Korg Nautilus 88-Note Workstation
Its strengths can be summarized in:
Nine Sound Engines: including the enhanced SGX-2 piano sound generator, the EP-1 electric piano sound generator, the CX-3 engine for tonewheel organs, the MOD-7 VPM/FM synthesis, the PolysixEX and MS-20EX for analogue modelling, and the STR-1 for physical modelling. No Karma engine this time around.
Three Versions: 88-key model with piano touch, 73-key model with light touch and 61-key model available. The keyboard on the 88-key model uses a four-stage real weighted hammer action made in Japan, called the RH-3.
Touchscreen: What Korg calls the ‘Color TouchView Display’ is sizeable (eight inches/800×480 pixel). It’s role is central to controlling and visualising routing etc. You can even use it to drag modules around. That said, some of the buttons are small and fiddly.
FX Engines: A formidable 16 internal effects — 12 insert effects, two master effects and two ‘Total’ effects. A separate three-band EQ is provided for every timbre, for every sequencer track.
Set List Mode: Great for performance. 16 coloured buttons take you to any preset, Combi or Sequence. The Set List mode adds a nine-band graphic EQ to allow you to tweak the tone to the venue.
Sampler: Nautilus can quickly sample an external audio source or resample a Nautilus performance. It can open most common sample format files. The Nautilus’ big SSD capacity comes into its own when sampling.
Sequencer/Recorder: Nautilus flexes its workstation credentials with a sequencer/recording section that offers both 16 MIDI tracks plus 16 audio tracks.
Smooth Sound Transitions: Just about any sound switch you do on the Nautilus results in a smooth transition between sounds. Classy.
Arp & Drum Track Functions: Four scenes of arpeggio patterns and drum track sets for each Program and Combi preset sound.