From Manufacturer
Performing musicians looking for a professional keyboard instrument with piano, electric piano, synthesizer, and organ sounds will be impressed with the Korg VOX Continental 73 BK, a black, 73-key, high-performance instrument well suited for stage performances, live bands, studios, rehearsal spaces, and houses of worship. The VOX Continental's intuitive user interface ensures fast and easy playability and includes 150 built-in programs carefully selected for live use, powered by its high-quality PCM sound engine and its vintage sound-modeling engine.
The onboard insert and master effects offer a variety of choices including chorus, phaser, flanger, compressor, drive, and wah, which can be controlled by the included expression pedal. Other effects include several choices of delay and reverb, while the 9-band stereo EQ allows you to quickly fine-tune the instrument's tonal balance. In addition, the VOX Continental features Korg's vacuum tube Nutube 6P1, which injects harmonically rich and smooth distortion for a dense, fat sound not available through modeling. The Continental 73 BK includes a pair of attachable wooden side panels, an AC adapter, a power cord, and the V861 volume/expression pedal.
Access to Four Independent Sound Parts
The VOX Continental 73 BK features a part select button that makes it easy to switch between the E.PIANO, PIANO, KEY/LAYER and ORGAN parts to use the sounds you need right away. Individual front panel controls for each part let you select the variations, set the levels and more. Settings for these four parts are saved together in a single scene. Press both part select buttons at the same time to layer and play both parts together.
E. PIANO
- Three electric piano sound engines are provided. TINE is the most representative electric piano sound. Along with TINE, REED is used in many famous songs. FM features the metallic sound often heard in songs from the 1980s. This is an electric piano with a high-definition FM sound, carefully created to be rich in harmonics, using a realistic sound generator model with amp and cabinet modeling.
PIANO
- Features three sound categories, including the GRAND with a high-grade sampled grand piano, an UPRIGHT sound that’s easy to use in settings like pop music, and an E.GRAND sound that’s often heard in music from the 1970s. The GRAND and UPRIGHT sounds go all the way with nonlooped, high-resolution sampled sounds in stereo across the entire key range to recreate the delicate and powerful sounds of the piano.
KEY/LAYER
- This part features six categories of sounds including KEY (clavinet, pipe organ and so on), BRASS (brass and woodwind sounds), STRINGS (strings and choir), LEAD, SYNTH and OTHER. These sounds give you the power to handle a wide range of genres with this instrument alone, and can be layered with piano and other parts.
ORGAN
- This part features three different sound engines. The CX-3 tonewheel organ sound engine models the sound of the KORG CX-3 combo organ and works well for any genre from rock to popular music. The VOX transistor organ sound engine features a unique high-end sound and perfectly reproduces every detail of the original VOX Continental from the 1960s. The COMPACT transistor organ sound generator offers a characteristically cheap sound, recreating the sound of this compact organ that came out around the same time as the VOX organ. These sounds offer touch control that lets you use your fingers to control the harmony and tone, much like real drawbars.
- The CX-3 and VOX let you switch between upper (the upper part of the keyboard) and lower (the lower side of the keyboard) or create a split with the touch of a button. You can also connect an external MIDI keyboard to play the upper part on this keyboard and the lower part with an external MIDI keyboard, like using two manuals (levels) on an organ. You can also use vibrato/chorus and the rotary speaker simulation. And, you can use the bend lever on the side of the keyboard to change the speed of the rotary speaker effect when you play.
Intuitive Touch Control for Drawbars and EQ
The nine-line LED display to the left of the panel makes it easy to see the setting status, and it also works as a controller. Three control targets are selectable using this touch sensor, and when ORGAN is selected, this mainly works as a drawbar to shape that sound. When KEY/LAYER is selected, this is used to make the filter and EG settings. When EQ is selected, you can control the overall tonal balance over nine bands.
Nutube: Authentic Vacuum Tube Sound
- This unit features a vacuum tube distortion effect that works especially well with organ and electric piano sounds. The Nutube vacuum tube-powered-valve drive lets you create rich harmonics that are impossible to create using modeling, for a warm vacuum tube sound with smooth distortion. You can use the dedicated button to turn valve drive on/off. The amount of effect used can be adjusted in detail using the knob, and you can see how much effect is applied by looking at the brightness of the LED that lights the Nutube.
