Korg Forums

jaimonj · Full Member Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 145

Hey all, I see many of you who have received your K61. Need your initial thought. Like how it looks, how you like the placement of the volume knob, power switch, the blue lights used etc.

And congrats to all of you.

amosdef · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:01 pm Post subject:

Just a quick reply as I'm still going through sounds to get an idea of what I'm working with.

I'm quite pleased with the overall build quality. Everything feels solid and nice to the fingers. The keys are a bit different from my Alesis Fusion, but more of something I will adjust to rather than being better or worse. While the initial bootup is a bit painful, it is nice to have all sounds immediately available to load, which will be a big plus in not having to pre-load sounds like I do on the Fusion. I will need to invest in a rackmount UPS for live use though, can't afford such a delay when playing live. To be honest, I probably should have been using one all along.

Soundwise, it's got a lot of good stuff in the presets that I can use immediately to cover the many patches I need for our setlist (wide range of covers, trying to be as close to original sound as possible) There's also plenty of power and flexibility under the hood for customizing sounds and programming from scratch when needed. I'm loving the effects section as it gives me a lot more power than I'm used to and great routing options, which will make creating large combi's much easier and better.

The touchscreen is great for my uses as a top keyboard tilted towards me. I play while standing so I don't see the angle being an issue in this case. Display is nice and crisp and way better than the monochrome lcd I'm used to, so take it with whatever grain of salt you'd like.

Once I've gone through the sounds in more detail and have gotten some combis created, I'll be playing it in a more "live" type setup and will have more feedback on knob/switch placement and layout, but I haven't found anything so far that's a major issue for me.
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Amos
www.amishoutlaws.com

Bald Eagle · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:32 pm Post subject: Went Home Empty Handed

I played a Kronos today. There was one in stock, I had the cash in the bank and I went home empty handed. There were just too many things that I didn’t’ like about it. Most dislikes were small but when you add them all up it was kind of a disappointment. I guess that’s what months of hype and waiting can do.

I won’t say much about the sound quality. The store was noisy and I didn’t bring headphones so I will just say that it sounded good. I will have to pay another visit for a better listen one day.

The control surface looks great. The buttons, sliders and knobs felt great to me. The joy stick was basically the same as the M3 which I love so that was fine. The ribbon controller was ok. It had a slightly textured feel rather than being completely smooth.

The vector joystick felt like a cheap piece of crap that would change positions in a strong breeze. I want to be clear that I did not experience any problems with it, it just felt real cheap.

The data wheel is also a piece of crap. It feels cheap to the touch and moving it is even worse. I was able to grab the outer edges with just my thumb and index finger and pull it right off. It popped right back on but I have a feeling that even with normal use the data wheel is in for some future problems.

We all know there are no pads and I will miss those as I use them for RPPR triggers on the M3. I don’t need the velocity sensitivity of real pads for that but I do tend to hit them kind of hard when playing and I would fear damaging the touch screen by repeatedly hitting the virtual pads to hard.

As far as the beautiful touch screen I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I was not impressed. Maybe I would have been if I could read the text but its way too small for me. I never thought much of the screen on my M3 but at least I could read it.

To be fair if you have 20-20 vision you will be able to read the screen. I was however surprised that despite the small size I was able to accurately touch the screen images.

The viewing angle will also be a problem for me. The model I was playing was positioned at an angle typical of the top tier of a keyboard stand and the screen looked ok from that angle. I tried squatting to get a perspective as if you were seated with the keyboard flat and the screen became almost unusable for me. Granted that it was far from a scientific test but I don’t think the viewing angle is as good as many phones.

And finally we come to the keys. The feel of the keys is just like the M3 semi weighted. I absolutely love that feel so this was perfect. But alas, there are only 61 keys and that just won’t cut it for me. I could use my M3-73 for the keyboard. I just wonder if there is some way to remove the M3 module and slide the Kronos into the empty space. If it could be anchored in place without looking to bad that would make an awesome setup. The M3 module could be sitting on the side or above on an upper tier.

