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| Is the Kronos weathering the storm? |
| Yes, because it is so good. |
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75% |
[ 58 ] |
| Not yet, I will reserve judgement. |
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16% |
[ 13 ] |
| Still not happy, maybe I never will be. |
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7% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 77 |
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runningman67
Platinum Member
Joined: 06 Aug 2011
Posts: 1663
Location: Manchester UK
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 Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:46 pm Post subject: Is the Korg Kronos, weathering the storm? what storm? :) |
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The Kronos forum has been white hot since last spring. One year on and what a journey.
Mixed with the rave reviews and the excellent and wide variety of original and cover music posted here, there has been the debate about the fan noise, boot up time, keybed issues etc. Then the editor arriving late.......very late.
The fan noise is either tolerated, not a problem or replacable, the keybed issue is an easy fix, the boot up time has to be accepted and the editor is probably at best, average........
My thoughts and I hope you don't mind my mini review, is that the Kronos is weathering the storm and into it's second year, the only way is up.
Why?........because it is an absolutely beautiful keyboard. The fullness of it's sound, the depth of its capabilities. The evolving library and the classic looks, make it a winner. When you take into account the price, it really is a no brainer.
After a days work or having time to myself, I don't think that I have ever looked forward to playing a keyboard, more than the Kronos.
Cheers
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Last edited by runningman67 on Tue Apr 24, 2012 2:23 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jeebustrain
Platinum Member
Joined: 24 Jan 2011
Posts: 1284
Location: In a Roger Dean painting
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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I agree. I think it is a fantastic instrument and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I read some of the posts in here and it actually worries me. I can draw several parallels to the Alesis Fusion - of which I was also an early adopter. It was one of those boards that many said was released "too early." It had it's share of issues, but was (and still is) enormously powerful as a synth. Unfortunately though, a few high profile software bugs (which were fixed in later OS revisions) and some planned specification revisions (there were things that were to be released in later OS versions that never came to be), the negativity on the internet (specifically one particular Fusion forum) became almost unbearable. It was actually comical - because you would see someone make a post about an issue that they "heard about" from someone - that post would get referenced in another forum as reason why the "Fusion sucks" and then all of the sudden that single issue which may or may have not been true was actually referencing itself 3-4 times on the internet. There were even a lot of other parallels, keybed issues, fan issues, people complaining about the screen.
The negative actually got so bad that it really started to affect sales of the instrument - ultimately, Alesis dropped support of it because they were no longer making money because of the bad publicity. They allocated OS development elsewhere (the guts of it eventually made way into a new AKAI MPC) and the Fusion never actually got those features that were supposed to be coming down the pipe. It was the last major synth (other than the Micron) that Alesis ever built.
That whole experience put a really healthy dose of skepticism towards a lot of the negative posts on here - especially when there were so many posts early on from people that were bashing the Kronos that didn't even have one (the exact same problem on the Fusion forum). I have both the Kronos and the Fusion and they are both excellent instruments - You have to buy the synth for what it is today and not what some spec sheet says it will be - that includes doing research before you purchase to make sure you know what you're actually getting. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality of buying consumer electronics today.
All I can say is - for those people that constantly complain about the instrument and imply that Korg is "screwing you" (remember the people talking about class action lawsuits?) - be careful what you wish for. Korg can just as easily drop development of the OS (and any peripherals) and move development resources elsewhere. That's what the "specifications subject to change without notice" thing means that's on their website (and I think on the Kronos box itself) means.
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NuSkoolTone
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Joined: 19 Mar 2007
Posts: 1069
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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I voted "Yes". "Because it is so good" I think is a stretch though. I don't think "the only way to go it up" is really appropriate either. Nothing's been that bad IMO. Maybe some impatience and a couple of stumbles along the way, but most have been pretty excited to get their hands on this tech. I know I am!
What's going to differentiate this from being a solid OASYS spin off to it's own thing is going to come down to support maximizing the potential of what's possible with the given hardware and technologies that have been implemented. Also, how much power Korg puts into the hands of its users, like allowing us to make our own streaming sample sets.
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Korg: KRONOS 73, M50-61, 01W/r
Yamaha: Motif XS7, FS1R
Kawai K5000S, Roland JD-990 w/Vintage Synth |
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ScoobyDoo555
Platinum Member
Joined: 12 Jan 2008
Posts: 840
Location: Herefordshire, UK
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Despite Korg's best attempts to screw it up, it is doing well.
