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shap · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:49 am Post subject: An apology, and a disclosure

In the past several days, I have made some technical criticisms of the KRONOS that I personally believe are valid. Along the way, I've gotten over-excited at a couple of points, and I've managed to say some stupid things. Dan Philips has expressed annoyance privately, and Neroesque has expressed it more strongly here on the forum. Both are right to have done so, and I thank them.

So I want to apologize, and attempt to explain. In order to do that, a disclosure is necessary: I am part of a small group that is seriously looking at buildiing a next-generation synth. If we decide to go forward, we can probably raise the money to do it. Whether we can bring together the expertise remains to be seen. If we proceed, our credibility will be judged by the market a few years down the road. So there is the disclosure part.

First, to set the record straight, what do I think of the KRONOS today, as it exists and as I've used it? And what do I think of the KRONOS engineers? The KRONOS is remarkable, and the accomplishment that it represents as an engineering result is astounding. It is especially astounding when you take the pricing and currency constraints into account: to meet a $3700 USD target at today's currency rates at any reasonable margin, the KRONOS build has to be a lot cheaper than any previous workstation. And the KRONOS engineers met that challenge, and then they went ahead and pretty much kicked the ass of the workstation competition for the next three years. I have tried to say that consistently on these forums, but I have not always succeeded. Since some people feel that I have been disrespectful to the Korg team in Japan, I wanted to say it again, all in one place.

So if I feel this positive about the product and the team that built it, how did I manage to get so carried away that I said such unfair things - up to, and including, challenging Korg's forward-looking vision. Strangely enough, it came out of sympathy for the overwhelming pain that I believe Korg (along with Yamaha, Roland, and Kurzweil) will have to overcome in the next few years because of their success.

You see, Korg didn't just change the game. They changed the landscape. Setting aside products that are already in the design pipeline, it seems to me that the era of custom hardware synthesis is now definitively over. In the same way that IBM created the PC standard by building a low cost device from commodity parts, so has Korg. It is utterly brilliant, and it took an incredibly sustained vision, and I am deeply ashamed that of all the words I might have chosen to express my fears about the future, I chose "vision". That was an act of incredible disrespect, and I apologize to everyone at Korg.

So why do I think that Korg is about to face such great pain?

In brief, the competitors now have to match Korg's build costs, and the only real way to do that is by shifting to commodity hardware coupled with software-implemented synthesis. So they will. Which means that Korg has just launched a global race for a standardized synthesizer/workstation platform.

Of course, IBM didn't win that race. In fact, none of the incumbent computer companies won that race, because they were unable to make the transition to what (then) were called "open systems" (meaning third-party extensible at many layers; unrelated to what we call "open source" today).

Bill Gates and a young, innovative company called Compaq did that.

The migration from a proprietary world-view to an open standard world-view is infinitely harder than the migration from proprietary hardware to commodity hardware inside a closed device. I lived through it, at close hand, in the software industry. It hurt us. A lot. And it is now going to hurt Korg and the others. It is going to challenge many things that Korg (and Yamaha, and Roland) now perceive as their cherished core advantages, and it is going to turn some of those things into liabilities. Just as it did in the PC world.

And so I believe that Korg's next great "vision" challenge is to stay ahead of the tsunami that the KRONOS has just unleashed (I am sorry; I realize that this is a very painful metaphor right now). Perhaps Tsutomu-san had even greater vision than I already imagine, and Korg has anticipated and planned for this change successfully, and Seiki-san will be able to guide and complete that transform. In my experience, if any group of people in the world can achieve such a thing by overwhelming discipline, hard work, and foresight it is the Japanese. No other organization in history has ever accomplished such a thing, and I wish Korg great luck in the attempt.

For those at Korg, I hope, at least, that the thoughts and concerns behind my ill-chosen words now make a small shadow of sense, even if you do not agree. And I hope that you will accept my apology for those badly chosen words.

I know that many on this forum will feel compelled to challenge my assumptions or my beliefs in defense of Korg, and particularly my view that standardization is now inevitable. I wish to leave this to stand as an apology, and I do not plan to engage in those discussions in this thread.

