EXS12, SGX-1 Austrian Piano released!

[Arp_]

You have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how much money it costs to create this library. Plan for a recording session, conduct a recording session, countless hours editing samples, etc.

Do comparable products give some clue? I.e. there already are many software sample libraries that required same or even bigger amount of work and investments, and many of them still cost a lot cheaper (and, in my subjective opinion, some of them have far better realism, sound character and playability than any of Kronos pianos).
After trying out the demo, my personal conclusion is that I won't buy this expansion because it gives me too little for too much money, compared to other alternatives that I have.

Also, if Korg doesn't earn a good profit from each library, why would they ever produce any more?

IMHO, if Korg made this expansion completely free, they'd have more profit by making Kronos as a whole more desirable product and selling more of them as result.

[jimknopf]

Arp_, I can't follow this logic.

Haven't you read my and Busch's comments on the BIG difference concerning the possible selling numbers for software libraries (several hundred thousands musicians all over the world making PC/Mac based music, if not millions) and a dedicated hardware synth market (some thousands of possible buyers)? The wrong comparison does not make any sense IMHO.

Of course you will earn a lot of sympathy if you give away things cheap or for free. But what is that sympathy good for, if your business can't work like that?

I'd rather see a healthy Korg business with great products like the Kronos, than have a short bargain and then sit on PC software, because no more first class hardware is developed. And looking at how many sounds from different sound engines are already on board of the Kronos, demands like getting even more for free or for cheap prices leaves me pretty speechless.

And to say it more clear cut: I'm not sure if I don't find this kind of customer expectation more greedy than any profit making from Korg for such a library could ever be.

[PianoManChuck]

IMHO, if Korg made this expansion completely free, they'd have more profit by making Kronos as a whole more desirable product and selling more of them as result.

That's Nord's philosphy... a much smaller company than Korg and guess what? They're selling more keyboards than they might have because of that very philosophy! We're talking very, very high quality patches for free! However, you're going to pay more for a Nord keyboard than a Korg...

[Zeroesque]

You have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how much money it costs to create this library. Plan for a recording session, conduct a recording session, countless hours editing samples, etc.

Do comparable products give some clue? I.e. there already are many software sample libraries that required same or even bigger amount of work and investments, and many of them still cost a lot cheaper (and, in my subjective opinion, some of them have far better realism, sound character and playability than any of Kronos pianos).
After trying out the demo, my personal conclusion is that I won't buy this expansion because it gives me too little for too much money, compared to other alternatives that I have.

Also, if Korg doesn't earn a good profit from each library, why would they ever produce any more?

IMHO, if Korg made this expansion completely free, they'd have more profit by making Kronos as a whole more desirable product and selling more of them as result.

If you think the Austrian Grand offers too little compared to alternatives that you have, why do you think making it free would sell more units? Why do you think you can predict what the pricing of a sample set will do for Korg more than they can?

I have to agree with jimknopf's thoughts on this. Also thanks to PianoManChuck for mentioning the premium price that Clavia already puts on their Nord pianos.

[jimknopf]

I belong to the people who really like Clavia keyboards.

But looking at the whole package there is ZERO, which Clavia would be offering their customers, over what Korg is offering for the Kronos. You just have to compare the whole package:
If you take all Sounds of the Nord stage plus those from the Nord library you end up significantly below the choices you get with a simple Kronos buy, concerning variety and quality of sounds overall (not speaking of additional workstation functionality on the Kronos). And while we compare, remember that most of the Nord library contains (well done) one velocity sounds. That's ok for some kinds of sound, but I can tell how glad I am to have 8 (or 16 with two Oscs) velocity layers available in the Kronos HD-1 engine. This opens up a lot of more quality sampling options than the Nord library can ever reach with one velocity sampling.

I wouldn't even mention these facts, if it were not for the comparisons not really working at a second glance. As I said, I like the Clavias, but they should not be used as wrong examples to demand endless free or cheap Kronos stuff for wrong reasons.

It's much more important that each of us can adopt the Kronos to his/her needs and own playing style, by adding (yes, buying) or deleting (hi Rich and Dan!) stuff in the package.

[SeedyLee]

With respect to the pricing, I do think it is quite high. It represents around 10% of the purchase price of a Kronos 61!

Whilst I acknowledge that it's expensive to produce such libraries, I also have the following thoughts about the pricing:

- The samples that Korg has produced can be used in their future products - the full cost of production does not need to be borne exclusively by Kronos owners just because the Kronos is the first workstation these samples have been released for.

- In the past, hardware expansions that have been sold for similar money have retained their resale value. This is a software add-on that is authorised exclusively to a single Kronos and presumably can't be resold.

