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I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos
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Nebulablack



Joined: 23 Jan 2021
Posts: 10
Location: South Jersey in the US

PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:04 pm    Post subject: I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos Reply with quote

After a year of eyeing them up I finally pulled the trigger and bought one. It’s an original Kronos not an X or 2 but from what I’ve been told there isn’t really a huge difference between the 3 of them. So I found one used in mint condition for $1699 and snapped it right up. I can’t wait for it to get here.

I’ve already emailed Korg basically begging them to include the Monopoly on the Kronos as well since it’s already there in VST and just needs to be ported over to the Koronos which shouldn’t take much at all. I really want the Monopoly of in hardware so I can stop having to rely on the VST. I’m trying to get away from VST synth plugins all together. I had a friend that several mixes with certain plugins and over night the company stopped supporting them. Ow he has projects that rely heavily on those plugins that he can’t really use in the future because they are gone. So I’m trying to future proof myself from that happening by moving over to all hardware. My hardware isn’t going to become obsolete with a new version of Windows and DAW updates.

Just recently bought a Kurzweil Forte 7, a Jupiter X and now the Kronos which I’ve been dying to have for the MS-20 and Polysix in hardware instead of having to use the VST plugins and Korgs original VA engine. Not too big on sample based patches I’m just using analog or virtual analog patches which is pretty much all my music consists of. I hear the Kronos VA engine sounds fantastic so I’m excited to dive into it.

The Forte 7 sounds phenomenal but is a total headache to program with all of the algorithms and trying to figure out the wiring scheme and which algorithm to choose, so it takes forever. Hence another reason I bought the Kronos.

I have a question about the noise oscillator on the VA synth engine. Is it a fixed frequency or adjustable? If it’s a fixed frequency what is it fixed at? Approximation will work. I ask because sometimes the noise on synths is fixed at way too low of a frequency. The frequency setting on the Arturia MiniV is perfect. I like to add the noise to bass patches for extra bite to cut through the mix better and make it more aggressive sounding.

Any advice anybody can give me as a new owner would be greatly appreciated.


Last edited by Nebulablack on Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:12 pm; edited 2 times in total
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KK
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:55 pm    Post subject: Re: I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos Reply with quote

Hi there and welcome to the forum. Indeed all the Kronos engines sound excellent, including the Korg Polysix and MS-20 ones.

About programming your new Kronos, it won't be super easy either. I know both the Kurzweil and Korg architectures and even though different when you get a very complex machine like the Kronos you have to learn how to program it to your taste and it will take a while.

Finally, about the AL-1 noise generator, you can't modify its pitch but you can of course route it to a pitch shifter effect and possibly achieve what you want. The Kronos effects are excellent as well.

So congrats on your purchase and enjoy your new machine ! For sure you can keep very busy with it for many years to come. Cool
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Nebulablack



Joined: 23 Jan 2021
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 8:19 pm    Post subject: Re: I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos Reply with quote

KK wrote:
Hi there and welcome to the forum. Indeed all the Kronos engines sound excellent, including the Korg Polysix and MS-20 ones.

About programming your new Kronos, it won't be super easy either. I know both the Kurzweil and Korg architectures and even though different when you get a very complex machine like the Kronos you have to learn how to program it to your taste and it will take a while.

Finally, about the AL-1 noise generator, you can't modify its pitch but you can of course route it to a pitch shifter effect and possibly achieve what you want. The Kronos effects are excellent as well.

So congrats on your purchase and enjoy your new machine ! For sure you can keep very busy with it for many years to come. Cool


Oh I’m sure it has it’s own learning curve but I don’t think it’s anything like the Kurzweil’s. The Kurzweil is horribly confusing just because of the structure itself, it’s not remotely anywhere near being user friendly or intuitive, and they haven’t really done anything to fix that since the k2000 came out in 1991. I’m looking at the screenshots of editing pages on the Korg and it looks much more user friendly and intuitive to someone familiar with analog synths. There are no algorithms or wiring schemes, layers that you have to build and wire into one another through cascading. None of that nonsense seems to exist on the Koronos which is a huge relief. It’s own learning cure aside I think I’ll have a much easier time creating patches. Less cursing, wanting to take a sledgehammer to it, or throw it out the window of a 30 floor building. Lol!!
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KK
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 9:48 pm    Post subject: Re: I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos Reply with quote

I actually agree with you that the Kronos approach is easier compared to the Kurzweil VAST system. One advantage in VAST was that some parameters were rated in seconds, which can be easier to program when it comes to envelopes and so on, but with the Kronos you have a much larger screen and IMHO the Korg synth engines offer a lot more versatility, not to mention the CX-3 organ which sounds much better than Kurzweil's KB-3.
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KingKronos
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome aboard the Kronos express. Looks like you've got a nice arsenal of heavy weight synths.

