Best synth to pair with Kronos? Best/worst synth you own?

[DennyC]

I think Mike Conway has a great point about the Virus. My ears also seem
to like the variety of the Yamaha sound as well. I would love to get a Virus
some day when I can afford one, as they are also great sounding.

[studio460]

Just thinking out loud here trying to layout my set-up. Again, I'm not that into EPs or organs, so the stock samples in the Kronos should be fine. The main reason I got the Kronos is for its realistic sounding strings. Here's my main boards and what I like each board for:

• Korg Kronos: WaveArts' Cinematic Suite (orchestra, solo/ensemble strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion), phat Korg-esque VA leads and pads.
• Roland Fantom G: Saws, pads, Roland-signature VA leads and pads, plus its excellent built-in 24-track RAM recorder.
• Roland Fantom XR: SRX orchestral percussion, SRX world sounds (will replace with Integra-7 someday).
• VirusTI: Weird sounds, excellent Oberheim patch, programmable custom sounds.
• VSTi/AUs: I've got a ton of free samples with my Apple Logic Pro X purchase to get me started. Will explore other libraries later, when I get more familiar with working with my new DAW.

Several of you have recommended Spectrasonics' Omnisphere AU library to fill out my sound palette. I get the feeling this is more of synth EDM type of library? I'm happy with the synths I've already got in the Fantom, Radias, and Virus, but I'll definitely check it out. (Also, note that I don't need any electric guitars since I have real electric guitars and use those exclusively to record.)

What I am looking for is more atmospheric/ethereal stuff, especially real environmental sounds. I can record my own since I already have a bunch of professional audio field recording gear, but I would much prefer to buy a huge library of environment sounds already made. (I'll also record my own select sounds; e.g., traffic, crowds, machinery, etc., but it would be nice to start with a pre-recorded library).

Now I'm not a great pianist, so I probably can't justify a Nord Stage at this point. The pianos in the Fantom G are actually pretty good. The Kronos pianos should be as good or better. Lastly, I've always pined for a bit of that "Motif sound" so someday I may pick up a used Motif XF.

[voip]

Omnisphere is good for atmospheric/ethereal sounds, and transcends genres, really, although it contains few orchestral strings patches so is not very strong in that department. EWQL Symphonic Orchestra and NI Komplete fill that gap rather well. Yes, there are some EDM patches in Omnisphere, but there's a lot more besides. Plus it's possible to take recorded user sounds, though not live audio, and pass them through Omnisphere effects, use Omnisphere arpeggiators, and mangle them with Omnisphere's granular synthesis engine. Omnisphere complements Kronos rather well. Eric Persing, if you're reading this, I'll take my commission now :-)

.

[studio460]

Plus it's possible to take recorded user sounds, though not live audio, and pass them through Omnisphere effects, use Omnisphere arpeggiators, and mangle them with Omnisphere's granular synthesis engine. Omnisphere complements Kronos rather well

That's great to know—thanks! I'm listening to that feature on the Omnisphere demo right now. Very cool! That will be excellent for my field-recorded real-world sounds. That's kind of just the tool I was looking for. The psyco-acoustic samples and other unique organic samples are super-cool—this is the kind of stuff I would be very interested in. Also, Omnisphere's SoundMatch and SoundLock features will save tons of time patch-surfing—very, very cool!.

I was reading the Sweetwater site comments, and one guy said it was his "desert island synth," which seems a resounding endorsement. I'm looking at Omnisphere 2. I see there are some other Spectrasonics products, plus even third-party Spectrasonics libraries. I guess "Omnisphere Power Synth 2" is their "platform" product—that's the one I want, right?

[DAZZA3483]

Have you used your Radias with your Kronos....how do you find it?

The Kronos and Jupiter 80 would be a dream come true!

[studio460]

I don't have my Kronos yet. It's coming tomorrow but I don't know if I'll be able to get off work to receive it (so I may not be able to pick it up until Monday!). Drag! Funny, I haven't used my Radias much at all. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I could never master-clock it from my Fantom G (I don't know why). All my other synths are master-clocked via MIDI from my Fantom G (my main recording station), so all arpeggiators, etc. are always in sync with the Fantom.

[Lightbringer]

@Studio460 - Have you ever had a go at designing your own sounds? The Kronos has an unfathomable amount of tools for doing that. It's not limited to just the sounds it ships with or even what you can add by buying EXs. In my estimation, I would say the Kronos has the tools to create virtually any sound you could imagine.

It also has tools at a variety of levels. So while you can create your own sounds from the ground up, you can also just build combis out of existing sounds, add or change FX, make tweaks with the tone adjust controls. There are so many levels of customization tools in this thing to fit someone's experience level and available time.