- Adding stunning presence and warm valve drive sound, the Nutube is a new type of vacuum tube developed by KORG in conjunction with Noritake Itron Corporation. As with conventional vacuum tubes, the vacuum tube is constructed with an anode grid filament, and operates as a complete triode tube. Further, the Nutube offers the characteristically rich harmonics that create the vacuum tube sound. The tube construction utilizes technology from vacuum fluorescent displays to create a vacuum tube that uses far less power than previous vacuum tubes, with a more compact design and better quality.
Dynamics Knob: Custom Key-Touch Response
- The balance between your key touch and the sound generated determines how the instrument responds to what you play on the keyboard. Your preferences will vary considerably depending on whether you play jazz music (which requires a delicate touch with expressiveness) or rock music (which calls for loud volumes with a strong key press), a gap that’s difficult to fill using only the velocity curve settings.
- For this reason, this unit features a DYNAMICS knob that gives you even more detailed control over the volume and how the sound changes according to how hard or soft you play the keys. Turn the knob counterclockwise to get the full range of inflection with velocity and turn the knob clockwise for a stronger sound with more uniformity in volume. This makes it easy to choose the setting you want according to your playing style.
Light-Touch Keyboard with Waterfall Keys
The VOX Continental 73 BK features a light-touch keyboard with waterfall keys that are suitable for playing glissandos. The keyboard is also semiweighted, giving the keys a stable playing feel when using piano or electric piano sounds, for a superior key touch. Due to its keyboard and lightweight body design, the instrument weighs 18.5 lb (excluding the included wooden side panels), which brings it under the 22 lb class while still being a 73-key stage keyboard. This instrument can be easily carried with the SC-Continental 73 soft case (sold separately).
Scene Memory
The VOX Continental 73 BK lets you register up to 64 scenes (4 scenes × 4 banks × 4), which include combinations of sounds in four parts including the master effects. These scenes can be easily recalled using the buttons at the bottom of the touch control. You can also connect a USB flash drive (commercially available) to the USB port on the back of this instrument to save and load up to 100 sets of scenes, so you can always use the same settings by bringing the USB flash drive to the place where you'll be performing with the VOX Continental 73 BK.
Master Effects
- Three series of master effects plus EQ are available. The first stage is an insert effect to the master, with six selectable types including chorus, phaser and wah. You can turn the effects on/off and make basic adjustments to the parameters.
- The second-stage delay and reverb are sends from the master, with four types of delay and five types of reverb. The third stage includes a nine-band EQ that can be set using the touch controller. The final stage features a valve drive circuit with a Nutube 6P11.
VOX V861 Volume/Expression Pedal
A volume/expression pedal (V861) is provided for use with this keyboard. The V861 features a compact yet sturdy aluminum housing with a high-class black anodized aluminum finish, and is equipped with two input/output jacks and one Expression jack for controlling the volume or wah effect.
Vintage Look with Leather and Wood
The leather black body of this instrument perfectly matches any stage, and the instrument comes with a set of dark brown wooden side panels. Attach these panels onto the keyboard according to your preferences. The body is made of sturdy sheet metal and lightweight aluminum. These materials offer a slim and compact product design with superior durability and portability.
Attachable Wooden Side Panels are a special accessory for the 73-key BK model only.
At a Glance
- Intuitive user interface that emphasizes playability onstage
- Organ part that meticulously models three vintage organs
- High-quality electric piano part with attention paid to every detail
- Rich piano part powered by high-capacity samples
- Key/layer part with a wide range of variations
- Intuitive and powerful effects that are optimized for live use
- Touch sensor that can control a variety of parameters
- 9-band EQ that allows detailed control of your sound
- Real valve-drive sound powered by Nutube, Korg's latest vacuum tube technology
- Newly developed waterfall keyboard provides responsive playability
- Dynamics knob lets you freely customize the playing feel of the keyboard
- Scene memories let you instantly switch between settings
- Lightweight and compact body is built of sturdy sheet metal and aluminum
- Carries on the scarlet color that's traditional for VOX organs
- V861 volume/expression pedal included
- ST-Continental keyboard stand included