Less then a month till musik messe... What to expect?

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 7:33 pm

Less then 4 weeks away now, personally i am expecting a lot of news..

-Korg Pa4x?
-a working version of the Roland JD-XA
-Will there be finally a new Yamaha workstation?
-Casio will be up with a new toparranger
-General Music will make its comeback
-Ketron will have a new keyboard
-Wersi might anounce a new instrument in their upcomming OAX range
-Will we see news from access?
-a Kawaii master keyboard?
-a professional keyboard from novation with build in ableton controller.

In general Musikmesse keyboard news is more arranger oriented then Namm.. Well, this was my small list of ten hardware related items for musikmesse, mostly based on rumors..

In less then a month we will know...

Bald Eagle · Post by **Bald Eagle** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:23 am

* More analogs and modulars
* A working prototype of the Roland JD-XA (not available till 2016)
* Yamaha Motif with onboard KARMA

SMK · Post by **SMK** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:58 am

FINALLY Demonstrating the Electribe Sampler 2

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 6:09 am

Bald Eagle wrote:* More analogs and modulars
* A working prototype of the Roland JD-XA (not available till 2016)
* Yamaha Motif with onboard KARMA

i was expecting the JD-XA this autumn.

Jan1 · Post by **Jan1** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 12:08 pm

I'm also expecting a lot of news, although to this day there are very few leaks.

Behringer has an analog in the works, and I think we'll be hearing more about it.
KORG will come up with some goodies including analog (an analog polysynth?).
Roland is rumored to come up with a smaller brother of the Integra as well as the JD-XA. I wish the company would merge the ACB/V-synth/Variphrase technology into one new flagship workstation...
And Yamaha, I'm curious what the Reface and Montage trademarks are referring to. Montage could be a workstation, it could be a groovebox, Reface could be an old classic in a new coat, or a new line of controllers, I don't know.
Steinberg may come up with a new controller range.

It's all speculation and there will be a lot more news, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
One thing's for sure: I will end up wanting more than my bank account will allow me to have.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:20 pm

Jan1 wrote:I'm also expecting a lot of news, although to this day there are very few leaks.

Behringer has an analog in the works, and I think we'll be hearing more about it.
KORG will come up with some goodies including analog (an analog polysynth?).
Roland is rumored to come up with a smaller brother of the Integra as well as the JD-XA. I wish the company would merge the ACB/V-synth/Variphrase technology into one new flagship workstation...
And Yamaha, I'm curious what the Reface and Montage trademarks are referring to. Montage could be a workstation, it could be a groovebox, Reface could be an old classic in a new coat, or a new line of controllers, I don't know.
Steinberg may come up with a new controller range.

It's all speculation and there will be a lot more news, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
One thing's for sure: I will end up wanting more than my bank account will allow me to have.

Reface indicates that it is just what it says.... several synths in a box, and depending on what synth you choose, your knobs and sliders and screen information changes to controll that typical interface...

One of the settings for reface should be the studio/recording interface.. if both are part of the new Motif, or more likely it will be the new name of a very new Workstation...

The Yamaha Montage with reface technollogy...

The VL, DX and VA screens we have seen could be directly linked to the reface technollogy....

I think they wanted to show it off on NAMM as part of their 40 years synths cmpaign, but my best bet is they didnt make their date....

Just look at this webpage..

http://www.amazona.de/top-news-yamaha-s ... vl10-dx10/

And if you keep in mind that these are computer generated images, it shows exactly what reface will do... it will change the face of a synthesizer... and having a synthesizer, where you need to change the frontplates physically just sounds so much last century..

It will be done in software, with a touchscreen... and assignable knobs... my best bet, is that Yamaha will take this another step further and also aplly this reface technollogy to VST's running on a remote PC..

MortenJ · Post by **MortenJ** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 6:07 pm

Bachus wrote:
Bald Eagle wrote:* More analogs and modulars
* A working prototype of the Roland JD-XA (not available till 2016)
* Yamaha Motif with onboard KARMA
i was expecting the JD-XA this autumn.

I read in a Japanese site it will be June

They are making Presets sounds on it now

here is one :

http://websta.me/p/944112785037779222_192351335

LivePsy · Post by **LivePsy** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:04 am

Jan1 wrote: Roland: I wish the company would merge the ACB/V-synth/Variphrase technology into one new flagship workstation...

YES!

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 5:24 am

LivePsy wrote:
Jan1 wrote: Roland: I wish the company would merge the ACB/V-synth/Variphrase technology into one new flagship workstation...
YES!

There is so much great technollogy floating around at Roland, but they are allways making instruments build just around one specific concept...

I don think they will ever step away from that and combine several of those great concepts into a giant workstation with Kronos like capacities..

Jan1 · Post by **Jan1** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:30 pm

Bachus wrote:
LivePsy wrote:
Jan1 wrote: Roland: I wish the company would merge the ACB/V-synth/Variphrase technology into one new flagship workstation...
YES!
There is so much great technollogy floating around at Roland, but they are allways making instruments build just around one specific concept...

I don think they will ever step away from that and combine several of those great concepts into a giant workstation with Kronos like capacities..

