Are modern synths any good?

[chrisfp99]

OK so help me out here.

I have owned a Korg N364 for about 18 years. Still gigging regularly with it.

Since then, I've acquired (and sold, except for the FA-06 which I've just bought) the following keyboards:

Yamaha MO6
Korg M50
Kurzweil PC3LE6
Korg Kronos (original)
Roland FA-06

Now it may be that I'm so set in my ways (I'm 57) that I just can't get on with newer technology. But I didn't get on with any of these keyboards. With some I found it tricky to access sounds live (WHY ON EARTH DID KORG DISCARD THE 10'S HOLD FEATURE - sorry for shouting), and with others I just didn't like the sounds. I didn't even rate the Kronos pianos!

I've currently got the FA-06, and took it to a band rehearsal last night. To me nothing sounded as good as my N364 (8 MB ROM). There's a Rock Piano combo that surpasses any piano patch I've had on any subsequent keyboard. Same with organs (and of course there's aftertouch for leslie simulation - could never get it to work on the Kronos, and it's not in the FA-06 at all). Ditto strings. Don't like the FA EPs. Brass is much better on FA. Not too concerned about synth sounds.

I assumed it was just me, but the rest of the band agreed. Are they just so used to my N364 (we've been together for about 17 years, and doing just fine) that none of us can hear the increased quality of modern keyboards? The sad closing remark from the guitarist (lovely guy) was "Well, it LOOKS good".

What's going on here? Am I just mad?

[cello]

Interesting post!

I am tempted to say that yes, you and your band are so used to the Korg sound that the FA because it sound different, doesn't sound right.

However, that doesn't mean that modern boards like the FA are poorer in comparison. I far prefer the modern keyboards to the old ones (I go back to 80s analogue days as well as 90s digital boards) - the quality of the sounds, the accessibility to edit, the on board effects, etc, is amazing.

I suspect that if you noodled with EQ and some of the FA sound parameters, you would get back into the 'cool' zone :)

And your band guy is right - the FA does look good and nothing wrong with that! ;)

[specialplant]

I didn't even rate the Kronos pianos!

I've currently got the FA-06, and took it to a band rehearsal last night. To me nothing sounded as good as my N364 (8 MB ROM). There's a Rock Piano combo that surpasses any piano patch I've had on any subsequent keyboard. [...]
What's going on here? Am I just mad?

I think I had a similar (not the same) experience about the piano sounds in 2010 when I bought a Roland Juno Stage after owning a Roland XP 80 for 12 years. The XP 80's main piano was a very direct sounding piano that what is usually described as "cutting through the mix". All the Juno Stage pianos sounded much more blurry and indirect. But they sound much more like a real piano, whereas the XP 80 "piano" was in fact a very short-looped fortissimo sample of a piano that was only artificially made mellow (by filters) when playing more softly. So there is often a tradeoff between realism of a sound an usability in a band (cutting through the mix). This may be part of the problem you are experiencing. And, of course, perception is so extremely subjective that you really like what you're used to. If you have the opportunity, put the FA-06 (or a Kronos) and the old Korg next to a real piano and play them to compare which one is closer to the original.

[Synthtron]

Modern Synths any good? I would say they are great! OK wait, that sounded like a cheesy line from a Kellogg's commercial.

Compared to older synths I guess it is subjective issue. Older synths have older tech which is not a bad thing by any means but they usually lack a large on board Sound Library, less RAM, less memory locations, no USB, etc.

A Lot of older synths were built very well with more metal than you see on synths today. Also there are so many inexpensive synths for under $1000.00 than back in the day. Now is a great time to be into synths because we have analog, digital synths, and hybrids on the market. Even many digital synths have more control than the synths in the late 80's did.

About the sound of an older synth compared to the new ones, that is why I do not sell many of my pieces unless I really did not incorparate their sound into my performances/recordings. I get acoustumed to the sound of a synth and sometimes it is not possible to recreate the sound and its characteritcs from one synth to another. Yeah, you can emulate it but sometimes emulations lose what made the original sound special in the first place.
I believe in using the old and the new together.

[chrisfp99]

Thanks for some really thoughtful replies.

I'm going to go with the FA-06 because I've run out of combis on the N364 (200 versus 512 studio sets on the FA). And there are loads of things I love about the FA. For instance the octave up/down buttons and particularly the split button. So easy to create two-sound splits. And it's brilliant that each tone in a studio set retains its own effects. I have a real hang up about effects and even the Kronos confused me because whilst you can copy each program's insert effects to a combi, each sound in a split comes with its own total and master effects, and I never quite knew how to handle those.

Yes I can add extra effects in a studio set but for starters it's great just to have exactly the same sounds in a split as in the source tones. Don't know of any other keyboard that does this.

Will never get rid of the N364 and I'm sure it will always be my favourite keyboard but it's time to move forwards now.