Very poor world-wide launch - awful communication in the UK especially.
Glitches and bugs I can live with, after all, the OS in its current guise is still very new.
The editor/plug well, it's laughable.
The K61 seems to be pretty reliable (well, mine is - "touch wood")
Aside from these issues, Korg made a good keyboard.
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GregC
Platinum Member
Joined: 15 May 2002
Posts: 9451
Location: Discovery Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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the Internet ' storm ' as you put it, is pretty much history.
a cloud or 2 over the editor but thats the extent of it in the bigger picture.
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jimknopf
Platinum Member
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Posts: 3374
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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It is simply the most powerful and versatile synth I ever played, and so my main judgement is absolutely positive.
There are some things I look at critical, though:
- the cutoff issues should never have happened in numbers, and there are definitely too many people having problems with the keybed (key noises from the start or after too short time, no exact fitting of the keys leading to some keys stuck at the front panel etc.)
- a few casual OS crashes, which some users experienced (causing a lot of uncertainty among live players who can't afford a second Kronos backstage and would like to rely completely on this board)
- a bad handling of the the advertised editor/vsti integration, with extremely late delivery, no well done communication in the meantime, and finally very poor quality and usability.
I never complained about minor things like the datawheel (replaced by Korg) or the crappy fan (replaced by me).
All in all I am VERY happy with this synth: it is the definitive centerpiece of my gear, and a constant kick for creativity. If I say that without any hesitation, despite the critical points, you can measure how much I like to use this synth!
That's why I really hope that Korg gets the problems out of the Kronos history fast and that their management acknowledges the very important role of the r&d team, not only for the present state of things, but for any future Korg success.
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michelkeijzers
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Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 9113
Location: Netherlands
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:08 pm Post subject: |
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I don't have any significant problems with the synth and the minor I barely notice or just are something I would have designed differently (but defeneately not a bug or hardware mismoddeling of some kind).
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Ojustaboo
Platinum Member
Joined: 08 Jul 2011
Posts: 1154
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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| jeebustrain wrote: |
especially when there were so many posts early on from people that were bashing the Kronos that didn't even have one
You have to buy the synth for what it is today and not what some spec sheet says it will be - that includes doing research before you purchase to make sure you know what you're actually getting. It's unfortunate, but that's the reality of buying consumer electronics today. |
I disagree with the above.
1) I don't have to own something to get a feel for how well it's been produced/designed/quality controlled etc. This can apply to many of lifes objects.
There is for example, many cars that I wouldn't even consider buying without ever owning one, due to what's been reported and what reviews they have got.
Exactly the same can be said for TV sets or hi-fi equipment.
I read reviews, see what people that I trust say about the equipment, see whether the manufacture delivers what they say they have, go on forums dedicated to that particular product and see what people that have been around a while have to say etc, and all this goes towards whether or not a particular company stands any chance of getting my money.
2) You may be happy for manufactures to say one thing on a spec sheet and deliver another, personally I am not, I don't care whether it's something that's cost me £1 or £100000 if it doesn't deliver what they say it will, I will complain and rightly so. It's only because so many people put up with companies marketing departments exaggerating all the time that companies think they can get away with it. To put it bluntly, they shouldn't do it and we should never accept it as the norm if they do.
If Korg (or Roland, Yamaha etc) produce a spec sheet for a product and me as the customer am expected to take what it says like a pinch of salt, then what you are really saying is that I shouldn't trust what that company says. To me, if that's the case, something has gone seriously wrong with that company.
3) You say we should do our own research, well that relates to my point no 1. I come into the Kronos forum to do some research, I read what other people have experienced, It's obvious from what they have experienced that something has gone wrong somewhere. I am interested in buying the product but not until I know such problems are no more. Hence I have a right to post and ask what on earth has gone wrong. And something clearly has gone wrong within Korg.
So, people like me express our concerns, then get told that we don't really have a right to comment as we don't own one.
Without wanting to repeat myself, read this post I posted a couple of days ago, the quote I mention in it from Stephen Kay, to me justifies my concerns.
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=71533&start=13
4) The vast majority of people either owned Kronos's and were venting their frustration (and had I spent my money on one, I too would have been joining them had I experienced it), or people were voicing their concerns about the quality control etc based on them doing their own research based on what people that owned them were saying.
