What if Kronos NextGen is a VST host?

[jtern]

Imagine being able to host any VST instrument, midi or audio effect inside your workstation.
That would probably mean bye-bye to the Fantom and Montage for the next couple of years.
Ten years ago Korg took the lead with the Kronos, and it’s about time to get in front again.
It shouldn’t be technically impossible or even extremely difficult, so why not?

[GregC]

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[GregC]

for product development, Korg has definitely pulled away from dependencce on 3rd parties., for some years.

Seems to me, running VST's with a Reaper or whatever DAW has been well covered inexpensively for some years.

I would almost bet there is no new " K" type model for 2021.

[CharlesFerraro]

Imagine being able to host any VST instrument, midi or audio effect inside your workstation.
That would probably mean bye-bye to the Fantom and Montage for the next couple of years.
Ten years ago Korg took the lead with the Kronos, and it’s about time to get in front again.
It shouldn’t be technically impossible or even extremely difficult, so why not?

This has already been done with the Open Labs Neko keyboards. I think karma was even going to be implemented for a minute. The company went under.

[StephenKay]

Imagine being able to host any VST instrument, midi or audio effect inside your workstation.
That would probably mean bye-bye to the Fantom and Montage for the next couple of years.
Ten years ago Korg took the lead with the Kronos, and it’s about time to get in front again.
It shouldn’t be technically impossible or even extremely difficult, so why not?

This has already been done with the Open Labs Neko keyboards. I think karma was even going to be implemented for a minute. The company went under.

Yeah, for a brief moment in time I was going to implement KARMA for Open Labs. Then they went under. That version ultimately became KARMA 3.0 for the Yamaha XF, XS, MOX, MOXF etc.

I find it hard to believe that Korg would ever host VSTs. With anyone being able to write and release a VST, there are plenty of crappy VSTs around developed by people who don't know what they are doing, and they crash and behave badly in different DAWs; I can't believe that Korg would ever open themselves up to the issues that arise with hosting thousands of unregulated third-party plugins that may or may not be programmed well. I mean, it's commonly accepted that DAWs crash all the time these days when you're trying various VST demos and freebies available on the net; can you image having your keyboard crash all the time because of some third-party VST? And then people are going to blame Korg and contact Korg customer support? It would be a nightmare...

[CharlesFerraro]

Oh wow, that’s cool hearing a little about the history of KARMA 3.0

And yeah I agree Korg would never.
However... the SDK could open the doors to a platform that’s built to host user generated content. Still, as it is you could brick your device. Until the SDK becomes people proof, I just don’t see it happening. That wouldn’t be a Kronos 3 so much as an NTS-2 workstation.

[jtern]

I find it hard to believe that Korg would ever host VSTs. With anyone being able to write and release a VST, there are plenty of crappy VSTs around developed by people who don't know what they are doing, and they crash and behave badly in different DAWs; I can't believe that Korg would ever open themselves up to the issues that arise with hosting thousands of unregulated third-party plugins that may or may not be programmed well. I mean, it's commonly accepted that DAWs crash all the time these days when you're trying various VST demos and freebies available on the net; can you image having your keyboard crash all the time because of some third-party VST? And then people are going to blame Korg and contact Korg customer support? It would be a nightmare...

You are probably right, although today you have virtualization/containers to take care of issues like that.
A misbehaving vst should of course never crash the OS (or workstation).

Lots of musicians use vsts for live performances today (in Mainstage,Ableton Live, Gig Performer etc), and I can’t see that running them inside a workstation would be any worse.
But I totally get that a workstation manufacturer has to weigh risk vs reward.

Thanks for Karma by the way! You were way ahead of your time.

[blazerunner]

I find it hard to believe that Korg would ever host VSTs. With anyone being able to write and release a VST, there are plenty of crappy VSTs around developed by people who don't know what they are doing

Woa the guy that created KARMA hangs out on these forums

You revolutionized the game for Korg Work Stations. I tip my hat to you Sir.

for OP...

I've been playing with Korgs workstations since the Trinity and Z1 days. It's been amazing to see the evolution of their keyboards over the years. I always find that vs. other Keyboard makers Korg tries more towards innovating the market rather than adapting it but they do it in this strange way of not necessarily adding something entirely new and out of the loop but rather upgrading their old ideas with something new that gives them an edge on the market.

