic ideas tho, so thx!

The market has drastically changed towards the amateur home performer. If they create a revised Kronos to the specs people want - it'll be upwards of 4-5 grand and much like Genos; will hardly see any sales. More so in the current climate. The joys of software and universal controllers that fulfill the feel without being chained to a singular device - is money. That might not suit companies who would rather keep selling you 88 key hammer actions every release; but with the global shortage, change in demographic and money they can save - people simply wont and have no need to buy them. Hence the Roland-0 hits the floor. And you already know it will sell better than the 3+ grand Fantom right from day one. The same for the VST's over whatever pathetic junk they want to call those 3 octave toys. A modern Kronos wouldn't have a long enough shelf life. Not to recoup what was spent on RnD. If I am guessing correctly - a few million minor sales might offset the development and niche market but for what? The tailored and much cheaper devices from Yamaha and Roland will edge it out; and whilst not being a all in one solution like a workstation, will likely still be the premier action. Premier software advancement. A kronos 3 would be technologically irrelevant in a few years - unless it has great tactile, great software upgrade future proofing and something new in the engine department beyond another nautilus. Post pandemic. Thats a pretty big ask.

@Xeraser Oasys seemed a great idea back in the 90's, but as VST became defacto standard and CPU's got powerfull enough to outperform those old expensive Motorola DSP's, Korg got caught with an outdated proprietary tech that they spent way too much money on developing. That doesn't mean tho, that the engines in the Oasys/Kronos become bad just because the world went for another standard. It's still amazing what they got out of those crappy Atoms. What I don't get tho, is why Korg havn't spent just a little more work on their software which is the reason why a modern i3 or i5 don't give any more performance in the Kronos. The software is locked to certain performance of those atoms. It only takes some developers to 1: edit the code and recompile it for 64bit, 2: See how far they can push the new processors in respect to Polyphony and effect processing and edit the voice stealing tables. I can't see why that wouldn't be feasable to do. They could easily find even a "micro" board based on a fairly cheap 4 core 8 thread i-series mobile chip, that can support at least 16-32gb ram and have 10+x the performance of those old Atom processors. And injecting some new drivers for the hardware to support better multiprocessing can't be that difficult. I wouldn't mind them still using their proprietary tech for some of the existing Kronos engines which is still good. There are Linux based VST hosts today that could be added for supporting more recent software. My arguement is .. they have made the MS20, and Polysix and many more of their most popular synths for VST in the Korg collection. Tho I do realise that such a board would propably again raise the cost towards Oasys pricing which is propably why they don't go there. Too little people are willing to put that much money in a single board. If you look at the niche production of Organs today, you can get a Wersi Organ based on an i7 windows machine today with VST host and all. But it also have the pricetag of a small house.

@@ErraticFaith And that is what the Nautilus is. they shaved whatever they could off the Kronos and sells it a little cheaper in hope to milk a bit of earnings more of the Oasys adventure. To that we can just say even Korg didn't lived up to the promises of supporting the Oasys like forever, this beast is still market leading over 20 years later. What keyboard company can say they had a product that expands 2 decades and kinda still is market leading in its class ?

steady on there!

no difference with the full version, check the manual, otherwise you might be out of luck, i suppose it's not that common to map those params.

@@WoodyPianoShack Thanks for the feedback. I really enjoy your content. Keep it coming!

i didn't get that impression myself., especially when manipulating the controls there was no mistaking the FM character! keep in mind, I'm playing 10 presets out of hundreds.... and you can create your own.... :)

Yes. Essentially all the same.

Dan says what he needs to. He's an employee. For anybody who isn't so hamstrung by their obligations; it's well known that the hardware is laughable garbage. Failure to call it out as such; will just make the practice more accepted and common. The tech under the hood (software) was always going to be spoiled by what are the worst keybeds ever put into synths. The plasticky tasteless rubbish. Well. It's hardly ASM explorer now is it. Which doesn't even cost the full amount that these little korgs did at launch. Lol. For an opsix, you could very nearly get a modx workstation. That wasn't anything anyone was taking seriously. Free it from the joke build of their hardware though? And yes. It's very impressive. Lots more potential with good controllers and processing power. The screen size and being able to properly address what you're doing - is a massive step up. I forsee much more sale potential and it benefits the global shortages on top. Believe it or not I do prefer hardware (use) but anyone who takes 'complimentary' seriously; is a company shill. Nothing more.

@@ErraticFaith It's true you can get a Modx for about the same price as the Opsix, but have you ever played one ? They are, unfortunately, a disgrace for a company as Yamaha that normally delivers top Quality hardware in most of their products. The keybeds in the Modx 6 and most like the 7 and 8 too, is extremely bad quality, and cannot be recommended to anything else than home amateur usage or if you have a higher quality controller keyboard. The sound tho is so close to the Montage tho wich is the one thing only that holds these boards up.

Not that surprising. Roland does the same with their Cloud (System 8, Zenology etc)

I have a modx sat above my mainboard yes (CP4). I don’t find it an issue or I wouldn’t use it 😛 Different strokes for different folks. I play professionally though as a keyboardist. So what I need live you might not need at home/studio or wherever you play which is fair enough. Obviously opsix wasn’t much use for me when my smallest (I’d like to personally go) is 61+

@@ErraticFaith same here with the size, tho I am very iffy about clunky cheap keybeds. I tried several different clonewheels and dissed both Nord Electro and the Hammond xk1c for the Mojo 61, because they mod the standard fatar bed for a much better playing feel. I had the same feeling when I tried the Modx. Great sounding board, but Its very far from the keybeds Yamaha use in the Montage/Genos/Tyros/Motif models. I actually thaught of some kind of 47key board (with aftertouch)for doing lead parts on the Kronos, just because I’m not that trained pianist to play fast on a fully weighted keybed, but Its hard to find a quality 37-47 controller board. Most of them are with short keys and without aftertouch.

they run nativelym but according to some forum threads, small number of users are having slight issues

@@WoodyPianoShack Thanks very much!

yeah looks like great value, don't think they've made it out to the general public yet. hopefully I can borrow one or somehow pick one up.

that's the one!

yes, both these plugs have fantastic deep, warm, yet clear, detailed sound, magnificent!