And while I know that any forum will have an unrealistic number of complainers, for example if 10000 PS3's were sold, only the 300 with faulty ones are going to be complaining about the problem in the Sony forums, this was a very very different situation.
It looked to me after doing my research that the few people complaining about the whiners were the ones that were constantly bringing down threads and turning them into slanging matches, and it also seemed to me that these people experiencing no problems also appeared to be in the minority on this forum. That's not to say that I have a problem with anyone trying to inject balance as they see it. But there's injecting balance and there's being rude to a lot of people that are frustrated with how things seem to be going. Too often it seems that people with no problems choose the being rude route.
When we have people that have been here a long time and they have 3 different Kronos and others that have had 2 or 3 all with the same problems and have then gone and tried others at random stores and again found the problem on all of them, then while I hate the term fanboy, it did come across to me in a lot of threads on here that there were a few people that wouldn't hear a thing said against their beloved Korg no matter how justified it might be. That's what it honestly looked like to me. And it was always those people that ended up completely derailing threads.
A recent example is the editor, it seems to me that a good 90%+ of people on this forum are not happy with what they've been handed.
If that's the case, Korg read these forums, Korg needs to know that the majority of customers that were waiting for the editor feel let down. Yes people could contact them direct, but often by doing this, each email would get read by a different person, some will be simply ignored etc. By posting on a forum, Korg get the feel of what their customers really think.
While doing my research I find a lot of interesting info about the editor and I also find a lot of people again complaining about the whiners for giving their opinion about it. What's worse, a lot of these people have an almost bigoted view. They don't see the editor or how it functions within a daw as important to them, so as far as they are concerned, it cant be that bigger deal for anyone else either hence when people complain about it, they are often quite rude in their responses which again is the sort of thing that puts me off reading parts of this forum.
| Quote: |
All I can say is - for those people that constantly complain about the instrument and imply that Korg is "screwing you" |
You yourself have implied we shouldn't be taking any notice of their spec sheet.
| Quote: |
Korg can just as easily drop development of the OS (and any peripherals) and move development resources elsewhere. That's what the "specifications subject to change without notice" thing means that's on their website (and I think on the Kronos box itself) means. |
Yep but I know as well as you know what "specification subject to change" really means. If they imply their customers are getting xyz but change their specs and give them abc, I hope they don't expect their customers to remain customers much longer.
I personally am very very worried about Korg. Reading what various people are saying, such as the huge staff turnover after Kato died, a shortage of resources in their engineering department, the short cuts that simply shouldn't have made it out the factory with the Kronos, without wanting to repeat the thread I linked to, I've owned few Korgs over the last 32 years and the last thing I want them to do is fail.
But it does seem to me that something has gone wrong at the heart of the organisation and unless things do change, then I do think the long term future will bleak for them.
If no one came on forums like this to vent their dissatisfaction, then Korg would go on blindly thinking their customer base was very happy but finding themselves selling less and less and wondering why.
Then the sort of management that will save £50 and pi$$ off a large percentage of the customer base is the sort of management that instead of learning, as they've not made as much as they thought, they simply cut costs still further producing shoddier and shoddier goods and end up tarnishing what was once a superb reputation.
I don't want that to happen to Korg but it is a worry to me.
With the Kronos fiasco (and it was a fiasco regardless of the fact that some people were lucky to have a perfect working one first time) hopefully after they get all the feedback from their staff that read forums like this, they will sit up and rethink their direction.
Only time will tell.
best
Joe
Last edited by Ojustaboo on Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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JPROBERTLA
Senior Member
Joined: 04 Jul 2011
Posts: 483
Location: New Orleans
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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I believe the Kronos has done well during its first year (even when factoring in the teething problems), but I firmly believe it is at the beginning of its "reign".
Why? Example: Last week I got back together with the band I was working with at the time of Hurricane Katrina. Now that finally there is some semblance of normalcy here. We were listening to sequences to decide which ones we were going to keep. Since I have not completed transferring all of the sequences from the Triton, we listened to some on the Kronos and some on the Triton, as well as some new sequences done on the Triton.
Being vocalists, they had never seen nor heard of the Kronos. They were extremely impressed with the Kronos' sonic quality and realism. These are very good musicians with over 60 years of experience in the New Orleans music scene - reliable sources.