- Being that this is hardware specific, this life-expectency of this expansion will be limited by the life expentency of the Kronos. Unlike purchasing an Akai format library, or even a Knotakt library, which is much more de facto and likely to be supported in the future. I know that if I invest in an Akai library, I can probably use it for much longer than something hardware-specific.

- There is nothing to stop Korg producing a Kontakt or similar library that could be sold. If they're wanting to use this library to drive Kronos sales, they should price it accordingly.

- I would be more likely to pay $249/$299 for the Austrian Piano, and similarly for the West Coast drums, if the factory samples weren't already so damn good. Korg are competing against themselves here.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the pricing. I'm not saying it's a bad product, and I'm sure some people will happily buy it, but it's not on my "to buy" list in the short term. Besides, my piano skills aren't good enough to get the most out of such an excellent sounding library!

[NuSkoolTone]

I'll do ya one better. How about Korg opens up the streaming capability to the PUBLIC? Then we don't have to worry about what "Korg" wants to produce, nor be beholden to its marketing or decisions on what kind of sounds we need!

I would assume Korg is concerned about performance impacts that might occur if people could stream their own samples.

Currently since all user samples are fully loaded to RAM, the audio performance of the Kronos is controlled, i.e. Korg knows exactly what polyphony counts people will get with each of the different engines, and there is no audio delay or dropouts. This environment would not be guaranteed if Korg opened up the SSD for sample streaming.

If people started getting performance delays, they would of course blame Korg.

All the extra user samples I have are Akai libraries, which work well in the Kronos, or super large Kontakt libraries which work best in Kontakt.

The performance may be a valid concern, it also might not. Korg could put some limits on regular users for how big a loaded RAM sample can be as a user doing streaming. Some documentation on standard practice always helps. Korg could also put a clause in excluding them of liability for "improper use" regarding user streaming. Poof is the Korg libraries work fine, so any problems would be user or 3rd party error.

Part of the reason the streaming is so needed is because once you load up all the stock libraries, even an expanded Kronos starts to look a little skimpy on the RAM once you look at adding expansion libraries as well.
It goes fast! The streaming gets you a lot more mileage and I'd love to take a crack at it.

I never said the project was trivial, but in comparison to proper looping the rest of the editing is.

Now granted this still is a lot of work.

You mentioned you would like to see an unlooped library of great strings, R&B/Latin horns, and guitars. How much do you think you would have to invest up-front to create such a library, including recording and testing? $10,000, $20,000?

What would be a fair price for your library? $100? (You obviously can't charge $249).

I think $249 is on the high end, but to me a not unreasonable price given the work and risk involved.

Depends what you're including in that cost. I assume the studio is already a given and requires no cost above operating costs or recording sessions that are booked at an appropriate facility. Obviously the latter would cost more. A Piano (or Guitar/Bass) requires ONE person to hire to play it. Horns, and Strings requires SEVERAL. Hollywood strings is under $1k and has over 300GB in samples. From what I've heard they're movie score quality. You can get it 30% cheaper when on sale. What do you think THAT library costs to produce? Obviously they have a bigger market, so the larger production cost is justified. Though it's a real eye opener when you listen to the demos that are actually affordable all considered. Enough so I might start a separate discussion regarding it.

So in short, no I don't think a Piano Library costs the developer $10-20K to make. Not even close if they have their own gear, room, engineer and are doing their own editing. Guitars are usually close miked so the room goes out, but different players might be a factor for stylistic choice/feel/attack. Even so, upfront cost even less than Piano to produce IMO.

So back to y requested horn, string, and guitar libraries: For a proper complete set of all those samples, with enough variety such that I would not need to buy any accessory sets to go with them, no I don't think $249 is unreasonable. For ONE piano? Yes I do! Especially when the stock pianos are already pretty great.

[MartinHines]

Hollywood strings is under $1k and has over 300GB in samples. From what I've heard they're movie score quality. You can get it 30% cheaper when on sale. What do you think THAT library costs to produce?

EastWest Hollywood Strings cost over $1million to create.

You have to sell a lot of copies of a product to recoup that investment.

EastWest originally sold Hollywood Strings for $1,000 a copy. I suspect they sold at least 5,000 copies at that price. They normally don't discount a product until 1 year after it is released.

Hollywood Strings isn't the best comparison since it is multiple instruments. However, the main point is a company like EastWest has a HUGE potential customer base compared to the Korg Kronos customer base.

$249 may be on the high end, but I don't think the price is unreasonable given the very small potential buyer base. Historically, most keyboard owners never buy any options.

I think Korg will probably consider themselves lucky if they sell 1,000 copies of any expansion library.

[McHale]

My guess is that the raw samples were created for EXB-PCM08 for the Triton series. The 16MB, extremely compressed sample set cost $199 at release and eventually dropped to $149. Considering inflation and the extremely better quality in sample set, $249 is a bargain. Seriously.

