KORG NAUTILUS vs YAMAHA MODX Comparison Review

thank you for all of your comments on my nautilus videos now a common theme i've noticed is that many of you are comparing the nautilus down here with the modi x and that's inevitable both of these are cheaper versions of their respective flagship instruments i'm not completely convinced it's a fair comparison these two are in different price classes with different features but i thought that would be a great topic for a video let's discuss that today the modi x came out first and this is a cheaper version of yamaha's flagship montage synthesizer what they've done is removed a lot of the front panel controls made it in plastic instead of metal slightly cheaper feeling key bed and so on to get the price down but the montage is about three thousand dollars i believe in us whereas this one is less than half the price twelve to fourteen hundred dollars and it has exactly the same sound engine as the montage although i think it does lose the sampler perhaps not quite sure about that but you get exactly the same sounds as you get on the montage which is really great that's an awesome instrument the nautilus was newly released just a couple of weeks ago and this is a less expensive version of their kronos flagship workstation synthesizer keyboard it does contain all of the exact same sounds and i believe functionality of the kronos but they've added a few things as well but the most important thing here is you're getting all of the sound engines of the kronos we'll talk about that a little bit later and all of the same sounds plus some new sounds actually new presets new samples that are more up-to-date than what we get on the chronos but as you can see they've stripped away all of the controls on most of the controls of the chronos this one costs about two thousand dollars whereas the kronos costs right now about two and a half thousand dollars it's been on sale on a few of the retailers so the nautilus is a lot closer to the price of the flagship than the modi x's so on first glance for value for money then if you want a flagship at a vastly reduced prices compared to the flagship then the modi x certainly seems to represent a better proposition well for those of us considering the nautilus right now at least it might be worth paying a little bit more and getting the kronos build construction and quality is really important to me and it's probably very important to you too i'm happy to report that the nautilus is really rather outstanding it's got this lovely aluminium top panel the base here underneath is aluminium as well as are the sides here there is some plastic as well but overall a really premium high quality feeling instrument whereas on the other hand the modi x is entirely a sort of hollow plastic box it is a sturdily built thing it doesn't feel fragile or flimsy or flexy or creaky in any way which is excellent but it's not in the same league as the nautilus this is something that probably won't come across so well on the video you'll have to go and experience it for yourself in the music stores yeah i can even show you underneath there you can see it's entirely plastic so it is kind of nice just knowing this is made of metal you get that lovely cool feeling to the touch and it does make it a more enjoyable experience to play overall i think however the lightweight plastic construction of the modi x does have some advantages if you're a gigging musician and carrying this one with you then you're going to appreciate the fact that this weighs 7 kilograms whereas this one weighs 14 kilograms as you can see also it's much more compact since they've placed the controllers above the keyboard and not to the left so if you're transporting these to the gig or to the practice room this might be a better option [Music] as for design then well it feels like cork have gone to time with the nautilus it does look reminiscent to their workstations of the 90s actually since it's so stripped down however we look closely you see these nice swooshes and swoops with the aluminium surfaces here that swoop up to meet each other i think this is inspired by the ocean i did read somewhere the nautilus of course is a nautical theme this is like a shell kind of shape so they've put a bit of design effort into that whereas on the modi x i think it's fair to say although it's not ugly by any means there's not quite so much design effort gone into this uh apologies if i'm out of order there but uh that's my impression anyway although it does have a very nice retro looking mo dx logo here although i'm not sure why we need to be reminded what keyboard we're playing i imagine right now that you are screaming at your screens for me to play these instruments well don't worry rest assured i have done plenty of demos of these over the last few weeks and in the case of the modi x the last couple of years so here's a little musical montage ah wrong choice of words a little musical [Music] compilation [Music] don't [Music] so [Music] that's more like it [Music] too much [Music] do [Music] [Music] so [Music] what about the feeling of the keys then well you won't believe how many questions comments and in fact even emails i've received on this very topic so starting with the modi x i've got no problems at all with the keys on the modex i know some guys criticize them but i find them to be quite satisfactory they are quite if i shut up for a bit clacky and noisy but they're nice and dynamic to play it works well for synths and pianos i think listen to that but compared to the nautilus here i'm playing with the same force so this is a much smoother and quieter key bed also feels like the keys are slightly wider especially on the black notes where they feel narrower up here but i actually like both of these keyboards very much but i would have to say the nautilus does have the edge it feels rather more premium and high quality than the keys we get on the modex but both get the job done perfectly adequately okay then here's the biggie the user interface let's just tip that up again now there's quite a difference an obvious difference between these two whilst the modx is pretty stripped down