Rob Sherratt wrote:Hey, wasn't the OP about Korg Kronos? I'm interested to learn more about it from anyone at NAMM or from reviewers etc
Rob, I have a feeling that this is just an open ring for us to tussle over, which I'm about to do.
But the new Kronos section of the board is probably where you should hang out from now on. Anyhow...
cocomo joe wrote:Ha.ha..don't make me.....
Just invest in a Macbook pro...Buy Spectrasonics instruments..and enjoy!
Thousants of patches and multies..>> programs and combies <<
All..* for free * as opposed to the greedy bunch.
Ther's nothing like Spectrasonics care of customers in the world.
Also.. a great software update is just around the corner.
For FREE for registered users..glad I'm one of them.
Now..compare all that with that great Korg support through the years.
And..for just a fraction of the money of a workstation.
A decent machine to drive it all..that's were the money goes.
And even then..the setup is cheaper compared to buying some Kronos
or whatever hardware machine.
Even M3..which I own.
As I mentioned before, the PC/softsynth crowd have their place in the musical universe, and contribute to the ever growing library of music and creative synthesis which I love.
However, I'm not fond of soft instruments and all-in-one software myself. I find them to be lacking in character after a bit, rather like the albums done completely on Synclavier by people like Eddie Jobson. One instrument does tend to have a certain amount of "sameness" to the sound, and it seems even more typical in the softsynth/PC recording world, where you do everything in the computer. Yes, very clean, but I think that's the real problem. Digital signals being channeled solely through computer memory, handled and processed by pieces of software separated by a few bytes of computer memory.
In the old days, instruments were discreet hunks of hardware. They had unique panels and keyboard components, and you tended to play each instrument uniquely. Go from a Steinway to a Hammond C3 to an Oberheim Matrix 12, and you approach them differently. The music you make with each is different. There are different techniques for each. Each instrument sounds and behaves completely different.
Yes, unless you have an actual analog synth, these digital instruments are essentially just software running in proprietary hardware. However, they have one thing which differentiates them from real softsynths: they produce their sounds through unique electrical circuits and converters, and almost all of them are recorded by running physical cables to analog recording consoles.
Yes, this is all very last millennium, clunky and cluttered and messy. And this is what I like about them.
There's something which makes these instruments more alive when those digital signals are converted to electricity, which oscillate through different electronics with different impedances and frequency response curves, have to run through cables into more discreet electronics. Getting equalized with physical old school equalizers, treated by reverbs, delays and other effects in racks with their own sonic character. Mixed down through pricey summing amps to most likely be recorded into digital form on some hard drive.
But this is a process which is very different from everything in a box digital recording, when the sound is a stream of numbers being added to other numbers, with treatments being made with algorithms using more numbers... the whole thing is nothing but a huge equation. The only sonic signature imparted is from the instruments and effect algorithms.
With old school recording using cables and outboard effects, you have some added distortion, but you also have the sound of instruments being handled by high quality electronics with actual headroom and compression signatures, possibly some tube stuff with its own warm character, not a stream of numbers pretending to be tubes and faking a measure of warmth and even order distortion.
My Ensoniq TS-10 has an electric 12 string patch I created that sounds somehow like a guitar being played through a high quality clean amp, even though it only uses a light chorus and reverb effect. No other instrument or sample library has been able to sound like it, or likely ever will. In fact, none of my digital instruments sound like each other running through my Studiomaster console, or like any softsynth anyone can name.
These instruments define my sound, the way instruments used to distinguish keyboardists before patch and sample libraries overwhelmed us with tons of useful instant gratification at the push of a button. And I try my best to resist using their presets, even though these days they are excellent, especially on KORGs and Kurzweils. I roll my own, and do the same with my effects processors, so I'm not using someone else's reverb chambers as heard on countless songs. So hopefully, I'll be following in the footsteps of pioneers like Keith Emerson and Tomita, who got a sound out of their Moogs because they darn well had to create it from scratch.
Oh, one caveat I forgot to mention. While I prefer having a bunch of synths on hand, I'm enamored with the notion of doing an album solely with the Kronos, like Jordan Rudess has done with his Kurzweils. I doubt I will, maybe a few songs at the most, because I have patches strewn across my synths which are begging to be used, and I want to let them sing in my crazy synthesized orchestrations.
Essay complete.
