Korg launches Nautilus Music Workstation keyboards and synths
3 min read
KORG have unveiled their latest music workstation synth, the Nautilus, featuring nine synth engines and a full-colour 7-inch touchscreen screen.
Coming in three configurations, the 61 and 73-key Nautilus offers synth action, while the 88-key version offers a more piano-like hammer action.
Expected to start shipping early next year, Nautilus will cost £1949 for the 61-note keyboard, £2199 for the 73-note version, and £2549 for the 88-note version.
Nautilus harnesses nine synthesizer/sound engines into a single, integrated musical instrument.
Dynamic voice allocation and new technologies allow all sound engines to smoothly share a stable, enhanced hardware platform.
SEE ALSO: How to speed up your music production PC
It features a 16-track MIDI + 16-track audio sequencer and recorder to build entire songs and projects.
The 16-track audio recorder simultaneously captures up to four tracks of 16-bit/24-bit uncompressed data at a sampling rate of 48 kHz.
There are also 16 internal effects, with 12 inserts, 2 master effects, and 2 effects applied to all tracks at the final stage of mixing.
Synthesis Types
- SGX-2: Premium Piano (Acoustic Piano)
- EP-1: MDS Electric Piano (Electric Piano)
- HD-1: High Definition Synthesizer (PCM)
- AL-1: Analog Synthesizer (Analog Modeling)
- CX-3: Tonewheel Organ (Tonewheel Organ Modeling)
- STR-1: Plucked String (Physical Modeling)
- MOD-7: Waveshaping VPM Synthesizer (VPM Synthesis)
- MS-20EX: Component Modeling Technology (Analog Modeling)
- PolysixEX: Component Modeling Technology (CMT Analog Modeling)
Nautilus also offers 14 “build-in expansion PCM libraries” ranging from a variety of pianos to historical keyboards and synths, as well as drums, SFX, and hits.
The 7-inch touchscreen (though curiously listed as 8-inch in some marketing material) has a resolution of 800x480p.
In addition to simply selecting a sound or choosing a parameter with the touch of a finger, the enhanced Touch-Drag ability allows more detailed control of parameter values.
Interactive instruments and panel graphics provide the ability to do everything from adjusting the lid of a grand piano to connecting patch cable on a semi-modular synthesizer model.
Alongside the touchscreen where you can select main settings and sounds, there are six RT (real-time) knobs at the top left of the panel. These give you direct control over changes to the PROG and COMBI sounds.
A variety of functions are assigned to each knob that lets you enjoy making changes to sounds, such as the filter cutoff and effect depth, the gate time, tempo and swing of the arpeggiator or drum track, the type of snare drum and more.
Sampling is also possible, and the Nautilus is capable of sampling it’s own performances. AIFF, WAV, SoundFont 2.0, and AKAI S1000/3000 format samples can be loaded into memory via USB memory.
Additionally, you can use a USB Ethernet adapter to exchange large amounts of sample data with your computer at high speed. Instruments or samples that you’ve previously created on your PC can be used to construct a music production setup based on just the Nautilus itself.
The Nautilus comes with a diverse variety of music software from Izotope including “Ozone Elements” which lets you not only create songs but also master them using AI, “Skoove” which will help you improve your keyboard playing skills, “Reason Lite” DAW software, as well as software synths from KORG and other brands.
