Jupiter80 vs Kronos

[sani]

Now I've mostly been a korg person, so I know the Kronos OS. But my friend who always used Roland's admitted he agreed with me. Within an hour of being on the Kronos he could find his way around to everything.

That's interesting. Sparkie owned 3 different Korg workstations with the identical OS and couldn't figure the basic functions out.

[sparkie]

PF, Go count all the Kronos posts with issues, software bugs, hardware problems for just the last month! Then come back and tell us more about how you dont care for those ugly colored buttons.

Count all the different people with issues, software bugs, hardware problems for just the last month and you will see it are about 10, for hardware issues even less and some of the software bugs are misunderstandings by not reading the manual.

Oh Please..and you think thats good.. Only 10?? ...glad I am not one those sitting on a 76 or 88 key.

[GregC]

PF, Go count all the Kronos posts with issues, software bugs, hardware problems for just the last month! Then come back and tell us more about how you dont care for those ugly colored buttons.

Count all the different people with issues, software bugs, hardware problems for just the last month and you will see it are about 10, for hardware issues even less and some of the software bugs are misunderstandings by not reading the manual.

Oh Please..and you think thats good.. Only 10?? ...glad I am not one those sitting on a 76 or 88 key.

Now I get it ! I always wondered why you have so many issues with keyboards.

You sit on them. Do you run out of polyphony when you sit on your keyboards ?

what do you do with a chair ? squeeze the cushion ?

[Bruce Lychee]

Geez guys... Enough of the petulant behavior, don't you think?

Interesting take PFD.

I don't agree regarding the pianos or strings, but I do think the EPs on the Kronos absolutely kill.

One thing I noticed is that you made no mention of the single biggest difference between the emulations on the Kronos and Jupiter ... The way the sounds can be used. Were you testing single notes and chord stabs or playing music with each sound? I had posted a simple bass example using the Jupiter highlighting some of the ways the behavioral modeling gets triggered. I have yet to be able to do it with the Kronos.

I think that for your tribute band and cover bands in general, the Kronos is the better choice because it really captures many classic sounds really well. Plus if you have a full band your needs for emulations will be limited.

[sparkie]

Now I've mostly been a korg person, so I know the Kronos OS. But my friend who always used Roland's admitted he agreed with me. Within an hour of being on the Kronos he could find his way around to everything.

That's interesting. Sparkie owned 3 different Korg workstations with the identical OS and couldn't figure the basic functions out.

Yeah correct, and judging by all the issue posts..polls etc. I am not the only one either. I guess you havent read all the questions and issues being posted everyday..saving and loading files..Formatting USB sticks.. combis issues..EX and HD Sample Bank questions. ..SSD Streaming.. Editor etc etc..

Most people work and dont have time to read 400 pages of manuals all day like you!!

[GregC]

Now I've mostly been a korg person, so I know the Kronos OS. But my friend who always used Roland's admitted he agreed with me. Within an hour of being on the Kronos he could find his way around to everything.

That's interesting. Sparkie owned 3 different Korg workstations with the identical OS and couldn't figure the basic functions out.

Yeah correct, and judging by all the issue posts..polls etc. I am not the only one either. I guess you havent read all the questions and issues being posted everyday..saving and loading files..Formatting USB sticks.. combis issues..EX and HD Sample Bank questions. ..SSD Streaming.. Editor etc etc..

Most people work and dont have time to read 400 pages of manuals all day like you!!

We can tell you work hard,

what about the data wheel and boot up time ?

Thats classic obsessive whining stuff. Don't you miss those fun times ?

[michelkeijzers]

Now I've mostly been a korg person, so I know the Kronos OS. But my friend who always used Roland's admitted he agreed with me. Within an hour of being on the Kronos he could find his way around to everything.

That's interesting. Sparkie owned 3 different Korg workstations with the identical OS and couldn't figure the basic functions out.

Yeah correct, and judging by all the issue posts..polls etc. I am not the only one either. I guess you havent read all the questions and issues being posted everyday..saving and loading files..Formatting USB sticks.. combis issues..EX and HD Sample Bank questions. ..SSD Streaming.. Editor etc etc..

Most people work and dont have time to read 400 pages of manuals all day like you!!

You are right that some people have problems with several items. However, a few of them (like bank / combi issues), are caused by the fact that Korg synths are very flexible but this flexibility comes at a cost. Other synths offer less flexibility (like that if you want to improve a program you have to change all combis).

SSD streaming is quite new ... only Korg uses it.

About hardware related issues: of course this is not good and I really hope for those few who have problems, that it will be fixed fast.

[Zeroesque]

Don't feed the trolls.

[drama1]

Not to throw a curveball into this thread, but this board's pianos sound wonderful. And the strings, although not in this video, simply cannot be touched by any hardware synth. Although, I'm old so what the hell do I know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOXN6a6ZrP4

[JPWC]

time to move this thread and rename it to "Poster VS. Poster"

[madbeatzyo111]

Not to throw a curveball into this thread, but this board's pianos sound wonderful. And the strings, although not in this video, simply cannot be touched by any hardware synth. Although, I'm old so what the hell do I know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOXN6a6ZrP4

Kurz is definitely a contender; I'm really interested to see how it plays but none of my local music stores carries it unfortunately.

But didn't EvilDragon say Kurz is coming out with something big soon (as in Kronos/JP80-killer)? It may be better to wait and see for now.

[RonF]

PFD, your review was great, and on most points I agree. The ONLY point I cannot agree with isn't even about JP80 vs Kronos, but Expressiveness vs Non-expressiveness on a weighted vs. synth-action keybed. But that is a very different topic.

