Trnsfrmr

So I caved and picked up a radias. Here are my first impressions of it compared to my Ti Polar.

I wish I bought the keyboard version.

This baby sounds very bright to my ears. Is this because all I’ve played in the last 2 years is the Polar? I keep reaching for the hi eq knob and cranking it all the way to the left.

Nice variety of effects but not as cool as the triton’s or the m3′s

The interface is much more intuitive than the Virus’ even though they seem very similar superficially

I don’t get the ring of lights around the knobs. I always assumed it worked like the encoder rings on the Nord lead 3

Has step and mod sequencers that the Virus lacks. Virus 4 added the arp to matrix feature but you have to fire up Virus Control for that

Vocoder sounds more musical to me then the Polar’s but maybe I need to spend more time with the Virus vocoder. Headband mic is a nice plus. Actually i won’t waste time trying out the Polar’s vocoder. I had it for 2 years and it wasn’t inviting enough for me to use until recently. I’m so satisfied with the vocoder that I might not have bothered getting my rocktron talkbox if I had heard it first.

The exposed rack ears are annoying and make the Radias look like a pos

Presets suck so i had no problem wiping out the first few banks. I don’t get this. Korg has some of the best programmers in the world so why the sucky presets? MS2000 patches I downloaded didn’t sound like I remembered them. The artist banks sucked as well to me

I love being able to switch between timbres so quickly and edit them in the context of the Combi as a whole. Again Virus’ multi implementation isn’t as inviting albeit more flexible

Either I’m old and need glasses or the UI on the Radias editor software sucks biiig time. Virus control wins here

Filters sound brittle to my ears. Virus just sounds so smooth

Different enough from the Virus. I was able to recognize the Radias’ sound on an album after the first day of playing with it. Something I have yet to do on a Virus.Other people claim the Virus sticks out like a sore thumb but I just never notice it.