KORG Collection

Collection is very good and you will get lot of good sounding synths for your daily work.

There is just problem with it's price is starting to approach Omnisphere level and only hard core KORG lover will choose it over Omnisphere. You need to wait for discount before buying and KORG is not doing 50% discounts too often, 30% are more common.

In upcoming Collection version 4 there will be 3 more digital synths added and price will most likely increase, making it even more difficult for KORG to sell. If collection would cost the same as Omni sphere I would go for Omni sphere. It's 15k sounds are hard to beat.

In collection you will get most famous KORG synths : MS 20, mini KORG, Poly six, M1 and Triton and ARP Odyssey. You will get other synths as well (mono/poly, prophecy, wave station) but these are the main and best ones. You will also get about 23 effects ported from Triton to separate VST and second effect unit made from MS 20.

Which synths you actually need? For today music where we need unique aggressive sounds mini KORG and MS 20 will do. Both are harsh sounding and very unique. mini KORG does not get much love on YouTube showing its hard side, people just playing soft tunes on it, but MS 20 is demonstrated more appropriate. mini KORG is very good for live playing, its pretty harsh and expressive for leads and solos. On other way You can put MS 20 on MIDI grid with mouse and it will do well there, no need to live play it. Don't buy Prophecy VST if you plan to MIDI grid it.

For 70s and very early 80s music ARP Odyssey is good. I am really impressed by it and playing with it on iPad while I rest. I haven't used it on the track it doesn't fit my style.

Poly six is very loved for its sound and used often. Sound is not unique like MS 20 and mini KORG - you can do similar sounds in most soft synths but still it sounds very good and you will actually use it because it's very fast to make sound with Poly six.

On other way mono/poly can be easily replaced by something else (Diva) and making sounds on it is not that fast like on Poly six. I do not use it in real work.

M1 is legend. It's must buy for any genre. Very strong sounding.

Wave station sounds good, it is designed for moving pads and sound scapes but it's GUI is very difficult to work with. If you like it buy it on iPad, it's much easier to use there. I do not use it in real work, GUI is too big pain to make something fast. I use Hyperion and Abyss for these kind of sounds. Both are fast to work with and have huge preset library.

Prophecy is synth for live playing. Original version got actually used in 90s by several famous bands. It has KORG VPM and lot of other stuff looking good only on paper. It's very difficult to design sound on it, it has lot of knobs and knobs do not change sound much. It's not very flexible synth, it can do certain limited style of sounds. I don't like it, but you can find lot of YouTube demos and check yourself.

Then we have two times Triton. They generated lot of excitement, especially extreme version with more sounds. Extreme version sounds softer then Studio version. I see use of extreme version for beat makers because it have huge library of mostly soft sound fitting into genre well. For use in more active music styles get Studio version or more punching M1.
Triton is more like sound library then synth with own character like rest of collection. It's quite similar to today KORG KRONOS. Designing sounds on Triton is way slower then on M1, do not expect to make a lot of own sounds. UI is similar to M1, but unlike original there is no sampler. Sampler would be useful, we can play sounds through its vintage sound engine because Triton have a lot of DSP effects. Playing audio through Triton is not supposed either, you have about 23 effects in separate MDE VST and most interesting effects from Triton are not there.