Korg Nu:Tekt NTS-1 as hardware FX unit?

[BillB]

Hi folks.

I have seen and heard some persuasive YouTube links that suggest the NTS-1 would be a competent hardware FX unit, with a Mod > Delay > Reverb chain.

I have not explored, but gather there are decent alternative FX models for free and paid download. Minor gripe is the 3.5mm stereo in/out, but not surprising given its size.

I just wondered if anyone hereabouts had actually used one in anger and what impression you have of it in terms of quality of FX, especially reverb. Seems likely that it would compete with most FX pedals (or older hardware racks) around the £100-200 price range - at a price of around £85-90. Obviously with a free monosynth thrown in!

Any experiences worth sharing?

[N i g e l]

Im very happy with the quality of the effects section of my Prologue.

The Korg NTS-1 is like an escaped developement kit for the digital side of the 'logues and contains the digital oscillator as well as the effects block.

A software developement kit is available for you to write your own osc or FX.
Ive not done that yet but other people have and there are various custom FX to download from the web, some free some paid as you said.

A uTube of the Prologue effects in a Prologue..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbsfNF1Qzcs

[Arpangel]

I’ve found using these small devices as effects units to be a real pain, I tried to use my Monotron Delay like that, way too annoying.
The mini jacks are fragile, there’s no input metering, on most pedals this is annoying, especially with delay and modulation, which can overload easily.
Plus there’s the size, I have to put Blue Tack on the bottom of mine to stop it running all over the place, all in all, a total faff.
You’re better off with something like the Zoom MS70.

[Ben Asaro]

Using the NTS-1 as a small outboard effects unit is very popular, and something I've been wanting to try! I love the sounds I've heard from it thus far, and the price is definitely good!

Do let us know how it works out!

[resistorman]

I had a Minilogue XD and found the efx to be quite nice. At one of our jams someone showed up with two of the NTS-1s which they used mostly for efx. It sounded good, and was easy to power by battery too. And yeah, 1/8" jacks suck.

[BillB]

Thanks all for your thoughts. It seems the quality of sound (esp chorus and reverb) is pretty high. Don’t know how it would compare to the gold-standard BlueSky. It is, of course, four times cheaper.

Tony, I accept that the build and connection quality isn’t there. I can’t justify £400 for a superbly-built reverb. If the NTS-1 gets me sonically most of the way there, that’s good enough. I have a Zoom MS70. It is a good multi FX, quite fiddly to get around (yes I know there is an editor, must try it sometime). To me, the reverbs sound superficially OK but are a bit grainy, not really smooth.

I don’t like the NTS-1 mini jacks, but it will likely sit in a fixed place in the studio, so it doesn’t matter too much. I’m not rushing to get one, there’s just a quality FX-shaped hole that I think an NTS-1 might fill better than most other options - and at a bargain price.

[Arpangel]

Thanks all for your thoughts. It seems the quality of sound (esp chorus and reverb) is pretty high. Don’t know how it would compare to the gold-standard BlueSky. It is, of course, four times cheaper.

Tony, I accept that the build and connection quality isn’t there. I can’t justify £400 for a superbly-built reverb. If the NTS-1 gets me sonically most of the way there, that’s good enough. I have a Zoom MS70. It is a good multi FX, quite fiddly to get around (yes I know there is an editor, must try it sometime). To me, the reverbs sound superficially OK but are a bit grainy, not really smooth.

I don’t like the NTS-1 mini jacks, but it will likely sit in a fixed place in the studio, so it doesn’t matter too much. I’m not rushing to get one, there’s just a quality FX-shaped hole that I think an NTS-1 might fill better than most other options - and at a bargain price.

You’re right, the MS70 is a total nightmare to program, I’ve almost sold mine because of this, but it’s still a versatile unit packed with sounds, very portable, so I can’t really, but yes, major downside is actually using it!
You can get around this grainy sound you talk about, I was surprised at how good you can get the reverbs to sound, by stacking them, use the best ones, about three of them in one patch, it’ll make them really dense, but, another major downside of this unit is that it sounds small, it’s difficult to describe, it doesn’t have that amazing massive, full fat sound of something like my Big Sky, or an Eventide Space, but it’s a budget unit, and you have to remember that, a lot of people go OTT about how good the MS70 is, it’s not "that good" in reality, ad to that the PITA programming, and it’s not so attractive at all.
If I were you, and reverb is important, on a budget, I’d check out the Digitech Polaris, or the Neunaber Immerse which I own, and it’s superb, you should be able to pick these up used for not much money, but they aren’t that expensive new.
My fave is the Big Sky, it’s expensive, in a way, but it’s not if all you do is plug it in, dial up a "preset" and think "job done" you don’t even think about it anymore, I don’t even know how to program mine, but the presets sound so good I don’t have to.

