| Dr. Kolon from Salt Lake City, UT, USA |
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| Subject: | Great board, but some gripes... |
| Quality:
| The quality is overall good. The buttons and knobs feel good, but as some of the buttons are used in performance, I would worry that they would wear out. They are hard buttons, and the are used for real time control. Also, the strip of plastic under the keybed is very flexy. If this thing got knocked good, chunks would be taken out of it. The build quality is good though, and the weight is awesome. |
| Features:
| Features are great; again for the price. Since this is the M3s little brother, this is what it is missing.
- No expansion of raw sounds. The M3 can add to its basic samples with Korg expansions (free.) and you can also add user samples in many formats. This one is the killer for me.
- M3 has twice the real time controls, plus a Kaoss pad.
- No after-touch on the M50.
- Not nearly enough memory locations on the M50. When you add the new EP programs from Korg, there are no user locations left. This was a poor place to skimp.
- No audio inputs, so no vocoding.
- Crappy pseudo wall-wart power supply on the M50. It falls out easily.
- Only 4 chord trigger buttons that aren't touch sensitive on the M50 compared to 8 large touch sensitive ones on M3.
There are more, but those are the main reasons that I am upgrading after buying the M50. The M3 is a lot more expensive though, so if you won't use the additional features, the M50 is an awesome board. |
| Ease of Use:
| Very easy to use, especially with the touchscreen. Remarkably, the manual is pretty good, and even goes step by step into some of the more popular functions. There are only 4 real time controller knobs though, so when using live you have to do extra button presses to access another bank of controllers. |
| Sound:
| Sound is very good for most of the sounds. The sound design on the EPs was my main gripe when I got it, but Korg's website has some much better designed programs that you can put on there, and they sound very good. There are some beautiful brass and string sounds, and the acoustic bass sounds very authentic when played with the mod wheel.
Piano is my only gripe. It just doesn't sound as lush and realistic as it should, and with no way to put a sampled piano in or upgrade the raw samples, the M50 is stuck with this one. |
| Action:
| Action is good. It is very light. Sometimes synth action boards will have a stiffer action that makes piano playing feel a little more natural, but this one doesn't. It is very fast though. If you play concert piano or something, you should get the 88key. The action on that one is phenomenal. I mean it, I played that one in store and the action is superb. |
| Value:
| This thing really is a great value. If you don't need the features of an M3, you can't beat this guy on price and features. Unless you only need pianos, this thing is far better than a MO6 or any of the other budget workstations. I'm probably going to trade up to an M3, but that is a 700 difference in price. If you want and will use the features though, its worth it. Definitely buy the M50 though if you don't need sampling. All of the other features aren't worth the increased price. |
| Do you own this product?:
| Yes, I've had it for about a month. |
| Date submitted:
| 1-2-09 |
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| Thomas Sneddon from Toms River,N.J. (U.S.A.) |
| greendeathstudio@aol.com |
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| Subject: | The "Oasys" of budget workstations...mmmmM50!!!!! |
| Quality:
| For a keyboard only weighing in at 15 lbs,I'd say it's quite sturdy!
Korg has always been consistently dependable..enough said. |
| Features:
| Korg's main focus was sound quality & functionality & it could not get any better than this for the mnoey.
The guitar,drums,strings,synth leads & pads are phenominal...more so than my Triton Extreme!!Even the sequencer & the effects surpass my Triton in quality-amazing!
I could not possibly expect anythingt more out of this synth for the price! |
| Ease of Use:
| I've own Korg products for 21 years,so I know most of the keyboard already,after only having it for one day...but even still,since it's more advanced in certain aspects than my Triton,there is a bit of a learning curve.
For someone who is new to workstations,or is accustomed to a different brand of sequencer,it's going to be a bit overwhelming...but it should'nt take anyone too long to master it. |
| Sound:
| The pianos are not equal to my Triton-particularly the grand pianos,but for a budget workstation..they're decent & usable.
As for most of the other sounds...WOAH..they are incredible!
The electric guitars & drums are far superior to my Triton-seriously!! |
| Action:
| Just what you would expect for a 15 lb keyboard...very light action,but they are spring loaded,so they the action is decent,but not great. |
| Value:
| This is hands down,the best value & best purchase I have ever made....Korg has really out-done themselves this time...nothing and I meaning nothing else out here can even come close to this workstation for the price....YOU MUST TRY ONE OUT FOR YOURSELF!! |
| Do you own this product?:
| YES!! |
| Date submitted:
| 12/19/08 |