|
GOOD STUFF: I bought one sight unseen after trying out an X5 that was in stock in the shop. I had noticed that the X5 was full of stuff that I would use, at a price that I could reasonably afford to pay; and not overburdened with a lot of stuff that I would never use. The X5DR was only just out, and it had all that the X5 had and more (except a keyboard, which I didn't need). An immediate advantage was 64 polyphony (one only has to play a few chords in a combi like "12 Stereo" (in preset-b) with the sustaining pedal down to realise that polyphony can be eaten up fast. I use this combi all the time. Another stand-out is Whirly. Another is Mr. Tone. There are many many other really good sounds that are too numerous to mention.
I quite like the demo "Around the World", by Stephen Kay. Quite amusing.
STINKERS: Acoustic Piano. 2 out of 10. I like the way it graduates between loud and soft playing - but the basic sample itself is no damn good (I suspect derived from the M1). Korg, please throw this one away and burn it. I ended up getting another Roland U-110 to do the piano chores. Orchestral Strings are another weak point (Again, I use a U-110 for these). Tremolo Strings in the GM section is a joke.
Sending single programs and combis as sys-ex messages is there (and useable) - but cumbersome. This should have been in the Global section.
Power supply. 0 out of 10. I'll never again buy anything using a line-lump power supply. The one supplied with mine crapped out within a month, and couldn't be fixed or replaced. (I eventually found a wall-wart that was okay for it.) I've had nothing but trouble with line-lumps. I'm not greatly keen on wall-warts either.
Why oh why can presets a and b not exist side-by-side together? This would approximately quadruple the usefulness of an already useful module.
Pitch bend. This is only assignable at Program level. Yes, this IS a stinker. I mean, have YOU ever heard of a trombone or electric bass player that confined themselves to two-semitone glissandos? You might say, why not set it at Program level to something else? Reason: what happens when you play a combination with that program in it, and it's set to 5 semitones and the rest are at 2 (or whatever)..... Pitch bend should have been assignable at combination level as well. (Though, to be fair, when it's in Multi mode, you can assign different pitch bends by sys-ex to each part, which override the program settings.)
I'm not a great fan of Korg's habit of transposing sounds (not just bass sounds) down an octave. Possibly that's because I'm a pianist at heart, and I use an 88-note master keyboard. Most of the sounds in bank A are like this, and so were a lot of the combinations, necessitating a lot of laborious transposition.
OVERALL: A good and very useful piece of gear that didn't break the bank. It has it's fair share of warts and clunkers, like most gear; but it's also got more than it's share of good stuff. I've been using mine for 7 years now, and will carry on doing so until it dies.
|
listings