Yeah, I think if you're good with analog synthesis you'll be good with the AL1 engine on the Kronos. The engine was designed so that it can mimic many types of vintage synths. Noise has its own saturator and filter, so you can dial in anything from white to pink to rumbling reds.

One word of advice, when you get around to exploring the dual filters. By default the filter balance on the osc mixer page is set to 0. You'll want to set each osc balance to 50 in order to hear both filters. On the filter page I prefer to use Link cutoffs when working with the serial and parallel modes. With filter B around -10 to +10 offset from filter A you can get lots of variety (maybe up to -20 if using linked bandpass to do formants, or when doing HP and LP in parallel for MS20 stuff). I like to think of parallel good for something like ob sounds, serial for roland like sounds. The default 4-pole is modeled after the Prophet 5. The multi-filter is really interesting, it's like a super multimode filter, you can dial in a lot of flavors, or roll your own (like LP +BP, or LP - BP where the BP is phase reversed). Remember it's all about subtlety, so you'll want to keep the envelope filter amount on the low side to search for those sweet spots.

The drive and low boost on the amp page also strongly affects the way the filters behave and sound, and they can get grungy and squelchy that way, play around.

I've not dabbled much with my K2500rs, but looking at the filter types it has the Kronos should be able to do most of them (for a comb filter visit the STR1 physical modeling engine). I think a good deal of the "Kurzweil sound" has to do with downsampling. You can warm up the Kronos samples in the HD1 engine by using low pitch stretch values, or alternately tuning the osc down an octave while transposing it back up an octave to compensate.

That was a great deal at $1700 for a Kronos!
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Nebulablack



Joined: 23 Jan 2021
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Location: South Jersey in the US

PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KingKronos wrote:
Welcome aboard the Kronos express. Looks like you've got a nice arsenal of heavy weight synths.

Yeah, I think if you're good with analog synthesis you'll be good with the AL1 engine on the Kronos. The engine was designed so that it can mimic many types of vintage synths. Noise has its own saturator and filter, so you can dial in anything from white to pink to rumbling reds.

One word of advice, when you get around to exploring the dual filters. By default the filter balance on the osc mixer page is set to 0. You'll want to set each osc balance to 50 in order to hear both filters. On the filter page I prefer to use Link cutoffs when working with the serial and parallel modes. With filter B around -10 to +10 offset from filter A you can get lots of variety (maybe up to -20 if using linked bandpass to do formants, or when doing HP and LP in parallel for MS20 stuff). I like to think of parallel good for something like ob sounds, serial for roland like sounds. The default 4-pole is modeled after the Prophet 5. The multi-filter is really interesting, it's like a super multimode filter, you can dial in a lot of flavors, or roll your own (like LP +BP, or LP - BP where the BP is phase reversed). Remember it's all about subtlety, so you'll want to keep the envelope filter amount on the low side to search for those sweet spots.

The drive and low boost on the amp page also strongly affects the way the filters behave and sound, and they can get grungy and squelchy that way, play around.

I've not dabbled much with my K2500rs, but looking at the filter types it has the Kronos should be able to do most of them (for a comb filter visit the STR1 physical modeling engine). I think a good deal of the "Kurzweil sound" has to do with downsampling. You can warm up the Kronos samples in the HD1 engine by using low pitch stretch values, or alternately tuning the osc down an octave while transposing it back up an octave to compensate.

That was a great deal at $1700 for a Kronos!


Thanks for the advice!! I’m going to come back to this page once it gets here and check out what you’ve written again once I have it in my hands.

Believe it or not I actually like my VA synthesis to be on the bright side it keeps me from having to add more EQ in the mix while mixing. I tend to like things on the brighter side so I use a lot of the Maag 4 EQ and add in the 20khz air band on a lot of stuff or the 16khz high shelf on the UA Neve 1084 channel strip plugin. I tend to reach for the higher frequency to add and cut around 3.2 to 4.8 to get cut any harshness so I just get some of that sheen in there. Everyone goes for warmth and I like stuff to be brighter in the mix without the harshness. As Korg stuff tends be on the brighter side of things I think the Kronos will do me well, less EQ I’ll have to add while mixing. I’m always boosting high end when I use the Kurzweil Forte because it does have that “warm” sound to it.
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KingKronos
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you like brightness then you'll want to crank up the Edge on the oscillators. Putting 12 or 24 (octaves) on the FM amount will also give it a bright character. You'll probably like the Exciter / Enhancer IFX presets as well.