I know it's not for everyone, and some would prefer to buy the expertise. It's not an instant gratification kind of thing either. Learning sound design is definitely a journey. But it can be very rewarding. For me, it has been the only way forward from "I have 100,000+ presets scattered across 50 different apps. plugins, and devices, and still can't find the sound I'm looking for."

Just some food for thought. Maybe you're doing this already... don't know

[studio460]

Woohoo! I just learned that I got the day off tomorrow so I'll be able to accept delivery of my new Kronos 88 Platinum! It's a Korg factory refurb, so hopefully it's a customer-return from a guy who played it for five minutes and returned it!

I'm so jazzed about WaveArts' upcoming Cinematic Suite and Spectrasonics' Omnisphere AU flash library. Between those two new tools, I'll finally have two landmark capabilities I've been dreaming of decades . . .

• Solo and ensemble strings that really sound like strings.
• Real-world sound recording sampling and FX.

Hardware-synth pianos and brass have been getting better and better, but the new third-party symphonic libraries and the Kronos' capability to reproduce them, to me, is an historic shift in the synth market. Finally, VST-quality symphonic strings, with improved performance, in a hardware synth. This is what Kronos makes possible.

And, Spectrasonics' Omnisphere is the product I've been waiting for which I didn't even know existed yet. For years, I've hobbled together various field-recording rigs to gather sound FX from the field. My main field mic is the Audio-Technica AT815B (similar to a Sennheiser MKH60) short-shotgun condenser mic, and a K-Tek carbon-fiber fishpole. My pro audio friends also have high-end, film-recordist mics like the $3,000 Schoeps. I also have large-diaphragm condenser mics that I use to mic my guitar cabinets. Now I'll have an incredible software tool to process those recordings.

[studio460]

@Studio460 - Have you ever had a go at designing your own sounds? The Kronos has an unfathomable amount of tools for doing that. It's not limited to just the sounds it ships with or even what you can add by buying EXs. In my estimation, I would say the Kronos has the tools to create virtually any sound you could imagine.

Absolutely! That's part of the reason I got into synths in the first place! And, it's the main reason I bought my Roland V-Synth GT (it has sound-sampling capability via its front-panel USB thumb-drive), but I've been too dumb to figure out how to use it. That's why I'm so excited about the Spectrasonics app.

Kronos' 64GB SSD is also a major feature which is what drew me to the product. I'm hoping to do with the Kronos what I was originally planning to do with the V-Synth GT. But, again, I'm so dumb when it comes to programming my synths, I always seem to get lost. That's why the Spectrasonics product is so appealing. Hopefully, I'll be able to exploit some of the sound-design capabilities of the Kronos and its SSD. (I was planning to install a second SSD to store even more sounds.)

[Lightbringer]

One of the advantages of popular soft synths is that you can usually find a huge number of video tutorials on sound design for them. I'm not sure about Omnisphere - I went the Native Instruments Komplete route. And there are countless sound design tutorials out there for its various synths. Free on youtube, and on low cost sites like lynda.com and adsr.com, etc.

Once you have a handle on the main synthesis concepts, there is a lot of similarity between them. Each one you try to program gets easier and easier. There is less of a "delta" to learn.

[timbukktwo]

When you say pairing (or complimentary), is it more for the variety of ‘filling in the blanks’ each synth lacks, or that the sounds sonically work well together (or perhaps both)?

[studio460]

Oh, good question! I initially meant which synth best "fills in the blanks," or in other words, which synth provides the most contrast—which one is most different-sounding from the Kronos. But, as you point out, the second consideration is also important—which synth best complements, or "fits" best with the Kronos. Good call!

[tdwctdwc]

After owning Motif workstations since their introduction, the Kronos has no equal! Every sound you have on the Motif/Montage, can be made better and sound more interesting on the Kronos,

Not the electric guitars. I still regret selling my Motif for that exact reason.

[studio460]

Well, I don't need any electric guitars, but I can't get that Motif out of my brain. Ever since I bought my Fantom G back in 2008, it was between that and a Motif. I played both at Guitar Center for hours.

Now, 10 years later, I still can't stop thinking about it. But I just spent $3,000 on a Kronos; I can't possibly spend another $2K on a synth right now (been looking at used XFs). Has anyone tried those Motif sample libraries on eBay? Do they work? Should I just hold my nut and buy a Motif AU library for my Apple Logic DAW? Is there an easy way to get Motif sounds onto my Kronos SSD?

[runningman67]

Well I'm hoping the Prologue Kronos combo will be the business.
I enjoyed my Waldorf Blofeld with the Kronos.