They have a way of giving us more of what we want and "condensing" all their products under one keyboard. I have a feeling that successor to the Kronos might be like Akai's MPC series with the Standalone/DAW thing. You can play the instrument standalone but plug it into a computer and then use it like a DAW.

That would be leaps and bounds for recording projects and accessing the keyboards parameters. Korg already has their own VST's. Imagine if you could pair them with a Workstation. The Kronos is still King but next to it are VST's,Kontact,Omnisphere and all that jazz. The future would have to be a Keyboard that can step into both worlds in my opinion.

If Korg gave the next gen the ability to become a full on DAW that allowed for the use of Korg VST's it would be studio monster. Also would like to see that added ability of bluetooth and and more input/output features. Similar to the MPC-X's out/inputs. They did it nicely with an XLR and all.

[musiccankill]

VST host most probably will not happen but what i see happening is for them to add support for their SDK that works on prologue (and some other keyboards) giving people the opportunity to make or install custom oscillators/effects or anything they imagine and create in their keyboards.
That way they avoid the licensing need of VST too...

[alamo]

isn't this something like what Korg is doing with the prologue, NTS-1 SDK... it allows third party to write code for these models.... if there is a new Kronos this feature is a must have.

[ChrisDuncan]

I find it hard to believe that Korg would ever host VSTs. With anyone being able to write and release a VST, there are plenty of crappy VSTs around developed by people who don't know what they are doing, and they crash and behave badly in different DAWs; I can't believe that Korg would ever open themselves up to the issues that arise with hosting thousands of unregulated third-party plugins that may or may not be programmed well. I mean, it's commonly accepted that DAWs crash all the time these days when you're trying various VST demos and freebies available on the net; can you image having your keyboard crash all the time because of some third-party VST? And then people are going to blame Korg and contact Korg customer support? It would be a nightmare...

Not to mention the fact that it would be zero added value for the majority of musicians in return for all that pain.

While I do realize that there are those who use just the Kronos and no computer, the moment you start talking VSTs it's a rare person who doesn't have a computer and DAW.

Of course, no disrespect to jtern - ideas are good. However, I'm a fan of using the best tool for the job. If I want to use VSTs (and I do use them), then I use my Kronos as a MIDI controller and leave the heavy lifting to the DAW since that's already an established and mature (i.e. it's been tested and debugged for years) platform.

[Musicwithharry]

I do not think that Korg would go the complete VST route. I think that they have too much invested in their workstations to do that.

Plus, a hardware workstation with full functionality like the Kronos is important to so many people. When you add all of the engines that Korg has (and other people have), and have KARMA, it really is hard to beat in its form.

I do not see a 'workstation' truly being a workstation unless you can record audio, MIDI and live stuff natively on the board. The Kronos does this. Even the Kross does this, to an extent.

I would like to see similar functionality that the Kronos already has, but also allow for the use of external touch screen monitors added. Imagine having a 15" (or bigger) touch screen externally to control the Kronos? That would be cool. They may have increased the resolution of the screen on the Kronos over the OASYS, but the bigger screen was really cool to have.

Does the Kronos allow for external mouse/keyboard support as well? If not, add that. If these things were added, I could really see the Kronos becoming the centerpiece of a lot of studios, instead of a PC.

The lines between hardware and software synths really is becoming blurred. It would be neat to see the next evolution of that system come together. Being able to add a whole bunch of RAM (and have the system address it) is also, in my opinion, important. We can already install large HDDs in these things to hold our libraries...

Grace,
Harry

[jtern]

It’s not a workstation, and it’s limited to a handful of NI’s own VSTs, but anyway...

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... hine-plus/

If Korg doesn’t do it, eventually someone else will...

[GregC]

If Korg doesn’t do it, eventually someone else will...

as you know, open labs failed at it.

bottom line, its all about the $$$.

these co' s don't operate from ''try as you go '' on a new product.

[jtern]

If Korg doesn’t do it, eventually someone else will...

as you know, open labs failed at it.

bottom line, its all about the $$$.

these co' s don't operate from ''try as you go '' on a new product.

Yeah, I know. And the iPhone was also a stupid idea. Nobody wants a phone with 3rd party apps that can crash randomly and has no physical buttons. It had been tried before and failed, so what on earth were the people at Apple thinking?