The FA merges sample based synthesis/playback with Supernatural, the JD-XA merges analog with Supernatural even though Roland was said it would never come up with an analog synth.
Concepts are not etched in stone, and a combination of different technologies in the form of a flagship workstation is just another concept.
The question is whether or not Roland believes such a flagship workstation can be a commercial success, especially after the disappointing sale figures of the Fantom G.
Because of the unique qualities and sound signature of such a workstation I'm convinced many would love to have it, not in the least because instead of being a 'competitor of' it is more like an 'addition to' due to its unique character.

LivePsy · Post by **LivePsy** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 1:13 am

The Fantom G deserved to flop IMO, still a sampler with no synth but promoted as a complete workstation. Roland didn't include any sort of VA while Korg offered a plugin option for several models.

Variphrase needs updating to match the ease and sound quality of Ableton Live's time stretching and pitching. Every single Roland Keyboard should have the supernatural VA synth engine in it, its only code. I don't understand how eliminating features makes a box more desirable. Just don't make the features complex to use or hard to skip over if you don't want them.

B

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:10 pm

LivePsy wrote:The Fantom G deserved to flop IMO, still a sampler with no synth but promoted as a complete workstation. Roland didn't include any sort of VA while Korg offered a plugin option for several models.

Variphrase needs updating to match the ease and sound quality of Ableton Live's time stretching and pitching. Every single Roland Keyboard should have the supernatural VA synth engine in it, its only code. I don't understand how eliminating features makes a box more desirable. Just don't make the features complex to use or hard to skip over if you don't want them.

B

Roland's been missing the boat for at least 5-10 years now IMO.

They could EASILY build a "Kronos killer" if they wanted to, but outright refuse. They release technology in dribs and drabs and only package things together that make sense once that tech is actually lagging the market.

If they released a workstation with:
-The Integra7 but without the silly limitations and ALL their supernatural synths
-V-Synth tech
-Vocal designer (ala VP-770) and Aria VT-3
-Their 16 Drum pads (Velocity Sensitive! Make them feel good!)
-tap tempo
-16 track sequencer (ala Fantom-G. This one I could let slide)
-Quality keybed (like X6) WITH AFTERTOUCH!
-Preferably touchscreen and with more than 4 sliders/knobs((!) REALLY Roland???).

AND...it actually lived up to the hype and wasn't a usability nightmare, I WOULD BUY IT TOMORROW. Not even kidding!

Though it's going to take a lot of flying pigs, fairy dust and unicorns for something like that to ever happen!

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:54 pm

Even if Roland put some of their best technology (and they have a lot of great technology!) into one convincing workstation concept, IMHO that would still not be more than a serious Kronos challenge - or a very welcome alternative or additional choice - and not "Kronos Killer", simply because the Kronos would just stay as extremely useful as it is now. I would at best add a good Roland effort, but never replace my Kronos anytime soon.

But yes, Roland seems to insist on staying the "king of broken concepts", like with all their synths and workstations since V-Synth times. The Fantom G was their first serious mess up of a promising flagship concept, and it didn't get any better since then.

So I have reasons to doubt that the JD-Xa will do much better, until I hear and see that it really does.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:36 pm

jimknopf wrote:Even if Roland put some of their best technology (and they have a lot of great technology!) into one convincing workstation concept, IMHO that would still not be more than a serious Kronos challenge - or a very welcome alternative or additional choice - and not "Kronos Killer", simply because the Kronos would just stay as extremely useful as it is now. I would at best add a good Roland effort, but never replace my Kronos anytime soon.

But yes, Roland seems to insist on staying the "king of broken concepts", like with all their synths and workstations since V-Synth times. The Fantom G was their first serious mess up of a promising flagship concept, and it didn't get any better since then.

So I have reasons to doubt that the JD-Xa will do much better, until I hear and see that it really does.

If Roland build a totl workstation it would be A real Kronos competitor, yet since it is very unlikely that Roland will add anything comparable to Karma, they would be in heavy competition from the start out...

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 2:19 pm

jimknopf wrote:Even if Roland put some of their best technology (and they have a lot of great technology!) into one convincing workstation concept, IMHO that would still not be more than a serious Kronos challenge - or a very welcome alternative or additional choice - and not "Kronos Killer", simply because the Kronos would just stay as extremely useful as it is now. I would at best add a good Roland effort, but never replace my Kronos anytime soon.

But yes, Roland seems to insist on staying the "king of broken concepts", like with all their synths and workstations since V-Synth times. The Fantom G was their first serious mess up of a promising flagship concept, and it didn't get any better since then.

So I have reasons to doubt that the JD-Xa will do much better, until I hear and see that it really does.

Agreed. "Kronos Killer" was perhaps strong phrasing as I also have no intention to replace mine, but it sets the context. I mean honestly though, what workstations out there even COMPARE to the Kronos? Be so nice to at least see an alternative! It almost feels like the other MI companies in this market (Roland, Yamaha in particular) have just stopped trying. Kurzweil is starting to show potential, but they are still not the cutting edge they were in the 80's/early 90's. The K series has been dead for so long an entire generation of players has practically grown up with out them! I really don't know what the heck they're waiting for...