[MartinHines]

My guess is that the raw samples were created for EXB-PCM08 for the Triton series.

That is possible, but I would be surprised.

The EXB-PCM08 16 MB Bosendorfer was released in 2002, so the recording session was probably in 2001. I am not sure Korg would have gone to the trouble in 2001 of recording the piano at 6 or 8 velocity levels for each key.

If they didn't record it themselves, I suspect they may have purchased the samples from another company. There have been a number of Bosendorfer libraries created for GigaStudio that had 8-plus velocity layers.

Who knows?

[rrricky rrrecordo]

I have seldom fired up my original Ivory pianos since purchasing Pianoteq several years ago. When I first acquired Ivory, I loved the Steinway and Yamaha pianos, but the Bosendorfer (the largest of the three if memory serves) was my least favourite - too stark for almost any of my applications. FWIW, all three original Ivory pianos are based on sample sets considerably larger than those offered in the Kronos German and Japanese grands.

After I got Pianoteq, there was no going back to Ivory for me. It's not perfect yet, but the overall performance experience is so much more like playing a real piano than triggering samples - regardless of the sample set size or number of layers. Pianoteq 4 is coming closer to a release date, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Modeling is surely the way forward in my opinion. Yamaha has taken this direction, Roland more so; perhaps Korg has a modeled piano EX planned for Kronos. The more piano choices, the better.

Having said that, I think that $249 is a reasonable price to pay for the Austrian grand if you love it, if it lives inside your Kronos and helps you improve your Kronos experience. I have a Motif XS6 and gladly paid $115 for ksounds Virtual C7... only 500 mb but it's a brilliant addition to the stock Motif XS soundset. It sounds wonderful, and plays beautifully.

I paid more than $249 just to have a ball joint replaced in my car last week. Cheap part, 1.5 hours shop time plus taxes.

Think of the many, many more hours and the team of skilled professional techs required to produce a quality piano sample set... $249 looks like a bargain (again... if you love the product).

[SeedyLee]

I have seldom fired up my original Ivory pianos since purchasing Pianoteq several years ago. ...

After I got Pianoteq, there was no going back to Ivory for me. It's not perfect yet, but the overall performance experience is so much more like playing a real piano than triggering samples - regardless of the sample set size or number of layers. Pianoteq 4 is coming closer to a release date, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I would rather spend $99 on the hardware-agnostic Pianoteq than $299 on a hardware-specific sample set.

The amount of work that went into Pianoteq would surely eclipse the work that went into EXs12.

If I was using my Kronos live, I may have a different view.

[MartinHines]

I would rather spend $99 on the hardware-agnostic Pianoteq than $299 on a hardware-specific sample set.

You must have a fantastic retailer, since Pianoteq appears to be more expensive than $99 (US):
-- $129 Pianoteq 3 Play (no editing)
-- $319 Pianoteq 3 Standard (moderate editing)
-- $519 Pianoteq 3 Pro (complete editing)

Also, any PC or Mac based product will have a HUGE potential market compared to the Kronos. Based on Karma Lab user entries (which may be low), there have been about 5,000 Kronos units sold so far. That is a really small potential customer base.

[SeedyLee]

I would rather spend $99 on the hardware-agnostic Pianoteq than $299 on a hardware-specific sample set.

You must have a fantastic retailer, since Pianoteq appears to be more expensive than $99 (US):
-- $129 Pianoteq 3 Play (no editing)
-- $319 Pianoteq 3 Standard (moderate editing)
-- $519 Pianoteq 3 Pro (complete editing)

Also, any PC or Mac based product will have a HUGE potential market compared to the Kronos. Based on Karma Lab user entries (which may be low), there have been about 5,000 Kronos units sold so far. That is a really small potential customer base.

My mistake, PianoTeq Play is 99 Euros, which is about $129 USD. But that's the refular price, so to compare apples and oranges the regular price of EXs12 is $299.00.

The market for the Bosendorffer *samples* is no more limited than the market for PianoTeq - there's nothing preventing Korg releasing these samples for Kontakt, Akai or their own VST. Obviously the market for the EXs12 package, including the programming and DRM, is more limited.

Korg should be capitalising on their investment to the greatest extent possible. I'm sure these samples will be used in many of their future products, so tha market for the samples isn't as small as it might seem. Using this as a justification for the high prices is unwarranted in my opinion.

[PianoManChuck]

I've always said that no sample library comes even close to sounding like a real Bosendorfer! They sound impressive (Nord certainly does, and so does the Kronos), but if anyone has ever had the pleasure of playing (or listening to) a real Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, nothing compares.

Here's an example of a real Bosendorfer Imperial Grand:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fv ... vs09o&NR=1