It’s named in honour of everyone’s favourite
giant ape, but will Korg’s new keyboard scale the heights or be shot
down in flames? Find out in our exclusive review...
When rumours of
Korg’s new products leaked out a few days before the recent NAMM
Convention, conspiracy theorists briefly ceased questioning whether the
royal family are lizards, and leapt to their keyboards to announce that
the KingKorg was a hoax. Their reasoning, for the most part, was that
the name couldn’t possibly be true. Someone was playing games with the
poor, gullible keyboard-buying public, and we needed protecting by those
with access to higher knowledge. Of course, the KingKorg (which I shall
henceforth call the KK) duly appeared a few days later, and it then
stimulated a very different response from those who had, um, never
doubted that it was real in the first place. Now, the discussion turned
to whether something that looked like a full-sized virtual analogue
synth was what the world wanted from Korg in 2013. That was a much
better question, and one that deserves answering.
Timbre Frames
The KingKorg’s forthcoming librarian software will allow users to edit the program list and manage patches.
First things first. The KK is a digital synth, and
its heart pumps binary blood called XMT, or Expanded Modelling
Technology. OK, so that should be EMT, but let’s not quibble... The name
is clearly intended to suggest that it’s the next step forward from the
Multiple Modelling Technology that powers the Radias, R3 and
MicroKorgs.
Its fundamental building block is
the Timbre, which comprises three oscillators, a filter and its
associated ADSR contour generator, an amplifier and its ADSR contour
generator, plus a pair of sync’able LFOs. With the exception of the
third oscillator, this is possibly the closest you’ll ever find to
a ‘standard’ polysynth architecture.
You can
select from 126 initial waveforms: 32 analogue in nature, an extended
set of 64 DWGS (Digital Waveform Generator System) waveforms, and 30 PCM
(Pulse Code Modulation) samples. If you select an analogue wave, you
can then adjust one or two parameters to further shape it into things
such as supersaws and PWM waves. Other modifications include things such
as decimation and decay on the noise sources (which suggests all manner
of percussion sounds), detune amount on the dual and unison
oscillators, and the modulation pitches (and, where appropriate,
modulation depths) within the sync, ring modulation, cross-mod and FM
oscillators. What’s more, you can control all of these parameters
dynamically. The DWGS waveforms are just as interesting because they are
themselves dual oscillators that can be detuned and subject to VPM
(frequency modulation) to create another huge range of initial sounds
ranging from hybrid analogue/digital to full-blown FM. Understandably,
the PCM samples have no such parameters, but they nonetheless provide
a useful range of additional waves including pianos, Clavinets, organs,
brass, strings, choirs and so on.
The outputs of
the oscillators are mixed and then passed to the filter section, which
offers 18 filter options. Five of these were developed specifically for
the KK, but the others will be of more interest to aficionados because
they are modelled on the Minimoog, Prophet 5, SEM, MS20 and TB303. From
the clean sweeps of the King and Moog models to the tortured screams and
burblings of the MS20 and TB303, the KK offers a huge range of filter
characteristics.
A
second screen provides information about the currently selected
Program. It doesn’t allow you to edit anything, but it’s a useful
aide-mémoire.
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