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Originally Posted by namnibor
I honestly do not hear ANY difference between KINGKORG and my Radias and it seems to be a Radias with better keyboard and some new filter emulations. You can get an used Radias Rack and use any keyboard with veloc/aftertouch and pretty much for an used price of $700. max. I have only kept my currently only Korg, the Radias, because it really is an understatedly deep synth with many possibilities and in fact the Korg product page states it's built upon next stage of Radias--FYI, so may want to look into that because companies like to often re-wrap and sell same (take Triton Engine for example) by inventing a new name and this case instead of MMT it's XMT--same by any other name. Nor am I attempting to pop your GAS for something that appeals to you but having Radias already and seeing a repackaged 97% Radias, to perhaps save you some cash. Matter in fact, there's times I have got "similar" sounds as the Virus, but stress the *similar* here. What's advantagious about the Radias is it has 3 seperate modulation sequencers, 2-32 step sequencers, and many Arps as well and is a great tool and augmentation to our Virus with the difference though, as much as I have tried (maybe not hard enough yet) to make Radias sound as "dark and dirty" as our Virii can, have not been able to do so but Radias excells in other areas and also has very same PCM drums, etc as KINGKORG. something might consider as an affordable alternative IMHO.
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Yes, Radias cannot sound dark, it's far too bright, surgically clean and digital sounding.
Personally I'm not fully taken with the Radias sound and programming engine. The Radias has one, very good, fully featured oscillator, but the second oscillator is crippled, it can't even do PWM. Furthermore, activating a sub-osc lowers overall voice count by a third (or thereabouts). I end up having to duplicate timbres if I want to have PWM or other oscillator types for both oscillators, purely because Osc 2 is incapable of doing so. This is a bummer when you have to keep on duplicating parameters on both timbres so they match, and polyphony is halved due to twice as many timbres being used. The Oasys/Kronos AL-1 (which the Radias engine is derived from) had two fully featured oscillators, even the Z1 did back in 1995 (even including physical modelling!), so why not the Radias?
If the King has at least two oscillators that are fully featured, then that would be great. If all three oscillators are fully featured, it'd be killer.
KK has 127 types of oscillators (many are PCM or DWGS), but 64 are 'analogue' & noise waveforms, which can only be good. Sounds like the analogue waves go far beyond the standard four Saw/Pulse/Sin/Tri waveforms plus noise. I'm extremely intrigued as to what the rest of those particular waveforms are.
The main bonus with the King over the Radias is the filters. Having a complement of filter types available is a huge boon. That acid filter simulation that Richard Formidoni demo'd on the King in the video (posted above) sounded spot on, and the Moog filter sounded pretty good too.
The King has no aftertouch, though, which is unforgivable for a synth that price. The same happened with the Radias KB....
However it does have the XY joystick, although normally I'd use these for Pitch and Mod duties while using aftertouch (and ribbon) for further expression. I come from the Korg Trinity days with XY joystick, XZ ribbon, two switches, velocity AND aftertouch!
The 6-in, 6-out modulation matrix sounds the same as the Radias, which pales in comparison to something like the Virus, or even the Z1. The King's two LFOs and two EGs are measly. The Radias has two LFOs and three EGs. The Oasys/Kronos has four LFOs and four EGs. Even in 1995, harking from the Z1 days, we had four LFOs, five EGs, and routings galore!
Rich Formidoni (Korg product manager and demo guy) stated the King has no MIDI zipper artefects on the knobs (when turning them slowly), obviously some sort of smoothing interpolation, like the Virus has always had, which is fantastic. The Radias doesn't have this.
Where the Radias triumphs is the the mod-sequencing & drum elements - obviously the King lacks all that, but it's not trying to be the Radias, it's aimed at a different type of use.
Admittedly, though, the whole front panel on the King appears a bit of an elementary doofus. Osc, Filter, Amp should've been on the left, and the effects controls on the right. As it is, your left arm will be crossing over your right hand all the while when you reach for the filter and oscillator knobs.