Review: Korg M50
Korg lovers: it’s never been more affordable to dive into OASYS.
By Brad Watts
12 February 2009
Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing the Korg M3 – the company’s first product to utilise the downward trickle of technology from the immensely powerful OASYS mega-workstation. In the short time I had the M3 in my possession I became quite fond of its contemporary white-on-white styling, the innovative module-built-into-the keyboard design, and, most importantly, the sounds that emanated from the unit. The M3 is one desirable synth and workstation. If I were in the market it’d be high up on my contenders list. Like many, however, especially given the current global fiscal shenanigans (GFS), I’m not about to shell out four and a half grand on a synth.
So further downstream in the Korg technology waterway springs yet another tributary. Using the same smarts as found in both the OASYS and M3 is the Korg M50. At around half the price of an M3, the M50 looks (and sounds) like the cost effective pathway to its bigger brothers’ sounds. Of course, there have been sacrifices in the feature list, but if you’re hankering for some modern Korg tonality, the M50 could well be the answer to your prayers.
TICKLED
For the purposes of this review, I’ve had the 61-note version of the M50. This model offers a semi-weighted synth action keyboard with a nice feel to it. The action is light yet responsive – a benefit of Korg’s own keyboard design rather than outsourcing keyboards from Yamaha. While we’re on the subject of ivories, the M50 is also available in an 88-note version with the same piano weight RH3-grade keyboard as found on the M3-88. Apparently there’s also a synth action 73-note M50 in the works, so it would seem there’s a keyboard design to suit everybody amongst the M50 lineup. It’s reassuring to see Korg hasn’t skimped on the keyboards, but obviously there’s had to be some restraint on the actual synthesis engine. Plus there’s been some judicious pruning of the casing and enclosure of the M50 as compared with the M3.
NEW CLOBBER
The M3 range came dressed in a somewhat unique white polycarbonate style that certainly looked new and different, but like all groovy outfits, this came at a cost. With its charcoal plastic casing, the M50 doesn’t have anywhere near the pizzazz of the M3 – in fact, the unit looks pretty drab, without wanting to sound too harsh. However, gigging musicians will appreciate the weight reduction. The M3 weighs in at 14.1kg and the M50 is a paltry 6.9kg – I know which one I’d prefer to be lugging around. Despite the weight loss however, some of the physical M3 niceties have made their way into the M50, namely the touchscreen interface and operating system. Oh, and the cute backlit modulation joystick, although this is now backlit with yellow rather than white LEDs. Finally, if you’re looking for an M3-style ribbon controller, you won’t find one.
Connections to the M50 include MIDI In and Out (no Thru), a single pair of left and right output jacks, headphone output, three pedal input jacks, a USB port and an SD memory card slot. This card slot can be used for saving any type of M50 data but unfortunately it’s the only method available for upgrading the unit’s operating system. Why this isn’t possible via USB and the supplied editing software eludes me. On the plus side, the editing software also installs as VST, AU, and RTAS plug-ins, which allows the synth to be driven from within your favoured DAW application. Korg is pretty good at these plug-in interfaces, the software accesses every parameter of the synth and allows the saving of entire M50 setups, sounds, sequences and so forth. My only niggle is the size of the plug-in interface – typically small with tiny parameter text.
M CONTROL
The real-life interface of the M50 is relatively sparse, with only four real-time controller encoders providing access to the usual Filter, Resonance and Envelope Generator Intensity and Release amount. However, a quick button press will swap the four knobs to control user-defined parameters. Another button will swap the four knobs to control up to eight external MIDI destinations, or the knobs can be switched to access the arpeggiator parameters of Gate, Velocity, Length and Octave. The only other control knob is a pot dedicated to sequencer tempo.
The real-time controllers are at a premium but there’s no shortage of access to editing parameters via the 320 x 240-pixel monochrome display. As per the Korg status quo, the screen is touch sensitive and acts as the main window into the M50’s brain. Values are changed via either a slider, a pair of increment/decrement buttons, or a dial. Unlike the M3, the M50 touchscreen can’t be bumped into ‘Kaoss Pad mode’ – a mode where parameters can be modulated by running your finger across the screen. Almost needless to say, however, is the fact that the same physical modulations can be executed with the joystick controller.
OFF THE MENU
So what do you get and what’s been left out of the M50? Obviously corners have been cut, so compared to the chunkier M3, various systems are missing. There’s no option to add additional hardware cards to the unit, such as the Radias analogue modelling engine, or the ability to sample… and indeed the ability to import waveforms has been omitted. Also out the door is the KARMA real-time phrase generation engine, which won’t upset too many people. While KARMA is quite an incredible tool, it’s a niche tool – if you’re after this type of riff generation, there’s KARMA software available from Karma Labs. No KARMA doesn’t mean no arpeggiator, in fact, the onboard arpeggiator is quite the beast. It’s polyphonic, and with 1028 patterns already built in, it won’t leave you wanting for much more.
ON THE MENU
That largely covers what you don’t get in the M50. What remains is the backbone sound generation system found in the M3. EDS (or Enhanced Definition Synthesis) is Korg’s most recent take on sample playback synthesis. With 1077 multi-samples (seven of which are stereo), and 1609 drum samples, you have access to exactly the same set of waveforms as an M3 owner. However, there’s one important caveat – polyphony has taken a slight battering, with a reduction from 120 oscillators to a still-respectable 80 voices. Of course this is halved if you use stereo waveforms or layer two waveforms into the one program. Each individual voice can utilise up to two stereo oscillators, four filters, two amp sections, five LFOs, and five envelope generators. Each voice can be fed through four filters, with a choice between high-pass, band-pass, band-reject, and low-pass – two filters per oscillator running side by side, stacked or in series, along with a stupendous 24dB mode. For some added colour and movement, Korg’s Alternate Modulation Source (AMS) system does the trick, with a matrix of around 50 modulation sources. These can also be combined and summed using AMS Mixers, allowing one mod source to multiply another or to modify the shape of a modulation source on the go.
Also included, and it wouldn’t be a workstation without it, is the same sequencer found in the M3. 16 MIDI tracks and up to 210,000 events spread over 128 songs. You’ll also find the same M3 effects, with up to five insert effects per program, two master effects and a final ‘total’ effect. There are around 170 different processors with the ability to modulate multiple processors via dedicated LFOs.
DIAL ‘M’ FOR SOUND
So how’s it sound? Well it sounds like an M3, of course – without all the additional trickery and bleeding-edge physical design factors that bolster the asking price of the M3. It’s long been the opinion of mine and many others that Korg is the last stop for lush pads and intricate modulations, and the M50 certainly won’t disappoint on either of these fronts. I reckon Korg has got its priorities firmly in order with the M50, taking away just the right upper-crust features to keep the M50 a desirable and very usable sound generator, without decimating your credit card balance. And let’s face facts, in times such as these I can envisage Korg selling way more M50s than M3s. Top marks.
RESPONSES