Korg Forums

Sharp · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:13 am Post subject:

I think it's safe to say that you can always expect a KORG flagship workstation replacement in around every 5 years. The only thing wrong with that now days is the speed everything is accelerating in every other part of the music industry.

Between the big 3, KORG seem to be the only ones right now making an active effort to stay ahead of the game. Roland and Yamaha are really only recycling old technology and flogging a horse that died a very long time ago.

KORG are not exactly safe either. They are head, but in a market that's shrinking to the DAW / Software VSTi world.

Regards
Sharp.

Rosen Sound · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:18 am Post subject:

Yeah.. i really hope software never completely takes over... i seriously despise software synths.
_________________

Current gear: Korg Kronos 61, Oberheim OB-8, Alesis Vortex
Past Gear: Triton Extreme w/moss & ram, Korg Radias, Kurzweil Micropiano, Triton classic, & Karma
Come visit my Burbank California repair shop/recording studio! Rosensound.com
And my band: Sirion.us.com

Sharp · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:26 am Post subject:

Ooohh I don't know.
Check out the video called Omnisphere v1.5 Demo

http://www.spectrasonics.net/products/omnisphere-videos.php

That's what you call cutting edge.

Regards
Sharp.

Rosen Sound · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:22 am Post subject:

Okay, let me clarify what i mean by despise:
Despise in a live situation and when it comes to putting stuff together.

I'm not a DAW guy, I dont mess around with this kind of stuff... I HAVE believe it or not.. But after getting my first hardware synth (triton) i was much more impressed with what it could do for me

I can see how for someone whos in a studio all day and thats their life that this would be a freaking god send and the best stuff around, and sonically I agree. However, I'm rarely in the studio, yes i have an interface and am prepared to record when needed be. But 99% of my musical time im playing live or in a rehearsal and in such situations I've found softsynths to be the biggest pain in my ass ever. I hate lugging around the laptop with the interface, i hate the ocasional latency issue, i hate that i cant save a picture anymore cause the libraries are huge and take up all my disk space (and external) And worst is when i get the magical hanging note. Even when using the simplest of controllers. And surprisingly, when i got the triton with some expansion and self made multisample loaded up, my groups were muchhhh more impressed with the sonic differences. But thats subjective to my line of work (metal, wich usually calls for a more synthetic sound)

I guess to each his own! For me I will most likely never go back to software synths. or just using a computer for my music live productions. It's more hassle then its worth to me.

TL;DR to each his own[/u]
_________________

Current gear: Korg Kronos 61, Oberheim OB-8, Alesis Vortex
Past Gear: Triton Extreme w/moss & ram, Korg Radias, Kurzweil Micropiano, Triton classic, & Karma
Come visit my Burbank California repair shop/recording studio! Rosensound.com
And my band: Sirion.us.com

EvilDragon · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:26 am Post subject:

Korg also sort of recycled OASYS a bit with Kronos. Smile

Sure, SSD and gigabyte-sized "ROM" and disk streaming are a novelty (and a welcome one!) in workstation world, but...

Let's not talk about how virtually ALL Korg workstations since M1 basically follow the 2 oscillators per patch scheme. It is a bit limiting. D50 and later Roland's offsprings were better in that regard, allowing 4 "tones" or "partials" per patch. Motif is even better at 8 "parts" per patch. Kurzweil... up to 32. Laughing

Time to change some of these things, Korg. You already do it in your PA series and SV-1, they have more than 2 oscillators per patch. So why not workstations? If Korg wants to stay ahead of the game, they should introduce modularity. Take a HD-1 oscillator, pull it through MOD-7 waveshapers, use that as exciter for STR-1, and filter it all with MS-20 filter. That's not a novelty either, Kurzweil does it for about 30 years now. Laughing

But it would be a welcome addition to Korg.

GregC · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:36 am Post subject:

EvilDragon · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:41 am Post subject:

All boards should definitely have Kurzweil's MIDI implementation. Sadly, a lot of them don't.

The display is what it is for now. It's still remarkably fast to work on that old-skool UI, whether you admit it or not.