I'm looking to start exploring soft synths and the whole in the box thing. I got a 2015 MBP and bought Logic the other day. Still researching audio interfaces. UAD is really expensive and looks to tie you into their whole ecosystem. I thought the Antelope Audio Discrete 4 would suit what I wanted, but I hear its hit and miss with their drivers. I think I'll go with MOTU 828es, it's got all the connections I want, including coax SPDIF for my Integra and optical SPDIF for the Kronos. And it should be relatively future proof with solid driver support, thunderbird and usb and AVB. It will be interesting to hear all these virtual synths and sample libraries in action.
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aellison62
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ha, Nebulaclack, I own the same 3 keyboards. They compliment each other immensely. I agree about KURZWEIL Forte (Vast in general) being hard to program. I usually end up tweaking existing programs and also have downloaded MANY free programs. I would never give up my Forte though! I gig with Forte on bottom and Kronos X61 on top. I lack for nothing in sound capabilities. Enjoy the Kronos, it’s killer as a synth. I still like Fortes pianos a little better and I’ve tweaked the KB3 mode such that it gets compliments now when I play out. The VA synth on the Forte is nice too and it is extremely versatile since the configurations and can be endless and you can control anything with anything. The FX on the Forte are top notch.
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Nebulablack



Joined: 23 Jan 2021
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aellison62 wrote:
Ha, Nebulaclack, I own the same 3 keyboards. They compliment each other immensely. I agree about KURZWEIL Forte (Vast in general) being hard to program. I usually end up tweaking existing programs and also have downloaded MANY free programs. I would never give up my Forte though! I gig with Forte on bottom and Kronos X61 on top. I lack for nothing in sound capabilities. Enjoy the Kronos, it’s killer as a synth. I still like Fortes pianos a little better and I’ve tweaked the KB3 mode such that it gets compliments now when I play out. The VA synth on the Forte is nice too and it is extremely versatile since the configurations and can be endless and you can control anything with anything. The FX on the Forte are top notch.


Hey that’s pretty funny!! I’m absolutely in love with the Jupiter X, it’s sounds absolutely amazing. I debated getting an Xm to go with it just so I could have more channels of those models but decided getting the Kronos would be more beneficial. I also own an Oberheim Matrix 1000 that I bought years ago, a Yamaha AN1X that I also bought years ago as em employee at Sam Ash for $400 and a Nord Lead 2. I’ll never sell any of them. The Yamaha AN1X is phenomenal sounding and really goes under the radar. I’m buying one more synth after this and then I’m done for while because I’ll have to buy another MOTU interface so I can add more. I’m getting the Behringer Monopoly after the Kronos. I heard a demo of it from Sweetwater on YouTube and I was blown away buy the sound of it.

I keep emailing Korg asking them to include the Monopoly on the Koronos. There is no reason not to include it on the next OS update. It already exists and the code is already written. It would probably be nothing and take no time at all for them to put it in the next update and it makes logical sense to do so since the MS-20 and Polysix are already there. The users I’m sure would be ecstatic to get it, it would make the Kronos more desirable (more people would buy it), Korg would make more money everybody wins. Either that or make it a paid upgrade of $150. I’d buy it in an instant and I’m sure everyone on this forum probably would as well. The Kronos is their flagship synth so there really is no reason that it shouldn’t be on the Kronos and should have been included with the MS-20 and Polysix in the first place to be honest. It just makes logical sense to have it in there. With Roland offering paid expansions of their vintage synths for the Fantom and Jupiter X, Korg would be smart to start offering the same thing with the Kronos. I would absolutely buy them. They could continue profiting off the Kronos by doing this.

If we could get everyone in this forum to email them once a week asking for the Monopoly to be added they would probably do it if they see a high demand for it.
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Mr_SamDoogie
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 9:54 am    Post subject: Re: I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Kronos Reply with quote

Nebulablack wrote:
After a year of eyeing them up I finally pulled the trigger and bought one. It’s an original Kronos not an X or 2 but from what I’ve been told there isn’t really a huge difference between the 3 of them. So I found one used in mint condition for $1699 and snapped it right up. I can’t wait for it to get here.

