Devnor wrote:A lot of people go thru the same hand-wringing every-single-time a product comes out with mini keys. I'm curious, do you not know how MIDI works? The Kronos is an excellent master keyboard. Do you not know how to program it?
Cheap synths have been the future for some time now. Not everyone has 4 grand to drop on a new synth every single year. These companies need quick sale products that generate revenue which in turn drives development of the higher end stuff albeit these days at a slower pace. My guess is everyone in this thread, including myself, has yet to max out the capabilities of their high end synths anyways.
Be happy new stuff is coming out which younger players can afford. These are the buyers of the mega synths of the future. When I started playing, a Jupiter 8 cost more than my parents nice car. Now is a good time to be a keyboard player!
You're missing two critical points:
- There is a real and tangible place for synths with proper keyboards attached, and, performance controls. That is what makes, for example, the VL1 so much more than it's virtual acoustic engine. It has a great keyboard with velocity and aftertouch control, three wheels to the left of the keyboard, lots of pedal connectivity and a breath controller.
You can NOT achieve the same from a generic MIDI controller and a module - the integration is not there - and you end up using a fraction of the module features.
From the Minimoog to the CS80 to the SY77 to the Sub37 - there is a big and important place for the integrated, performance synthesizer. Whomever is left in Korg these days does not understand that point.
- Secondly - the point isn't that this synth, on its own merits, is all that bad. It's that - minikeys is all that Korg are doing these days (KingKong aside). All of their excellent analogue synth 'engines' - microKorg, monotribe, MS20, KARP Odyssey, Minilogue, Monologue - ALL use either a ridiculous ribbon or minikeys.
So - if there was a range of synths of different sized keys and length keyboards - a range - to cater for real musicians and the non-musicians who see minikeys as sufficient out of ignorance of performance; then everybody would be happy - but - ubiquitously, universally - minikeys are hated - no players like them. The history of keyboard instruments has already settled the size of standard keys for standard humans - and this is not it. Korg have got this wrong, outside of Japan.
As siad - it's some sort of weird Japanese fetish associated with cuteness or Anime or some sort of Tokyo fashion trending in recent times - the Japanese are very particular that way and there's no turning them - and this is plainly what 's going on.
I also personally believe it's a generational thing of designers - a new generation of 'designers' emerging from universities with s**t degrees in 'design' and ' AV' and the like infiltrating these companies, and they haven't a clue. They think they are designing bubble-gum because they are devoid of any depth of cultural, artistic or indeed design integrity. I'm confident a great many of the designers in Korg today are nothing like designers of the past, and could easily migrate over to designing sneakers (and probably will).
To Akos - synths with standard keys are selling fine - Moog, DSI and Roland are doing fine with their standard keyboard sizes - this is a fetish by Japanese synth manufacturers only.
You know, the best Korg keybed for me is the RH2 in OASYS 88 so far. I like it even better than the newer RH3 (in SV-1 or Kronos). But I tried Yamaha Reface and loved it immediately. Very playable. Then I touched the Roland Boutique and it was strange for me, I didn’t like it at all. So, some smaller keys are working for me (I did the nanoROCK demo years ago, see my signature). But, of course, I prefer the normal size keybeds anytime.
