deenigewouter wrote:I was torn between the Vox continental and the Electro. Both feel like actual instruments and the Vox even has a modeled synthesizers + pitch bend. What did it for me in the end was the slight awkwardness of the Vox's interface. How do you know what key/layer number is the poly synth?
Yeah, just like the Electro models before the E5, you need to come up with a strategy for identifying/locating your sounds when all you have are 2-digit LED displays for reference. You can use a cheat sheet, and/or you can use a smartphone for patch selection. The image below shows my cheat sheet which tells me which sounds the shortcut button combinations will take me to (see the printed strip I taped under the patch select buttons on the lower keyboard in the image), but I would still need something else if I were looking to call up something other than those 27 sounds and didn't want to do it just by ear.
deenigewouter wrote:You can layer sounds but not split, but you can split the Organ?
The ablity to split sounds was added in the 2.0 system update. The split function is still pretty limited though, e.g. you can't independently shift the octave of the split sound. So if you put strings on the left and piano on the right, that's fine if you want cellos, but not if you want violins.
I think they added the feature mostly to support left hand bass. And in fact, among the 50-ish new sounds added with the 2.0 update, there were about ten bass sounds to take advantage of that feature.
deenigewouter wrote:If only the Vox and Nord could have a baby combining the the best of both.
Well, that's the advantage of using the Vox as a lower manual for the Nord! It still yields a rig that is pretty light and compact, gives you the best of both, plus 2-manual organ when you want it.
The Electro gives you (at least IMO) better sounding organ, better sounding piano, access to the extensive Nord sample library and the ability to load your own samples, the informative OLED display, more flexible split/layer combinations, and more locations into which you can save your own sounds (416 vs. 64); while I'd say Vox is stronger sounding for EPs, orchestral instruments (e.g. strings and brass), and virtual analog synth, and has I think a better action.
deenigewouter wrote:Do you use the key/layer sounds at all? There are interesting ones but not very mailable and preconfigured by Korg.
The more malleable than you might think. When playing those sounds, besides all the direct knobs for effects, you can use the 9 touchstrips to edit attack, decay, release, cutoff, resonance, vibrato depth/speed, and two additional parameters which vary depending on the exact sound selected (for example, if it's a lead synth sound, one of these will be portamento). All these settings can be saved into your user presets (scenes).