[BillB]

Thanks Tony. I meant BigSky in my post above - the gold standard. If I had one I would not be thinking about an NTS-1. Thanks for the trick with the MS-70, I'll give that a go.

From what I have heard, the Digitech Polaris sounds good but the reverbs seem to be short-ish - no Blade Runner soundscapes....

Neunaber Immerse gets lots of praise olnine. I haven't really listened to one carefully so I'll try to remedy that.

But if the NTS-1 can cover the same ground at the same sonic quality, it is readily available.... Plus the Chorus, on that Prologue link that Nigel provided, sounds lovely.

[Arpangel]

Bill, check out this guys videos, I found him very helpful deciding about certain things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdVll9g39o4

[BillB]

Thanks Tony, that Immense sounds..... immense.

What a coincidence.... unless they picked the name deliberately.

[N i g e l]

the 4 longer reverbs on the Korg [suitable for Bladerunner soundscapes] are called...

Space
Riser
Submarine
Horror

[Arpangel]

Bill, I didn’t realise how good this is, you’ve probably watched this, but just in case you haven’t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYHqBt6B234

Ignore the used car salesmen and cheesy sounds, but you can still hear how well the effects sound.

[N i g e l]

I like Nick Batts stuff.
He said "Submarine.....sort of the inverse of shimmer".

hmmmmmmm, well........

Whats the impulse response ? Give me one ping for position Vasily !

its 3 part..

[1] after a delay there is a higher pitched reverbed ping
[2] afte more delay theres a lower pitched reverbed ping
[3] theres then the general smudginess of a long reverb

if you have specific questions I can put a short sample up on soundcloud but ...

prologue doesnt have external input [think VCOs filter amp...]

NTS1 can do reverb & delay simultaneously ????

[BillB]

Thanks Tony. Yes, I had seen that, it sounds pretty good as far as it goes.

Thanks Nigel. I like Nick Batt’s reviews too. I tend to think, if he likes it, I’ll probably like it!

NTS-1 can do modulation, delay and reverb simultaneously.

[Arpangel]

This whole effects situation has gone completely crazy, we’ve got $200 FX pedals now that years ago to achieve the same things you’d have been looking at a top draw Eventide or Lexicon, that’s why I’ve got a lot of pedals, and I still haven’t covered the cost of an Eventide or Lexi, it’s like vintage synths now, the decision to buy, we don’t "need" them, but other non-sound related issues come into play.
If I thought I "needed" an Eventide one would be here, but it isn’t, that says it all really.
I can’t imagine needing anything more than my Big Sky in that respect, cost?
£400, instead of £4,000.

[Ben Asaro]

This whole effects situation has gone completely crazy, we’ve got $200 FX pedals now that years ago to achieve the same things you’d have been looking at a top draw Eventide or Lexicon

Yup, because Moore's Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Though there are other parts involved that do make a big difference in the final sound. To say that a $200 effect is 'equal' to a $2,000 effect (or even a $400) one is a bit of a broad statement, though I'm sure branding may account for a good chunk of the prices some companies demand for their products.

[Arpangel]

This whole effects situation has gone completely crazy, we’ve got $200 FX pedals now that years ago to achieve the same things you’d have been looking at a top draw Eventide or Lexicon

Yup, because Moore's Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Though there are other parts involved that do make a big difference in the final sound. To say that a $200 effect is 'equal' to a $2,000 effect (or even a $400) one is a bit of a broad statement, though I'm sure branding may account for a good chunk of the prices some companies demand for their products.

Sure true Ben, but the differences are smaller these days, and my ears, being much older than they were, help smudge over what remains.

[Ben Asaro]

LOL

[BillB]

This seems promising. HammondEggs Cathedral reverb

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzF_XYQW8 ... e=youtu.be

Unfortunately, a long synth pad is the worst possible sound source to help judge a reverb’s character. Even so, it sounds very Vangelis / New Age

And this shows how easy it is to load new Osc and FX models via the Korg NTS-1 librarian:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRPwhed0 ... e=youtu.be

Without stating it, this video also shows that the uploaded Cathedral reverb doesn’t replace the onboard reverbs, it is additional. No idea how many additional uploads can be hosted on the NTS-1, but that’s quite a lot of sonic variety to go at - in the box, plus one or two extras.