Jonathan S. Shapiro
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curvebender · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:44 am Post subject: Re: An apology, and a disclosure

synthguy · Platinum Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Posts: 661

EvilDragon · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:10 am Post subject: Re: An apology, and a disclosure

BergerS · Joined: 18 Jun 2011 Posts: 20

Maybe I'm very wrong here, but I think many workstation buyers are amateurs musicians who want to make nice music in the most simple and intuitive way. for these people, a hardware workstation is a very good solution.

This crowed is not necessarily looking for the best sound in every class to get the best sounding production - for this, there are special plug-ins which probably will get you the best sound in each category.

Problem is, these plug-ins need to be collected and embedded in what ever computerized DAW which is already a hassle to manage and maintain.

I work with computers every day, and the last thing I want when I make music is to face another one.
I know this approach might be outdated and I might be just fighting inevitable progress, but I think there are a few more guys like me, lots of guys in fact, which make the whole workstation segment a valid business for these big companies.

Maybe Kronos is the last workstation, in this case the company who started this whole thing with the M1, will be the one to turn out the light on this category, I call it a very nice closure!

bulusglo · Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 3 Location: France

Hello,

The presence of such a subject in a Kronos forum reinforces my view that Korg did a GREAT thing by releasing this synth.

Korg has won a place of choice in the (future) Music Standard Consortium.
The MSC could publish standards for MIDI 2.0 which still stands for Musical Instruments Digital Interface and can encompass standards for what is called today VST/AU/Rewire and others.

This subject is more about humans and business than technical.

Such a consortium would take peoples from Korg, Roland, Yamaha, Clavia and a few software companies to work together on a common project. Maybe that will occurs when they all feel the need for it (how many workstation sold this year ? is it a market to keep ?).
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Thank you for Kronos.

Mystic38 · Senior Member Joined: 27 Dec 2010 Posts: 266

Your vision of an open standard and platform is not a vision. It is hindsight as you have just described the PC/VST environment.... Which of course was the end of electronics instruments.

But it wasn't

So the someone invented "music computing" and made The PC/VST environment cooler, but far more expensive...and THAT was the end of electronic instruments

but it wasn't

The exercise of repackaging a computer, VST, control surface and audio interface and calling it a music computer is the pursuit of technology for it's own end. It is more expensive and offers less than a consumer can do himself... There is no innovation or added value added in this approach....it becomes not the best of both worlds (instrument or PC), but the worst.

In the rush to get carried away by technology, many people are simply missing the point.. Music is about emotion.... It requires emotion, it needs to create emotion... You need to feel. .. And interact... For that to happen...you need an instrument ..
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BergerS · Joined: 18 Jun 2011 Posts: 20

Kontrol49 · Platinum Member Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 1280

Have we missed something? Shocked

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bulusglo · Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 3 Location: France

The question stands for live keyboard as well.

I saw Mickael Miro (he is in the charts in France) on tv last week, his band was playing live, with 2 keyboardists, both equiped with a macbook layed on a 88 keys Numa Nano keyboard. The style of music played was rock / jazz.

I doubt for myself that this could be an easy setup for Live, I would prefer a Kronos, but I think those pro musicians can consider they have instruments.

If Korg was not releasing the Kronos, I would not buy a synth keyboard today.
_________________
Thank you for Kronos.

Scott · Platinum Member Joined: 16 Oct 2009 Posts: 1015

Chriskk · Senior Member Joined: 10 May 2011 Posts: 349

Mystic38 · Senior Member Joined: 27 Dec 2010 Posts: 266

the op, like everyone is entitled to his views..but I dont know if you read the thread in question..however the OP was going on a bit Smile

.... in excessive, repetitive and irrelevant length...the comments were beyond a personal opinion and discussion of the product

i give him credit for the apology.

bulusglo · Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 3 Location: France

I like the analogy made by Sharp and the software aspect noticed by Scott.
Is it true that Korg Kronos Operating System is based on an Linux Kernel ?
This is stated here in wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korg_Kronos

I wonder how much common software there is between Kronos and music oriented Linux distributions (http://www.linux-sound.org/distro.html). I won't be surprised to learn that Korg participated to some open source project.

At the end of the day, synthesizers have always been computers with processors, OS and softs, the processor having more or less hard coded routines. Korg has taken a nice technical decision by coming to linux. They could switch to a computer based platform easier than Yamaha or Roland today. (This is not new at Korg - VST Legacy suite, OASYS ..., I do like Korg's strategic choices as far I can see).
_________________
Thank you for Kronos.