compared to the montage they have kept a lot of buttons here you've got for example buttons for the sequencer transport control which is really nice four assignable knobs here well actually a matrix with four different rows of functions these are endless rotaries we have four faders instead of the eight on the montage but four is better than nothing although it's rarely enough but we have these switches here to toggle between them here are the buttons to activate the scenes over here buttons for the different modes the navigation and so on so yeah it's actually quite a workable user interface whereas korg have been much more ruthless it's quite apparent on what they've removed from the kronos now the chronos is absolutely festooned with faders knobs buttons and so on uh and actually a bigger screen than what we get here whereas the modex screen is identical to the montage but yeah korg i've really stripped it back here you do get these funky buttons that you can click in and out and turn now to be honest these knobs don't feel as good as the ones on the mode x far from it they are quite small it's hard to get your fingers in between because they're quite closely together as well although you might like this pop-in feature if you're transporting the keyboard and don't want to damage the knobs if that's something that's important to you we also have far fewer buttons than we do on the mode ex you don't for example have any sequencer transport buttons although these quick access buttons can be set in a particular mode where they do act as transport buttons i've been using these quite a lot but i find it quite hard to remember what each button does since they are configurable and so forth so they're not actually labeled on the front panel here you have to try and remember and i just am incapable of remembering what six different buttons do in all of the various modes and then of course we have to talk about the super knob here a fantastic controller some of you might see it as a gimmick especially when it's flashing and pulsating and yes let's get those pulsating super knob jokes out the way right now but this is actually a fantastic controller it's really great to grip onto nice and smooth to turn it's an endless thing as well you've got this led collar to show you what the settings are you can see right now this is being automated by a motion sequencer feature something similar pretty cool but this is actually a morph control you can assign this to change many many different parameters at once and during a performance i just normally grab onto this turn it see what happens and it does change the sound in really radical ways you can completely transform the sound of the the performance that you're doing it's really really excellent and i found that to be a bit more lacking on the nautilus you don't have such a mega control as this and i found myself just typically grasping for the cut off but it doesn't make for such exciting performances as this awesome super knob also over here we have a joystick versus the traditional pitch bend mod wheel this has an advantage for me because you can assign this to do interesting things like filter cut off push it up and it stays in the same position whereas this one springs back you can configure these to lock the position but it's just a bit more fiddly to do in the heat of the moment as for the screens we have pretty much identical screens down here now these are the older style technology where you've got a thin plastic membrane that you actually have to push down on a little bit it's not completely like a glass ipad screen or like we're used to on our telephones and mobile devices these days just require a very light push and the resolution is not like a super high retina or anything like that but i think they are pretty much adequate for the job both of them fairly identical or this this one seems to have slightly more vivid colors and contrast but pretty much the same thing this one seems to support we're on the nautilus now a little bit more drag than what we get on the modi x which is very much just press a parameter and then use the encoder there to change the value this one does support dragging but it's a bit hit and miss i don't normally get it right and end up clicking it and using the encoder anyway in the same fashion and you can forget about things like pinch to zoom that just doesn't exist with this kind of technology multi-touch not possible either it's one fader at a time one observation i have on the screens here then is that the modi x is much cheaper and a couple of years old so you can give perhaps yamaha a bit of a pass on including a lower technology screen on this instrument whereas the nautilus is newly released in 2020 it costs a lot more money two thousand dollars and perhaps that sets our expectations a little bit higher and i for one think this synthesizer deserved a much nicer screen for the price and also for these amazing capabilities that it has i think it needs a better user interface to really get the most out of them it is kind of cool with the big graphics here though i have to say and it's probably quite an impressive thing when you see one of these for yourself in the store it certainly does catch the eye [Music] now boot up time is important to many of you as well i know that by reading the comments happy to say the mo dx is pretty snappy it boots up in about 20 seconds or so i haven't actually timed it but you just switch it on pretty soon you're good to go whereas the nautilus is more like you switch it on way in advance of when you need it go and do something else bit of washing up checking your youtube comments or something like that and when you come back it's ready okay seriously it's probably two minutes or something pretty much just like the chronos when i started this today i heard fans whirring up inside which i haven't heard before mercifully they switched off by themselves when the instrument had booted up [Music] what about these sound engines then this is an interesting topic one of the biggest differentiators between these two but they're a mouthful there the modi x has its sample playback rompler technology