Although I am not crazy about shimmer/riser reverbs, this gives a sense of the quality, which does seem to be beyond pedals at a similar price. Nice to hear the high-pass filter in places.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqz7scF0MKE

Also there is an NTS-1 MIDI spec from Korg which shows that all major OSc, Filter and FX parameters can be accessed via MIDI CCs.

Not sure I can wait until Christmas.....

[N i g e l]

Yup, because Moore's Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

Amazing ! so my sinclair spectrum had 10 thousand transistors but a new PC has 10 billion !

......
And this shows how easy it is to load new Osc and FX models via the Korg NTS-1 librarian:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRPwhed0 ... e=youtu.be
.
Not sure I can wait until Christmas.....

I had a bit of bother with the midi driver but Tim Shoebridge's uTube showed how to sort it out. Its trivial stuff as long as you know its there! The latest Korg update was June so it might have been sorted anyway.

Prologue has 16 user Osc Slots
16 Mod FX slots,
8 reverb & 8 echo FX slots
(Prologue only has echo or reverb active on a patch, not both)

Given the state of import/export I would keep an eye on stock availability, especially in the run up to Christmas !

[BillB]

As if they weren’t cheap enough in the first place, I picked up an NTS-1 second-hand for £67 inc postage. Very neat little box, built to a price but sturdy enough.

I have yet to plug in an Aux send from a mixer, so all sound tests so far have used the NTS built-in synth, which is nice enough but basic. The keyboard ribbon is good enough for auditioning noises only, but MIDI in (3.5mm TRS MIDI Type A) works well.

All the Mod effects (Chorus, Ensemble, Phaser, Flanger) seem to work well, but until I run a polysynth through it, I can’t say if they have any magic about them. Delay effects are good, with the Highpass and Tape variants nicely affecting the tone of the repeats.

The factory reverbs thus far I think of as good but not great, though I really need to do some A-B tests against other gear. My guess is that they are as good as other pedals in a similar price bracket (this was the original question) but nowhere near the character of pedals around £200+ such as the BlueSky.

Apart from the basic character of the sound, one of the options I like on a reverb is to turn up the decay and to hear a long reverb tail, which changes the effect from just ambience to sound design. The Hall and Plate reverbs have a fairly limited duration. Space, Riser and Submarine last longer. Riser is a shimmer effect with distinct upper octaves being added, almost in steps. Not very subtle. Submarine adds a lower octave to pitched sounds and is nice if it fits your music/mix.

However, downloading the HammondEggs reverb models is a bit of a revelation. Cathedral, Theatre, Mist and Haze. I won’t attempt to describe them too closely other than to say that they sound massive, and can go from very long to infinite. Mist and Haze offer low pass and highpass filters (can’t recall which way around). Overall, just what I was hoping for, but still need more critical listening and comparing with various pedals/Rack FX. I can be pretty sure that this combination fills a sonic gap for me.

Each model comes in HD and Pro versions, with the Pro versions offering ‘higher density’. The HammondEggs notes state that the Pro versions should not be used on the NTS-1 with Delay as the CPU may max out, but adding Mod FX should be OK. I have added the four Pro and the four HD models into the eight slots available and again aim to have a critical listen to the difference, but it is nice to have the option of Mod + Pro Reverb or Mod + Delay + HD reverb.

Sadly I don’t have a Bluesky/Bigsky against which to compare, but based on listening to many examples on YT, I would say that the NTS-1 + HammondEggs reverbs probably does not reach the sonic heights of the BlueSky/BigSky reverbs, but is a very creditable hardware Reverb/FX and well worth the money.

There are no presets, so every time you turn on, you set up the sound again, which is easy to do. I doubt that I would want to gig with this, as compared to a robust pedal solution, but for the bedroom producer on a budget, it is excellent value. Added to which the open architecture means that there are likely to be new options to try in the future.

I’m not up to YouTube production, but will try to get some sound samples on Soundcloud in due course.

[Ben Asaro]

Thanks for the follow up!

My interest in the NTS-1 would be purely as fx for live gigs instead of hauling the pedal board out. Would it be possible to achieve results similar to what I am doing now with two NTS-1s? (Realizing that stacking rooms within plates within space reverbs will probably be a no-go)

[The Elf]

For great effects in a small, cheap, easily powered (USB) package, my choice would be the Zoom MS-70CDR. And seek out the hack that lets you load it up with effects blocks from all the other similar Zoom pedals.

[Ben Asaro]

For great effects in a small, cheap, easily powered (USB) package, my choice would be the Zoom MS-70CDR. And seek out the hack that lets you load it up with effects blocks from all the other similar Zoom pedals.

Noted, thanks, Elf!