I think your analysis was spot on, and fair. What it illustrates is that each keyboard has its strengths and weaknesses, and each has a different sonic "colour" in varying genres of patches. This is very subjective, and each user is going to like or dislike one genre over another, in the same way that some like jazz and some like rap.

Personally, I prefer the JP80 SOLO strings much better than Kronos. But I like many of Kronos ensemble strings better.

I must agree with Bruce a bit here too, and I think it illustrates a point that I made a week or so ago in this thread. Many who demo the JP80 get caught up in the 'so many variables' to be compared and explored, that they do an apples to apples comparison, and neglect (if not outright forget) to explore the SuperNatural nuances and articulations. First of all...this is not a simple thing to explore! In many cases its subtle. It also takes time to learn how and where to operate and/or activate the various articulations, and it requires adjusting, in many cases, your playing style to do it. Not something easily done, or heard, in the music store. Sure, some articulations are just obvious and immediate. But there is a ton of more subtle nuance than this would have you first believe. Its not enough, in this case, to hear an obvious string trill or legato transition, and think: ok, well big deal, I could have done that on Kronos with a few key switches. That type of judgement is simply missing the finer points of many of the SuperNatural patches. You REALLY need to take time to explore, critically listen to, learn to play, and become expressive using, these patches. This is something more easily over-looked than comparing touch screens, or one genre of patch against another. Food for thought to any potential JP80 buyer.

All in all, PFD, I appreciated your balanced review....and think you are on point in 95% of your remarks.

Ron

[Randelph]

RonF wrote:

I must agree with Bruce a bit here too, and I think it illustrates a point that I made a week or so ago in this thread. Many who demo the JP80 get caught up in the 'so many variables' to be compared and explored, that they do an apples to apples comparison, and neglect (if not outright forget) to explore the SuperNatural nuances and articulations. First of all...this is not a simple thing to explore! In many cases its subtle.

I understand you're saying more than this (like learning to "play" with this new level of expressiveness); but I'm wondering if a lot of the SN advantage of expressiveness is like the Kronos SGX-1 piano: sounds fantastic solo'd, but a lot of it is lost in a more complex sound, like a busy Combi or a loud band situation.

As a further illustration of evaluating sounds in context, in my use of the M3, I've been surprised at how few Programs sound all that great to me, but put it in a Combi and the whole can be much greater than the sum of its parts.

Randy

[Bruce Lychee]

RonF wrote:

I must agree with Bruce a bit here too, and I think it illustrates a point that I made a week or so ago in this thread. Many who demo the JP80 get caught up in the 'so many variables' to be compared and explored, that they do an apples to apples comparison, and neglect (if not outright forget) to explore the SuperNatural nuances and articulations. First of all...this is not a simple thing to explore! In many cases its subtle.

I understand you're saying more than this (like learning to "play" with this new level of expressiveness); but I'm wondering if a lot of the SN advantage of expressiveness is like the Kronos SGX-1 piano: sounds fantastic solo'd, but a lot of it is lost in a more complex sound, like a busy Combi or a loud band situation.

I think certain nuances like sympathetic resonance can get lost or even interfere with a mix, however, the breadth of nuances and articulations captured by SN certainly impact the overall sound in a very significant way.

[PinkFloydDudi]

Interesting take PFD.

I don't agree regarding the pianos or strings, but I do think the EPs on the Kronos absolutely kill.

When you say strings, you referring to individuals like "violin" or orchestral settings?
I certainly admit that I didn't try all the sounds so it may just be luck of the draw. I think as a whole JP80 has better individual sounds on things like strings and brass...I just think that the "combis" of orchestras and things sounded really bad...I guess when I say that it felt like they just threw their individual sounds together without any mixing or anything like that"

I just didn't hear a quality orchestra sound on the JP80. I may have missed the good ones though as I have seen even the JP80 fans say there are a host of band sounds. (which for arguments sake, happens on the kronos too).

In terms of strings as in guitars - i think pretty much all keyboards are not very good equally.

One thing I noticed is that you made no mention of the single biggest difference between the emulations on the Kronos and Jupiter ... The way the sounds can be used. Were you testing single notes and chord stabs or playing music with each sound? I had posted a simple bass example using the Jupiter highlighting some of the ways the behavioral modeling gets triggered. I have yet to be able to do it with the Kronos.

You know, I have to chalk this up to something I can't tell yet. I did both...played some simple 1-sound songs...played some "combi" songs (not sure what Roland calls them), and did some stuff with pads and such.

Closest example I guess that you are referring to, is when I was on a guitar sound. I noticed that if you press a chord down, it strums it, rather than playing all the notes at the same time.
In playing with some of the brass and strings, I did notice stuff like that. To be honest I'm not sure I am a fan. What if I wanted all the strings to play at the same time? With the JP80, it can't happen! If I want to "strum" on the kronos, I can select that option when i need it. No maybe you can turn that stuff off on the JP80, I don't know?

Some of the things the JP80 did with what you are referring to were definitely cool. Like a slide on the bass guitar when I did a quick run up. Some were like "OH COOL...that is how I wanted it to sound". But then other times, like I said, what if I don't want those things to happen?

I guess the behavior modeling is very cool at times - but I think it forces you to behave a certain way that I may not want to. This I see as something that can be good sometimes, bad others.

I think that for your tribute band and cover bands in general, the Kronos is the better choice because it really captures many classic sounds really well. Plus if you have a full band your needs for emulations will be limited.

I think that is where my stance definitely stems from. No one is going to hear that small nuance of behavior modeling when I have 6 other people playing with me.
I can see in recording how some of that would be very cool for solos and even composition pieces.
I do still question whether or not you can do MOST of the modeling manually through the Kronos or through playing though!!