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Kronos2-88, Behringer XR18, Turbosound IP2000 (x2), dbx DriveRack 260, KRK Rokit 8s, Mackie CFX16, Mackie SRM450(x2), Mackie SRS1500 (x2), BBE processors (x4), Roland VSR 880 (x2), Alto TS210, Alto TX10 (x3) and SoundForge |
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cello
Platinum Member
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 2152
Location: Glasgow, UK
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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Great post Joe.
Whilst I could add lots of things I believe I have seen in the last couple of years, it's probably best to say you have my total agreement here.
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Plugged in: Fantom 8, Jupiter-X, Jupiter 80, System-8, JD-XA, V-Synth GTv2, FA-06, SE-02, JU-06A, TR-09, VT-4, Go:Livecast, Rubix44, Shure SM7b, Push2, Ableton 11 Suite, Sibelius, KRK Rokit 5, |
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Zeroesque
Senior Member
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Posts: 451
Location: SoCal
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| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| JPROBERTLA wrote: | | Last week I got back together with the band I was working with at the time of Hurricane Katrina....They were extremely impressed with the Kronos' sonic quality and realism. |
This would, in fact, be "weathering the storm" then? 
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LivePsy
Senior Member
Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 355
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| Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:06 am Post subject: |
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| JPROBERTLA wrote: | I believe the Kronos has done well during its first year (even when factoring in the teething problems), but I firmly believe it is at the beginning of its "reign".
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Development wise the Kronos is a repackaging of the Oasys, which doesn't seem like the beginning of a reign to me. I'm not criticizing the Kronos for being a repackage - its got new machines and yes they are groundbreaking for hardware. But the Korg tradition needs to be broken which dates back to the M1. What was a couple of buttons and a slider back then has become a mixing console and the whole realtime / timbre / tone adjust thing is just far too complicated. I never know which mode I want and if I have to go to a screen to help me understand it, then it has lost its way.
The Triton sequencer needs to meet the 21st century with pattern launching, actually intuitive muting and of course the features of the M3.
The Kornos is great, but it can't go any further unless the original architecture is replaced with something new. Its too stuck on jumping into separate modes to do a continuous flow of activities. Global mode for drum editing? Jumping out of combi or seq mode to tweak a prog? I know this stuff intimately, but its getting old.
I have every confidence Korg can do better. Kronos isn't bad, but it could do with a new lease on life.
Regards,
B |
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jeremykeys
Platinum Member
Joined: 19 Jun 2011
Posts: 3092
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:08 am Post subject: |
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When the Oasys came out I as in love with it. It was to me the Maserati of keyboards. Unfortunately it also came with a Maserati like price tag and since I'm just a simple working schlub there was no way I could ever afford one unless I married rich or won a lottery. Well, did get married but not rich and we all know about lotteries so imagine my surprise when the Kronos came out. Yeah. Weathered the storm? For me it's a case of "what storm?"
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If music is the food of love, play on and play loud!
Gear: Kronos 73, Triton Pro-X, Wavestation EX, Polysix, King Korg, Monotron and Monotron Duo, Minikorg, Moog Grandmother, 1 Roland U-20, Hammond M3, 4 acoustic and 6 electric guitars, 1 Ibanez 5 string bass, a bunch of microphones and other very cool toys, 1 wife and 3 cats! |
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Francois
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Joined: 06 May 2003
Posts: 4854
Location: Northants - UK
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| Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:12 am Post subject: |
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| Ojustaboo wrote: | | I come into the Kronos forum to do some research, I read what other people have experienced, It's obvious from what they have experienced that something has gone wrong somewhere. |
You are wrong. The internet has the effect of amplifying and distorting reality. So for one bad comment from somebody bitching about this or that, you get the feeling that the problem is worse than really is.
The only true problem so far has been the RH3 issue. And that is largely behind us since Korg decided on a no question asked swap when required.
Secondly, another effect of the internet is that it's only people who are dissatisfied who make all the noise. For one user who has an axe to grind, you've got 50 who are happy and don't feel the need to vent their spleen.
Finally, I take comments from users who have the Kronos very seriously, good or bad.
Comments from people who don't own one but feel the need to give us their thoughts, I don't have time for. |
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Sina172
Platinum Member
Joined: 29 May 2007
Posts: 1194
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| Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:22 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Sina172 on Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:47 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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