I really want the Monopoly of in hardware so I can stop having to rely on the VST. I’m trying to get away from VST synth plugins all together. I had a friend that several mixes with certain plugins and over night the company stopped supporting them. Ow he has projects that rely heavily on those plugins that he can’t really use in the future because they are gone. So I’m trying to future proof myself from that happening by moving over to all hardware. My hardware isn’t going to become obsolete with a new version of Windows and DAW updates.

.


Well this an eye opener I never thought of it that way. I was future proving some apps already like Z3TA+ on an older ipad i've never upgraded. And for nostalgic reason a few older 386 and pentium computers for sound cards.

But keeping a Kronos to future safe projects never came to mind.
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aellison62
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 1:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nebulablack, Since Kronos is over 10 years old now and the Nautilus is being released, I seriously doubt Korg is going to add anything new like a Monopoly engine to the Kronos. Good thing is there is sooooo much 3rd party content available from some really great sound designers that you’ll never want for variety.

Question about your MOTU interface please, what model do you use? Are you connecting your hardware keyboards into it via MIDI? USB? 1/4 inch cables?
I am putting together a DAW studio with my keyboards (6 of them) and wanted to understand how best to get them all into an interface and into the DAW. Thanks for any info. And yes, I like my JP-X as well. Built like a tank!
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GregC
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nebulablack wrote:
[

I keep emailing Korg asking them to include the Monopoly on the Koronos. There is no reason not to include it on the next OS update. It already exists and the code is already written.

If we could get everyone in this forum to email them once a week asking for the Monopoly to be added they would probably do it if they see a high demand for it.


the last OS rev was 3 years ago, and that was minor bug fixes.

If you explore this forum , going back to last July/Aug, we made an organized/reasonable push at Korg Inc, to get more basic features on Kronos, a further OS:

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=122482&start=0

Korg ignored our communication.

You can try your approach, no harm in trying. My advice is to move along and spend your time on more productive options.
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KingKronos
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 4:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any info on MOTU interfaces or studio connections in general would be welcome. The 828es manual doesn't mention MIDI over USB, but they're marketing spec sheet mentions computer 16 computer channels. I'm wondering if this in on a separate 16 channels (din port versus usb port).

https://motu.com/products/proaudio/828es/specs.html

I've used up all my din ports on my mio4, and was hoping to combine it with the 828es. I think this is done on the Macpro using aggregate devices? Guess I know what I'll be doing this afternoon.
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Nebulablack



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aellison62 wrote:
Nebulablack, Since Kronos is over 10 years old now and the Nautilus is being released, I seriously doubt Korg is going to add anything new like a Monopoly engine to the Kronos. Good thing is there is sooooo much 3rd party content available from some really great sound designers that you’ll never want for variety.

Question about your MOTU interface please, what model do you use? Are you connecting your hardware keyboards into it via MIDI? USB? 1/4 inch cables?
I am putting together a DAW studio with my keyboards (6 of them) and wanted to understand how best to get them all into an interface and into the DAW. Thanks for any info. And yes, I like my JP-X as well. Built like a tank!


Hey I use the Motu midi express 128. It has 8 midi ins and 8 midi outs. So I have one synth connected to each in and out. With the Kronos I’ll probably just use the USB midi built into it and save my last midi in and out on the interface for the Behringer Monopoly when I finally buy it.

As far as I know Motu is the only company making 8 port midi interfaces anymore.
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Nebulablack



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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2021 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

KingKronos wrote:
Any info on MOTU interfaces or studio connections in general would be welcome. The 828es manual doesn't mention MIDI over USB, but they're marketing spec sheet mentions computer 16 computer channels. I'm wondering if this in on a separate 16 channels (din port versus usb port).

https://motu.com/products/proaudio/828es/specs.html

I've used up all my din ports on my mio4, and was hoping to combine it with the 828es. I think this is done on the Macpro using aggregate devices? Guess I know what I'll be doing this afternoon.


That’s an audio interface it’s going to have very little midi implementation. The midi I/O it does have is really more for controlling external gear like a hardware mixer controller or external hardware effects processors.

If you want midi I/O for your synths the Midi Express or the Midi Express XT are what you want. Each has 8 midi I/O. I bought the 128 because I don’t need smpte or MMC for syncing up external devices like tape.
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