Korg Forums

[tommymandel]

Well I just achieved perfection: Midi'ed the Kross and the X50 together.
Wow!

[tommymandel]

After another week of playing a Kross-61 and an X50 side-by-side, through the same amplification system (a small Roland KC-110 and Roland M80 powered speakers) - I have to say what many here already know: they are very different sounding instruments.

The Kross is more detailed and clearer. Though not as detailed as, say Mainstage running in a laptop.

The X50 is zippier, with more bite, but some patches sound thinner (though equally deep in the bass) and can sound piercing, when compared to the Kross.

Ironically, they complement each other, and having one doesn't rule out needing the other for certain gigs or situations. At their price points, especially 2nd hand, (after all - we'll be contemplating a used Kronos too) having the both isn't necessarilly unaffordable.

But for a few gigs more than the price of owning both, someone could almost find a used Kronos-61; or pick up a new Krome-88 instead. Would that be better? Depends on the person's needs. My guess is that most people using this BB here would think that, compared to almost owning a Kronos, or even carting around a Krome-88, bringing a Kross61 and an X50 to a gig would be a really dumb thing to do.

See ya later with more posts on what increasingly seems like a one-man-thread.

[twstone1983]

I still check here from time to time. I just havent had much time to play with the Kross and TR much due to a very busy holiday season. I have plans to try and copy some TR patches into the Kross to see how they will sound or how close I can get them. One of the big differences between the TR/X50 and the Kross is that the Kross has 5 IFX where as the TR/X50 only has one. Many people on this forums feel that is one of the big reasons the TR/X50 has such a raw sound. So I wondered that if by turning off some of the IFX on the patches in the Kross, if it would make the sound more raw like the TR/X50. Just some food for thought.
_________________
regards,
Tim

Current Gear: N364, TR88, Kross61, Art Pro MPA II, Studio Projects B1, Shure SM58/SM57, Behringer C1, Behringer XM8500, Yamaha MG 10/2, Behringer Xenyx 1002FX, Steinberg CI2, Cubase AI 6.

[tommymandel]

I've been favoring the used X50 I picked up recently. The Kross is sitting in the other studio room. But today I grabbed it and took it to a rehearsal - the gig is kind of alternative/70's/reggae - a woman songwriter/rhythm guitarist, great drummer, and good bassist - really cool tunes, mostly up tempo, lots of upbeat-heavy organ parts, some horn lines and pianos and EP's too.
I grabbed the Kross because I knew where the sounds I needed were on it: (Favorites - 64 as opposed to 10 on the X50) and because it's really quick at making Splits, in case I needed to come up with some new Combi patches.
For the first minute or two, I felt like I was playing a toy. Then I realized the guy had plugged me into the board with weird EQ and too much reverb. Once I fixed that, the Kross SANG - it was a pleasure to play. Tons of feel, and interesting slightly unique sounding sounds.
So....This Round - to the KROSS!

[gospelkeys06]

What do you guys think about the organs??? on the kross I didn't get to play them much in guitar center.
_________________
God first THEN everything else!

[tommymandel]

[tommymandel]

Here's what Tom Coster said (about his Kronos, but it applies to the Kross with Favorites too!

JK: You do something interesting: when you pointed it out to me it surprised me so I’d like to share it with the readers. You’ve come to a point now with your organ sounds, while you certainly still do some drawbar work, some live moving of the drawbars to create those shimmer effects that you’ve given credit to Larry Young for inspiring you to do, but you’ve moved into a mode where you’re changing presets in places where somebody might have changed a drawbar, hit the Chorus/Vibrato button, even changed the rotation speed of the Leslie. What brought that about for you?

TC: Just because I had to do it quickly. When I was playing Hammond I used the reverse key presets a lot so it’s not that different. But then remember that you could set up 4 sets of drawbars and then using those controls. So by my setting up my most used sounds in the Kronos I can dial them in super fast. Another thing that is cool in the Kronos/CX3 is I can program a sound with the Leslie already spinning fast. So as I’m playing and I start crescendo-ing and I want to simulate pulling out the drawbars I would change patches, which only took a nanosecond. It would sound like I was pulling out drawbars because the change was fairly subtle, then by the time that I got to the full drawbars sound which was at the height of my solo, where I was playing some power chords or such, the Leslie would already be ramped up. For me that was kind of cool to be able to do that on a small wannabe organ like the CX3. It was helpful because I didn’t have the real thing there, and that’s why I did it.