Bertotti · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 12:46 pm Post subject:

Well it was impressive and it does offer a lot for the money. I think should my savings fail or be needed for something else that it could be my choice instead of Kronos. Only if the money doesn't allow Kronos.

Kevin Nolan · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 12:58 pm Post subject:

EvilDragon · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:39 pm Post subject:

I guess it's a matter of what fits your workflow. I, for example, find VAST really easy to work with. Everything is logical, everything makes sense. But, I've dabbled with NI's Generator (later Reaktor) since I was 15, so maybe I'm in slight minority (for the record, I will be 25 this May, so that will mark 10 years of my synthesis endeavors). However, VAST is not impenetrable. It needs some getting used to, but once you figure it out, other synthesis methods pale in comparison with regards to flexibility you can achieve with VAST. I was up and working after a week of having received my PC3K8. As a disclaimer, it also helped reading all the manuals for K-series synths months and months before even having the actual cash to pay for it!

One thing to note is - you don't necessarily HAVE to do the same thing 32 times over, depending on how the patch is set up. You can cascade layers so you have, for example, 3 layers worth of oscillators, that all cascade to fourth layer which only has the filter. So you don't have to change the cutoff in 3 layers, but only in one. It's all about how you approach in structuring the layout of the program.

OF COURSE Korgs are gonna be easier to work with because they're not modular by nature! Sure, Kronos has all these engines, but it's essentially a fixed 2-partial structure and there's nothing you can do about it. If you want to use AL-1 filter on HD-1 samples, you can't. If you want to ring-mod an STR-1 program, you can't. That sort of thing, you know?

It all boils down to your preference - and I love ease of use just as much as I love going into too much detail and basically pushing out complex synth structures that you can't do in any other hardware workstation (I emphasize the word "workstation" here) EXCEPT Kurzweil. This is what I've wanted ever since I've had my hands on Reaktor. I wanted to have this sort of flexibility in live setting, but without dragging a laptop on the stage. I don't even have a laptop yet! Laughing

I've never played a K2500, so I cannot comment on the keybed. However I've heard a LOT of K2500s ended up being serviced because of a faulty keybed. It was a certain infamous Fatar model. But the one on my PC3K8 (also Fatar, TP40L) is very good IMHO and the only fault I find on it is that it's really hard to do consistent fast single key repetition. That's about it. I have the same amount of nuance as on my upright or any well adjusted piano. If not better.

About MIDI implementation, it's all in the Setup mode. Really flexible. It seems like OASYS/Kronos have shortened the gap between what was possible to do on older Korg's workstations in relation to what you can do on a Kurzweil, however I still feel Kurzweil has some advantage here. I cannot comment on multiple MIDI channels response being confusing, I didn't have any of that happen with my PC3K8.

I hope this was a satisfying answer. I enjoyed typing it up, at least! Smile

danatkorg · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:04 pm Post subject:

EvilDragon · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:16 pm Post subject:

I eagerly await the enabling of FM OPERATOR module on the PC3. It's a 2-block module that's available in there, the chips can do it and all that, but isn't enabled in the OS. That would make some things a lot easier and with less layers, I presume.

Other than that, a very interesting comparison of MOD-7 to VAST, Dan! I'd like to add that VAST can also do PWM on sample data, by introducing and modulating the DC offset to a waveform. Not sure if Kronos/OASYS can do that.

Also, PC3 offers some very special Kurzweil-only effects, like Pitcher and LaserVerb (well, that one sounds to me like flanged reverb for the most part, but it can go beyond that with tweaking, of course). Pitcher is especially interesting because it has a lot of strange and weird usages. Great for pads and atmospheres.

It's very true that Kronos and PC3 are complimentary boards, instead of being mutually exclusive. That's why both Korg and Kurzweil get love from me. It's a match made in heaven. Cool

danatkorg · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:30 pm Post subject:

EvilDragon · Posted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 7:32 pm Post subject:

True. The difference being that for each layer on PC3 you can have separate DSP processing, whereas on Kronos the 8 velocity layers go to the two filters then amp. It's a different working paradigm, and each has its pros and cons. Smile

Also on Kurzweil you can do velocity switching at keymap level. It's great they enabled keymap editing on PC3 (wasn't available before OS v2.0).