The overall architecture of the machine is the same as the OASYS, M3, M50. I’m generally happy with that architecture so I have no complaints there. Well, I wish the sequencer was at least M3 quality but I could probably learn to live with the existing version if I had to.

As far as the synth engines I mostly just played with the presets. I didn’t have the time to get any deeper so I will read up and go back another day to play some more.

I ran through some of the preset programs and combis pretty quick and although they sounded good a lot of them were very familiar to me. It seemed to me as if a lot of them were very similar to the M3. Of course the M3 came from OASYS so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there. I will have to compare voice name lists to see if there really is a large number of them that are similar to the M3.

I did pay special attention to the guitar programs. I was not expecting much and therefore wasn’t to disappointed to find that they are as poor as the M3 guitars. I really loved playing with the CX-3 engine but having grown up with a B3 I’m a bit partial there. If you’re not into Hammonds then EDS or HD1 tone wheel programs would probably be more than enough for you.

The bottom line for my choice today is that a few bad controls just make the rest of the control surface seem cheap to me. I mean after all of that hard work why would they go and make a data wheel that falls off and a cheap vector joystick. Add in the small screen size and the lack of a 73 semi weighted model and I had to pass for now.

I will have to rethink the Kronos for now. As it stands right now I would just be using it as a sound module and with the Jupiter 80 right around the corner I will probably wait a while so I can take a look at that. Then again, at some point I will likely get a bad case of GAS and give in to the Kronos temptation.

aron · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:38 pm Post subject:

I will have mine in a few days and I will give a review. Mine will come from the perspective of someone that hasn't owned a Korg product in recent years so my review may be all about stuff that you guys are used to. Anyway, I hope it's better than what I have now.

Right now, my live keyboards are mainly the PC361 and S90ES so lets see how it stacks up to any of them or all combined!
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Korg Kronos, RD-88, Yamaha VL1, Deep Mind 6, Korg Kross, author of unrealBook for iPad.

Vlad_77 · Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:59 pm Post subject:

Hi Aron,

I see that you have a PC361. I have a PC3. What I think you will find is that the Kronos and the Kurzweil complement one another very very nicely. I would not say one is "better" than the other. They are different and combined with the S90ES you will have a very rich sound palette! Imagine too the synthesis power of Kurzweil's Dynamic V.A.S.T. AND Kronos's nine engines. MIDI those girls together and the sonic possibilities would be stunning. I am certainly hopeful for that as I want to resample these two together and further mangle the sample in Kronos. Wink

My Kronos will be here on Monday! My review will no doubt also bore the long time Korg mavens as I have not bought a Korg since the Wavestation EX.

Looking forward to your review!

Ahimsa,
Vlad
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Current gear: Kronos, Jupiter 80, Kurzweil PC3,Roland Fantom X8, Roland XV-88 (yep, its old, but the ACTION is heaven and those XV-3080 sounds are still wonderful for me), Radias-R, Motif ES (yeah it's older but I love the guitars Wink

)

aron · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 12:29 am Post subject:

Vlad,

When my PC361 is fixed it will be a great combo! I'm going to do a gig where I will set up the Kronos, PC361, S90ES, VL1, Pro One and MicroMoog!!!!! That will be a fun keyboard gig for sure!

I haven't had the honor of owning a Korg in a long time. I'm looking forward to it.

Aron
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Korg Kronos, RD-88, Yamaha VL1, Deep Mind 6, Korg Kross, author of unrealBook for iPad.