The whole long interview is at :

http://www.keyboardmag.com/article/tom-coster-extended-interview/150595

[Justineponcedeleon16]

hey tommy buddy! cant understand about what u said with that cool rhodes piano that u could do with the kross. can u be more specific? sorry for disturbing hehee

[tommymandel]

Fountain of Youth Person: did you mean this post of mine:?

take the 002 Factory EP Program- E.P.Distortion SW2, and light both switches, which will turn on modulation, and turn off the distortion, and you have a pretty good Rhodes, in my opinion. (especially if you play it from an 88 note Stage Piano, and blend it with one of their dark ones with a bit of bell on it.)

To answer that question, I was talking about playing my Kross-61 via MIDI from a Casio Privia PX-330, and having the Casio (an 88-note weighted keyboard) set to its patch named EP2, which is very round but with a little of a bell-like top end to it. By itself, it's kind of okay, but when you combine it with that Kross EP (the one I was trying to describe clearly), the 2 of them together sound really great (to me) and respond very nicely to dynamic touch.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense, but hope it does

[BrunoJ]

Hello to everybody and welcome, as I'm new on Korg forum (however have X50 about 1,5y already).
I'd like to bring up this topic again, as I have impression it has not been explored (not enough for me at least).
I'm using X50 as supporting synth, really for few synth sounds, as well as for arpeggio. I have another boards, including stage organs and piano, so this feature is not very important for me - however I'm using it sometimes to layer with other sounds within combi. The point is X50 reach its age and bio-degradation started (plastics, power supply, dial ring etc..). So I've got the idea to move to Kross, as it is moreless the same 'level', and some new features will be only the benefit.
So, I'm really interested to see some more deep comparison of X50 and Kross, especially for synth section, but also maybe some functional/practical tricks, which are pros/cons for such change.
At least I'd like to have something similar sonically, then more features will give me the benefit. Unfortunately I cannot find so many voices that people changing X50 to Kross, can understand price issue (used X50 you can buy for really small money now), but I can assume there are also other reasons to don't make such change.

To be honest, I'm still considering to move more into direction of R3-like board. Mainly because I'm not really bother about organ/piano sounds, which is typically main comparison point between different boards. Something which is not overcomplicated for occasional keyboarder, but turning more into VA than rompler (BTW - R3 looks is discontinioused and cannot buy new one any more). KingKorg looks too much for me (but also people discuss a lot about pianos, and not that much about synth itself).

I saw in another posts there a is plan to compare X50 vs M50/Karma vs Kross. Could be nice.

Best Regards from Poland
BrunoJ

[tommymandel]

Bruno, I don't think the Kross is an ideal replacement for an X50. They just sound different. The Kross doesn't have the 4 3-function knobs either. The synth sounds may be a bit more modern on the Kross, but not electronically fat in the same way, and not as many of them. Korg has recently released a set of Programs that intend to clone Triton (X50) sounds onto the Kross, but although they aren't that different than their Triton counterparts, they mostly don't 'feel' the same sonically.
If you are just replacing the X50, why not find another X50? The Kross is amazing, and features the same weight-factor as X50. But many of its strengths are in its pianos and if you don't need that strength, maybe go with a more 'synthy' Korg. True the Kross has lots of synth Programs and Combis, Wobble is especially well represented... but I feel there are very basic differences from the X50 line, especially in the way that it sounds like you'll be using your new Korg synth.
Comparing my Karma to the X50, I'd say the Karma's aftertouch is a really really great advantage over keyboards with no aftertouch (X50, Kross.) On the negative side of the chart, the Karma is much much heavier to cart around. As far as the 'sound' - my karma is pretty old, but it doesn't sound quite as clean as the newer models, and possibly a bit thinner. The keybed feel is cool for synths and strings, but it's always been hard for me to really get into playing piano sounds (even with the EX-008 piano expansion wave board) on the Karma. It has a really cool piano/arpeggiator feature though, where when you press down hard on the keys, after striking a chord (and holding it) it arpeggiates like you are the best pianist in the world, LOL!

[BrunoJ]

I was lucky and as Easter gift I managed to find in the store 'forgotten' piece of new R3 and take it with visible discount. So, for the moment I'm not moving from X50 to Kross, but will monitor the topic. Unfortunately cannot find Kross to play in store (they have Krome only, which still sounds quite similar to X50). Hope to meet soon with my friend you have a Krome, so I can do direct comparision between X50 and Krome (not really fair comparsion, but should expose differences in sounds as you described). My assumption is Kross and Krome have the same 'type' of sonic, so if I like Krome, the Kross should be good as well.