KORG Collection 5

[Despondo]

Updated KORG Collection with 3 new plugins.

https://www.korg.com/us/products/softwa ... ollection/
https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/kc_arp_2600/
https://www.korg.com/us/products/softwa ... ntinental/
https://www.korg.com/us/products/software/kc_ep-1/

[jam-s]

Upgrade from Collection 4 is $99. Not sure I'll get it at this price. If they made it $49, sure, but at $99 I don't think I'll take it.

[Lizard]

I am a KORG fan and have always upgraded. Although this will be a hard justification. Every single one of these is also part of the Arturia V Collection. They might of had me if they had at least one KORG device never before released. They have several they could have picked out of. KORG Trident, DW Series, Poly-800 or one or two of their vintage rhythm machines. These additions feel just a little too late in my opinion.

[huggermugger]

For vintage Korg emulations (and a few others), I get plenty of joy from FullBucket.

https://www.fullbucket.de/music/vst.html

[SebAudio]

Full Bucket is the Cherry Audio of freewares ! A massive catalog of GUI resembling old synths !

[SebAudio]

These additions feel just a little too late in my opinion.

Except there isn’t such an accurate ARP 2600 model on the soft synth market. The price is right for such a high quality plugin.

[Carly(Poohbear)]

These additions feel just a little too late in my opinion.

Except there isn’t such an accurate ARP 2600 model on the soft synth market. The price is right for such a high quality plugin.

Disagree, both the timewarp and CA2600 are good emulations and a lot cheaper.

[luckygreen]

At first I thought this upgrade from Korg Collection 4 to 5 is a pass for me, but I just watched the plugin boutique youtube presentation with the product manager guy and man, I got to say: CPU hogs for sure but that sound is pretty impressive. And all those little details that have never been emulated in software before. Seems like pretty faithful emulations.

Sadly it is VST3, AAX and AU (Mac) only. No VST2. So it's either VST3 or VST2 for me. And as we know by now, VST3 does not necessarily work too well with Reason 12 and maybe even 13. On top even Ableton Live 12 isn't too fond of VST3 every single time in my case (Windows 10). I don't know ... for USD 99 a bit risky. Maybe better wait till BF 2024

Has anybody with Reason 12 / Live 12 on Windows made some experience with Korg Collection 5 and cares to talk about?

[avasopht]

I skipped the upgrade for Collection 4, and this is also a pass for me.

Collection 4 had the MicroKorg, which is worth an upgrade, but I just didn't need it. But Collection 5 feels a little dull.



I'm with Lizard. They could have gone with the Trident or even the Radias.

[luckygreen]

I remember the price for the upgrade form KC 3 to 4 was around EUR 100,00 as a sales price as well. That was a pass for me at that time. But the price came down to around EUR 50,00 and for that kind of money it was ok for me and I pulled the trigger. Same situation with this upgrade to KC 5. I think I'ii wait till next BF or next summer sale. Well worth EUR 50,00 IMO.

[Theo.M]

Upgrade from Collection 4 is $99. Not sure I'll get it at this price. If they made it $49, sure, but at $99 I don't think I'll take it.

That's ridiculous. Just purchased 4 in May. Not going to do all these upgrades on a whim anymore. TBH I have heaps of EP and Organs anyway so I'd be paying just for the ARP 2600.
I'll demo it as I don't like Arturia's version at all and never really have, and Korg's Odyssey is unbelievable. But in Poly mode it is a cpu destroyer. I have a feeling the 2600 will be awesome, so will demo now.
Just saw this after making a topic about the modwave LOL!

[Theo.M]

Nah, not doing it. A bundle is a bundle and stuff should be included.

Never anyone complain to me about Waves WUP again (over at gearspace so many complaints). I have bought it 3 times in over 20 years, only when I need a major new upgrade like for Apple silicon, and this time I got all these great new plugins for Horizon bundle like Magma Springs and more (my favourite spring reverb plugin, period). Now I can stay on V15 for as long as I like till apple releases an update that breaks it, and only then pay WUP.

But this thing of releasing one or two plugins and making a whole new bundle upgrade is not my cup of tea. I'll wait till version 6 or 7 now as I am sure the upgrade will be the same price. Just over it, and over not having a reasonable grace period either.

[joeyluck]

Korg collection upgrade prices are tiered. So they get more expensive if upgrading from earlier versions.

I wish the other Korg stuff was bundled, but I guess since those are still hardware flagships, that's why they choose to keep them separate?

[Theo.M]

Korg collection upgrade prices are tiered. So they get more expensive if upgrading from earlier versions.

I wish the other Korg stuff was bundled, but I guess since those are still hardware flagships, that's why they choose to keep them separate?

Good to know, but I won't be upgrading.

