Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Korg SV-1 Soundpack 2 is available

Just noticed on the Korg main page http://www.korg.com/ that they have a link to their soundpack 2 along with this description.



I'm at work so it won't be until tomorrow until I get a chance to check it out, I did like a couple of the pianos in soundpack 1 so I'm hoping there are some additional ones that I might use. By the way is Korg's site the slowest site on the internet? Man it takes forever to load for me.

Wow, some nice additions there - good job Korg.

Cheers,
James
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I went to the demos page, but I can't determine if all of the sounds there are from the new pack. In any case, I want to like this instrument, but can't yet. I love the knobs and the general feel, but to me the acoustic pianos have a big problem, still: the decay is too brief in the treble and my impression is that in recording the samples, the mics on the upper midrange and above were placed further away than the mics for the bass--there's a lot more room\reverb in the upper areas. Not a subtle difference.

And of course there is no ADSR control, even with the software editor. If this was 1970, that might be understandable, but not having an elementary envelope control these days just makes me wonder about the seriousness of Korg's intentions. If Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Kawai and everyone else lets the user control the envelope, why leave it out when offering the user all of the great knobs? It's like GM putting out a car with no reverse gear.

I assume that since this is only 368 KB it only contains presets, and not new basic samples, so it's not really a "sound pack" is it? And you can only get splits via factory presets? Talk about inflexible.


I don't really get the SV1 UI. Did they really think they needed to dumb it down to the point where even the most clueless player would feel like they'd mastered it after 5 minutes? I'm all for intuitive interfaces, and Korg isn't the only company guilty of this, but pandering to the lowest common denominator in what is marketed as a professional product is really weird.

Can't they hide the "scary stuff" in a menu or something? Maybe lock it with parental controls?

While I know you don't like the instrument some others get by with it just fine, I didn't see at the time but there is also a OS update needed to use the new soundpack, the update is 3.4 megs in size.

Sorry Zinfan, not trying to step on anyone's toes, and I don't hate it. But I want "Einstein" UIs that are "made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler". Even via the PC editor there are only a few more things you can tweak, and having to fire up a PC to get at everything is a pet peeve of mine as device driver support for new OSes can severely limit an instrument in the future.


Still nowhere near large enough to include new samples.

Fair enough dewster and I am aware there aren't new samples however Korg can change things that even the SV-1 editor cannot adjust so it allows for adding things like the splits and such not. I'm in the process of downloading the updates into my SV-1 and am hoping one of the new "patches" will work for me, I use two tweaked pianos from sound pack 1 right now so I'm eager to see what might have been changed/improved. Of course I'm still a raw beginner so I can't come close to pushing the envelope on any piano digital or acoustic and I hope someone with more skill and a SV-1 can let us know what they think.

I see your point about the interface but for me the 44 spots to load various instruments meets my meager requirements.

Got a few minutes to test out the new AP's and I'm liking what I'm hearing, I seem to be able to control them better with Piano 2B being my favorite so far. No chance to try out the various clav's/EP's/organs but I liked the small strings patch. I forgot to try out the keyboard "split" (not really a split as they just turn off one effect on one side of the keyboard and the other effect on the other side) as I noted too late that they were loaded into the favorites menu of soundpack 2 and I ran out of time before work.

Thanks for the update.

So are these new sounds (as in new samples), or just tweaks to the existing presets? If the latter, does this mean that the SV-1 is able to load new wave data, like the Nords?

Cheers,
James
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Tweaks to the presets, no new samples. I'm not sure about your question on wave data, sorry. I don't know how much more Korg themselves can do over the editor as far as tweaking goes, you should be able to recreate these sounds on your own (other than the split function) with enough time and skill.

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Thanks for the update Dave! I'll check out that link, I've lurked into the Keyboard corner in the past and lots of good info there as well.

dewster, I get the impression that you are approaching these instruments more from an engineering perspective than a musical one - would this be a fair assumption?

Dave, sounds like the update really improved a lot of things if you're seriously considering returning to the SV-1 - kudos to Korg for listening to their users.

Cheers,
James
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Huh? I'm just trying to clarify the issue. Look, it's one thing to release newly tweaked factory presets, it's quite another to make an instrument where you can pick and choose among dozens of free individual instrument sample sets and download them into your DP.

Korg has done the former, and I'm happy that SV-1 owners have been presented with this option, even though the process may cause some to go thorough the churn of buying, selling, and rebuying the SV-1.

But that's nowhere near the power and value of latter, which only Nord does AFAIK.

Korg calling this a "Sound Pack" is misleading. For all I know it may be fantastic, but it's really just a "Preset Pack".

Sorry, I was referring to your comments regarding the SV-1's 'dumbed-down' UI, not the software update/sound pack.

As I said, I get the impression that you, as an engineer, prefer lots of buttons, and a big LCD with menus to navigate through. Whereas perhaps someone from a more musical background might actually prefer the 'direct-access' approach employed by the SV-1. Wouldn't you agree?

I'm not asking you to prove your credentials as a concert pianist, just wondering if you consider yourself to be more of an engineer than a musician. When you're sat at an instrument do your fingers spend more time pressing buttons or playing keys?

Cheers,
James
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I'm coming at DPs from more of a FM and analog modeling synth background, where the ability to adjust everything in there via the front panel is a given. So I prefer simple, intuitive interfaces that somehow allow you access to all parameters in the DP, and it drives me a little crazy when they force you to hook up your keyboard to a PC, load a driver, and run some software before you can access the third or fourth parameter of a particular effect.

Dedicated controls are essential for the most used stuff. For the rest, grids work well, with buttons down one side for row selection and knobs at the bottom, like the Waldorf Micro-Q and Dave Smith Evolver synths, or the DigiTech RP1000 guitar multi-effects pedal.

I like the SV-1 interface, but in their zeal to simplify it they went a bit too far IMO.