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Originally Posted by Dirty Halo Ok, if you can honestly say that the Korg Oasys is a 100% new concept and wasn't an older concept keyboard, then a card and a few other previous attempts at the same concept that Korg tried to sell years ago and a few years before that
But hey, if ya want to tell me this is really new, then go ahead. |
Speaking as someone who's been building gear for a while now, almost nothing is 100% new. Everything builds on stuff that went before. There's a little space between that and "re-hash," I think...
I worked on the original OASYS keyboard, and OASYS PCI, and now the new OASYS. The new OASYS sounds better (in measurable ways - not merely subjective), does a whole lot more (both in terms of the complexity of the algorithms, and the number of voices it can play), and is *completely* different under the hood. Every line of code for realtime audio functionality is new.
No previous Korg synths can sound like OASYS, or do what OASYS does in any particular area (e.g., sample playback, VA, physical modeling, wave sequencing etc.). The VA oscillators and filters are new. The sample playback oscillators are new. The envelopes and LFOs are new (as are the step sequencers and modulation mixers). The physically modeled string is new. Wave sequencing has more new features than old. Many of the effects are new.
Finally, OASYS dynamically allocates voices between any and all models, with protection against system overs, which as far as I'm aware of no other system does. (The original OASYS was designed to have something similar, but (a) it was more limited, (b) it used a completely different method for doing so, and (c) it was never really up and running anyway.)
Personally, that doesn't sound like a re-hash to me.
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Originally Posted by Dirty Halo Can you really tell me that THIS keyboard is THE resounding success and has put Korg on top of the market? |
I'm in R&D, and not sales, so I'll try to answer that question from a Gearslutz perspective (even though there's no way on earth that anyone other than my close friends would or should believe my answer): I love it, and OASYS has at least currently satisfied my personal synth-gear lust. The only thing I really want at the moment is a production unit to replace my well-loved but ugly prototype.
I think that the price, the sequencer and HDR, and perhaps the brand name have distracted a particular set of synth connoisseurs from actually looking at what the OASYS does as a synth (particularly in the wave sequencing, VA, and physical modeling areas). I hope that the reality of what it does and how it sounds will eventually change this group's perception, but I know that you can't please everyone all the time - and since I hear that folks like Eno and Peter Gabriel are digging it, I'm satisfied that we've done our job well enough for now.
- Dan