Thoughts.
The ARP uses 40x the CPU of the Arturia one, literally, comparing mono to mono voice. That's nuts. It sounds better, but not 40x better.
Yes there's something genuinely analog about the sound, but the cpu usage is ridiculous and the patches are pretty bad.
The reason patches matter with a demo like this is because you can't save your patches, you get 20 minutes and it stops all sound so you need to reset it.
And this has to have one of the most detailed GUI I have ever seen, in that this thing is a BEAST to program, and you really need a large monitor to get the best of it.
It would take longer than the demo period just to program one good patch, which you'd then lose.
Hence, relying on presets to judge it, since it needs an unlimited real demo period of 2 weeks to get the most out of the demo.
And the patches aren't great.
There's one pad I liked, but there's this nasty spring reverb sound on it, for example, and I could not work out how to remove it, even though all effects were OFF and the reverb send was at 0.
So this thing needs time, not a timeOUT demo.
Poly synths and plucks are *really* weak, so either the original wasn't a good synth for those sounds, or Korg's preset programmers haven't done a good job.
All that said, I don't know if I am willing to sacrifice this sort of CPU, and unlike the Arturia, they have stuck to the original's polyphony limits in Poly mode, so pads are more or less impossible to play, even three note chord progressions without egregious voice stealing.
So this one isn't for me. I love their odyssey, which has a full poly mode, but I am glad I just don't feel the need at all with this one.
I am not saying it sounds bad, far from it - the fact is, we are at the level now where plugins sound like analog hardware, and some plugins sound way better (imo) than *digital* HW synths. This is an analog emulation and a precise one, but is also a perfect example of why I will keep just a few HW synths around when I sell most of them off, because they leave my CPU alone.
I'll give it another go over the weekend for sure, but they're my initial thoughts. I haven't tried the EP or organ.

Edit, it also just caused Pro Tools to crash when I removed it from the insert on the first try, so there's that.

[Theo.M]

Hmm more
There are some patches that I can play poly without stealing, so perhaps it has something to do with unison level which I haven't even been able to locate yet as everything is so small on laptop. They force everything to be shown at once rather than have a large knob with scrolling option like Arturia.
Also if I turn some mono patches poly, something weird is going on, not stealing, it's just not playing the pressed notes and misses one randomly each chord.

I have gone through every preset now and I my opinion has changed somewhat. Initially I was looking at poly keys and pads only.

Where you will notice the MASSIVE quality difference with the Arturia and this one is the bass. They are world's apart. Arturia has weak bass, this does not.

Fun patch - try Fat Saws - MW sequence, activate ARP and set to up OR down at 1/8 or 1/16, play arp and then move modwheel back and forth. I actually want to use this for a new track, and can do so in 20 minutes and bounce it. I'm gonna do it. Cheeky.

This is also excelling in mono leads. I have to check the cpu usage on Apple Silicon before I make my mind up, as that's ultimately what matters the most to me.

BTW, ironically, I really like the Vox. Something I'd never normally consider, but it has a real "niceness" and "crispness" to the sound. It just sounds good. EP sounds like EP, but I am flooded with EPs and don't even use them in my styles of music. But there's a place for that Vox for sure. It really is nice!

[WaxTrax]

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/air-relea ... 0-v2-61350

$20 upgrade if you own v1. Not too bad

[LuizAtKorg]

but the cpu usage is ridiculous

but there's this nasty spring reverb sound on it

There are some patches that I can play poly without stealing
they have stuck to the original's polyphony limits in Poly mode

@Theo.M

The CPU usage can be lowered in the Oversampling settings (global settings or trimpots).
More info here
Quoting Dan, from the dev team:

Code: Select all

It's absolutely a heavy plug-in. 
That's the price for doing a real model of the 2600, with all of its saturating opamps and idiosyncratic modules. 
Even the envelopes are computationally expensive. Hopefully you'll find that the quality is worth the CPU cycles! 
More info here:
https://support.korguser.net/hc/en-us/articles/35251307201689-Optimizing-CPU-Performance

The spring reverb you are listening is probably the ARP's built in one, so you can tune it with the "Reverberator" faders at the right part of the plugins, near the effects.

If your preset is set to "Poly", you can choose the polyphony maximum at the bottom-right corner of the plugin.
Higher polys means higher CPU usage, so use it in combination with the "Oversampling" settings to balance the performance.

[Theo.M]

Thanks a lot Luiz, I fixed the poly issue however I still can't see the reverb slider and that spring verb that is on a lot of presets is NASTY.
It doesn't go at all.

Please at least take my opinion on board for a possible future update. The issue is, that if you make the plugin big enough to see easily, you can't scroll it. This is where Arturia have aced it. Even at 200% I can navigate the whole plugin on a 17" laptop. With the Korg I have to put it at 100% to just fill the 17" and everything is SO small. In the music room on the native 1440P 27" I am sure I will be putting it at 200% if I end up buying it (I don't install demos on that machine, only the windows laptop I am on now writing this with also).

Edit, I found the two faders, on the upper part of the GUI to the right, my goodness with that horrible verb gone, the transformation! Yay! Now I will try with a nice LX480 reverb after it.

[LuizAtKorg]

Hello, Theo.

Got it, I will tell them about the interface size/scroll.

Here are the reverberator knobs, I don't know if I'm uploading images correctly, so I will also write the direct link:
https://ibb.co/dB7srHr