awm ii and it has the fmx an amazing fm synthesizer engine with eight operators a lot more advanced features than what we had on the dx7 although it is derived from that that's why it's called the mo dx by the way not the mod x it's even the same dx7 logo which i think is really cool two sound engines this one also has your sample playback engine um hd1 i think core could call it and it has an fm synthesizer engine that is also compatible with dx7 patches that's really interesting but in addition it has seven more sound engines all of which are absolutely fantastic i can vouch for that having tried them out we have for example a dedicated piano engine this one does a lot more physical modeling with the piano sounds same thing for an electric piano engine we have a magnificent cx-3 hammond organ clone wheel emulation kind of thing string modeling engines virtual analog engines yeah the list goes on so for you sound designers this i think sound wise does what the modex can do but a lot more and that's one of the extra features you'll be paying a little bit more for if you choose the nautilus that's why it costs more on the other hand the modx has some really nice contemporary effects that don't seem to be here on the nautilus we have things like the side chain effects we have the envelope followers we have the amazing motion sequencer which really animates the sound you can actually program um stepped changes in various parameters which will then repeat and loop as you're holding down a key it sounds really really awesome it gives you some of these really more modern edm kind of style sounds future bass and so on which is really exciting i think whereas this one seems to have more traditional effects derived from the kronos which are perhaps a little bit more dated than the ones on the mode x and you can really hear those in action on the performance demos i did here on the mode x [Music] okay let's come around the back a little bit gloomy around here not much light but hopefully i can explain what's going on both of these pretty fully featured got everything you could probably want the nautilus however has a few extra pro features on the back we have individual outputs as well as a stereo pair whereas the mode x just has stereo pair i think i read somewhere that these might be balanced outputs as well which is a more professional feature giving you the potential for lower noise but don't quote me on that because i'm not sure where i read that one for the midi we have an extra port on the nautilus we have midi through if that's something that's important to you we as you can see have an internal power supply with a wall wart on the modi x6 whereas much more professional on the nautilus with an internal power supply and look a little led as well regarding the usb both of them have this kind of socket and this kind of socket i have a usb drive hooked up here with some expansion libraries um but this there is some differences here that are quite interesting this one usb to host you connect to your pc for connectivity with your daw this one on the yamaha is multi-track audio and midi which is really fantastic whereas on the nautilus it's not quite as capable we have midi just like on the yamaha but only stereo usb up and down to your daw which is a real shame i think a nice thing here though this socket here can be used not only to transfer samples and do backups of the synthesizer but you can also connect up a usb device such as a keyboard a computer keyboard yes or in fact more interestingly something like a korg nano control giving you back the faders that are missing on the nautilus [Music] so we did touch a little bit there on expansions there are some big differences between these two as well the modi x comes with one gigabytes of flash memory on which you can store expansion packs of sample libraries or your own samples whereas the nautilus has a 60 gigabyte hard drive built in or as sa ssd a flash drive so a lot more potential for storing your own sounds on the nautilus also more potential for third-party sample library developers to create much more interesting complex and detailed sample libraries of for example electric pianos or something than what's possible on the modx i don't know much about this feature so i'm going to be deliberately vague but the modi x did lose the sampler that you get on the montage whereas the nautilus keeps the sampler that you get on the kronos and it's a very capable sampler as well and i think the sequencer here on the nautilus is also more advanced than on the modex you can for example record or playback full audio tracks multi-track audio on the nautilus which is something that's not possible on the modi x this is just a midi sequencer let's wrap this up then if your budget is thirteen 1200. dollars or whatever this costs in your region then you cannot go wrong with the modi x i highly recommend it what a capable an amazing instrument for the price however if you have a little bit more to spend then hopefully i've highlighted some of the extra things that you do get with the nautilus that maybe justify the extra price it depends on what's important to you so you'll have to decide that for yourself but hopefully i've been able to highlight the main differences between these two so you can make your own decision if you're interested in purchasing one of these for yourself that's all for now then thank you so much for watching and i can't wait to read your comments i'll see you next time cheerio [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Woody Piano Shack

Views: 110,062

Keywords: korg nautilus, korg nautilus sounds, korg nautilus demo, korg nautilus review, korg nautilus 88, korg nautilus piano, yamaha modx, yamaha modx6, modx7, modx8, yamaha modx cover, yamaha modx demo, yamaha modx review, yamaha modx sounds, korg nautilus vs yamaha modx, korg nautilus vs kronos, yamaha montage, yamaha montage review, yamaha montage demo, korg kronos, korg kronos 2, synth, synthesizer, music production, yamaha, korg, nautilus, kronos, modx, montage, fantom, roland

Id: n19ZFqhzW2Q

Length: 27min 8sec (1628 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021