Korg OASYS - two years later - New instruments, updates
Author: Vedran Dakic
Date: 12 Nov 2006

New instruments, updates

Being a synth-monster that can receive new "food" via software updates, the OASYS community is always eagerly waiting for all of the new updates to come out of Korg's labs. That can easily be done via what Korg calls EXs (EXpansion Samples), EXf (EXpansion Effects) and EXi (EXpansion Instruments). Let's scratch the OASYS surface for awhile and check out what are these things all about. So, from the ground up, going from the "simplest" concept.
When you take a look at the EXf concept, I believe it's rather easy to understand - you upload new effect algorithms via software (CD). So, nothing strange there, right? That was easy. Then, let's take it a step up with EXs concept. With EXs, you get a collection of samples and you can play around with them in the OASYS. That's what EXs1 and EXs2 are all about, and, the Preset PCM bundle. Just to give you some numbers, Preset PCM has 314MB (1505 multisamples, 1388 drum samples), EXs1 has 313 MB (ROM Expansion, 229 multisamples, 1483 drum samples), and EXs2 has 503MB (Concert Grand Piano, 5 stereo multisamples). So, these are your basic sounds that OASYS has.
When talking about EXi's, we have to look back a little bit. The first step towards the OASYS users dreamt of for years was when OS 1.1 came to the market. This was a first OS upgrade that also included the very first additional instrument - the STR-1 Plucked String instrument, that gave a fair warning of what's to come next. This was the first additional "Instrument" for the OASYS, and - to tell you the truth - it deserves the name "Instrument". This physical model allows you to "excite" the string with sixteen (16) different pluck-scrape-strike-noise types. You could also use your PCM waveforms as an exciter - and that makes really strange kind of sounds, trust me. With this, you could finally get your string-based instruments (especially guitars) to actually sound like them which is - I gotta admit - a kind of weird. It's just something you get used to - the fact that you can forget about guitars and sounds like that to be of any use coming out from the keyboard. And, if you have some imagination and know how to use Vector Synthesis, that opens yet another range of possibilities for you. And, not to forget - you didn't have to pay for it, because it was free.
So, now you know how it looks from the concept point of view, but let's go a bit deeper in the OASYS architecture and OS and its interaction with the OASYS software. Initially, with OS 1.0 you could make a choice - you could either have EXs1 or EXs2 loaded after booting your OASYS. In other words, within the limitations of the initial OS (v1.0), you couldn't use the whole (1GB is a standard with OASYS, easily upgradeable to 2GB) 2GB which caused a rather irritating situation where you couldn't have both EXs1 and EXs2 library loaded with keyboard after the boot procedure (because the OS couldn't address more then 1GB of RAM).With OS 1.1, you could finally upgrade OASYS's RAM to 2GB and be able to use it. By now you know all of the basics so it's much easier to understand why that happened.
With OS 1.2(.x), the OASYS owners got even more. Beside the usual things - OS upgrade, bugfixes, minor or major improvements to this and that - you also got another two synth models in demo mode (Polysix EX and MS20EX), both of which you can use if you pay $249 for the license key. Now these two synths are really classics and - to tell you the truth - sound absolutely fabulous. As for myself, I'm not much of a MS20-sound-type, but I dig it anyhow. As for Polysix, now that's an entirely different story. You can think of PolysixEX as an virtual analog synth (classic, if I may add), but looking at it from the OASYS architecture point of view, it's so much more. I mean, mixing HD-1 sounds with Polysix sounds takes you to another dimension. And having in mind that, in a way, you have a Wavestation inside the OASYS (Wave Sequencing, Vector Synthesis, Wave Sequences as such, etc), you can get into that good ol' Genesis thing rightaway :-)
This leaves us with the famous question - what's to come next? Is it an EXi, EXs? Maybe some EXf's? Can't really tell you, but I would absolutely love to see a Trinity and Z1 inside the OASYS, as well as many other things (granular, physical, FM synth etc.). There are also some people that are building their own sample libraries all by themselves - but people from Korg hinted that they're talking with them about OASYS integration (as an EXs). This is really cool.