Slim Phatty or Radias

[existenz]

Hi to everyone, i have i little dilemma: i have a Voyager with cp/vx/mf101/2/3/4/5/7 and i had received recently a korg Radias as form of payment for a pending credit...i was skeptical by this synth 'cos is a virtual analog , but discovering the capabilities of his arpeggiator, double 16 step sequencers, drum machine, is became a funny swiss army knife in my rig in order to trigger the voyager with drums and arp/seq....
To be honest my first intention was to give the radias to a shop in change of a Slim Phatty to make my voyager a duophonic Moog system.....
What is the better choiche? keeping the radias or take the slim???? i can't decide...
maybe i have to keep the radias and buy the slim patthy or maybe two slim phatty....this seems to be the best choice every time those kind of problems staying in my mind!
all the best and sorry for my english
Nico

[bigcatrik]

The next time you make music put the Radias in the closet and see if you miss it. If you do, then don't get rid of it.

Rik

[EMwhite]

I've got the Radias Rack and find it very useful. As you mentioned, the step sequencer and arp are handy, and you didn't mention the 16 band vocoder (which to me is just a novelty) but as a synth, there's alot in there including some rudimentary PCM, Kaoss derived digital effects, technology from the Oasis, and of course the Virtual Analog section.

There's an envelope follower, formant sampling etc etc. It's alot of synth for the money. One thing it can do (aside from what I mentioned above) that no product from Moog can do currently is rich pad/string sounds and complex layered modulation. You'll need a poly for that and with the options being either a DSI Prophet or nothing (if hands on controls are important to you), this is a decent choice. Originally, I was interested in a Virus or a Nord but after doing the research I found that I just couldn't justify partying with $2k-3k. If I played professionally and could only bring one or two boards with me, I might be singing another tune.

I highly recommend the rack and then get yourself a nice Novation keyboard with aftertouch to drive it.

Oh, and about the Phatty, well I have a Tribute and wouldn't trade it for the world, it's got a 'pop' and power that surpasses even my Voyager Old School on some sounds but to me it's primarily a lead and bass machine. I can certainly create mayhem with modulation and never run out of interesting ways to use it, but the Radias is respectable for the other 1/2 of the spectrum.

Personally, I do like true analog strings and rely on my Oberheim Matrix 6 family for that. Seeing as the A6 is no longer available, analog today is either a desktop box with a single voice, or something which is not very accessible (like the Tetra). Sounds great / less filling but getting into all of those menus sort of takes alot away from the creativity aspect. To be fair, there are hundreds of options and controls behind the Radias interface and you'd fill a Keith Emerson size modular full of buttons and knobs to control it all but all of the essentials are well organized ain small package.

And if you haven't done so, spend some time with the Radias editor and compile a good bank of 256 actual useful patches (there are several sets on Korg's site), you'll realize that Korg made a BIG marketing mistake in trying to appeal to the a certain trance based demographic and forgetting the rest of the world.

There is no shortage of folks that will argue with this perspective but it's just my opinion. Hope it helps whether or go for the Radias or another option.

[existenz]

Thank you both and to you Emwhite for your rich answer, well you have convinced me...there is no machine i can have in change for the radias that have all this useful features at this price...i have to spend some time discovering others functions like vocoder,envelope follower, and i find in the virtual patches something familiar with modulation busses of Voyager. It's a good machine for his price, and i'll keep it certainly 'cos , as you told me,it's very good with pads and strings, a category that i miss in my rig (mac plug in aside)...and for his price the slim phatty could be a parallel choice.
I have the keyboard version but i'm using it as a rack attached with my moogerfooger's, cp/vx's rack case.
Well thank you again for your good tips!
All the best
nicola