BillW · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:10 am Post subject:

I brought mine home tonight and agree with many of the things Bald Eagle said. I thought it would completely replace my Fantom G6 for gigging, but I'm rethinking that already.
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Korg Kronos 61 (2); Kurzweil PC4; Casio Privia PX-350m; Macbook Pro

cynkh · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 3:43 am Post subject:

Regarding the knobs: I've had several Korg products since the Electribes first came out and have always found that the store models deteriorate very rapidly. When I first played an EA-1 and ER-1 at the store I was convinced the things would fall apart just taking them out of the box but they've held up very well in the studio (with much knob twiddling). Same for the microKORG and Triton Extreme- the store models looked like someone let a 1994 Trent Reznor run amok but they're all doing quite well at home.
As for the Kronos, I'm finding that the knobs are a bit on the tall side (which is just odd, really) and the data wheel definitely feels like the weakest link in the chain. They're holding up nicely and I have no reason to suspect this will fare any differently from the Triton, micro and 'tribes.
Now, the bits that everyone is actually waiting for:
I love the sounds!!! The MS-20 is absolutely amazing and sounds much more mature than the KLC version (could just be I have a crappy computer). As Tom Ellard from Severed Heads once said, "There's something alive in there!" (I'm throwing that quote around alot lately so apologies to anyone who's read my other posts!) Same for the Polysix: amazing and much more mature than KLC.
I spent 3 hours with one patch in the MS-20 today just moving patch cables around and tweaking with everything I could get my hands on.
The AL-1 is becoming my favorite. Quick tip: setup a template patch with multi filter, assign cutoff to one vector joystick axis and filter morph to the other for some serious tweaking!!
The organs are astounding. My last organ "emulator" was my Nord Lead (seriously, has anyone read the manual for that thing?) so I'm beyond impressed with the ability to add leakage, noise, key clicks and percussion as well as having a full Leslie emulator inside of the patch (no need to use a separate IFX, MFX or TFX). The electric pianos are equally amazing given that they're modeled. I haven't tweaked with the STR-1 yet but was pretty happy with what I've heard so far.
The HD-1 sampler is pretty neat and I love being able to setup wave sequences. You basically have a Korg Wavestation inside of one of these and that's one piece of gear I've wanted for a long time (although I like the joystick on the Kronos much better). I'll be interested to see how my Triton patches port over to the Kronos.
And lastly, the pianos are superb. The first thing I did was added key release and damper pedal noise to the mix and I really had the feeling that I was listening to an actual piano.

btw, I've got the 61 key version and I'm number 143 for anyone keeping score. I'll try to get some audio and video of this puppy in action for everyone.

Cheers...
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- cynkh -

Hardware:
Kronos 61, microKORG, MoPho, Rogue, Aira System-1, Aira TB-3, Aira TR-8, MC-202, TB-303, (KMS-30), Juno 6, Alpha-Juno 1 (PG-300), SH-201, MC-09, Virus TI Snow, K2000, MPC-1000, X-Station 25, MultiMix-16FW, Ableton Live Push

Software:
Logic Pro 9, Korg Legacy Collection, Komplete 8, vCollection 3, Sylenth1, microTonic

zahush76 · Junior Member Joined: 09 Mar 2011 Posts: 98

jaimonj · Full Member Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 145

First time I saw the knob (in picture) on Kronos I thought of Roland W30. I had two and they were even higher than the KK.

Thank you for posting & keep posting

Vlad_77 · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 5:51 am Post subject:

Muji · Full Member Joined: 12 Jan 2011 Posts: 209

Bald Eagle · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:28 am Post subject: Re: Went Home Empty Handed

BillW · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 12:57 pm Post subject:

BillW · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 2:26 pm Post subject:

By the way, I dove into the built-in help feature in the Kronos. It works extremely well! I was trying to figure out what a couple of parameters did in the CX-3 engine that weren't on the original CX-3 and was able to get an answer quickly. The help pages include plenty of hyperlinks which aid greatly in navigation. The font is tiny and hitting some of those hyperlinks with precision is often a challenge, but overall this is a great feature to have.
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Korg Kronos 61 (2); Kurzweil PC4; Casio Privia PX-350m; Macbook Pro