Roland and Yamaha are on notice!!! after Namm 2013

[kamran_uk12]

Yamaha Corporation has always been a major partner of Korg, supplying them with circuitry and mechanical parts

[StephenKay]

Yamaha Corporation has always been a major partner of Korg, supplying them with circuitry and mechanical parts

Please get more modern information, that was true about 10 years ago.

[Kevin Nolan]

There are three significant advantages to owning either OASYS and Kronos over all other synthesizers or workstations, or Plugins, in the DAW age:

3) Longevity. Any job composed using an OASYS and Kronos can be returned to as long as the hardware lasts - decades from now you look after your instrument. Conversely, software based synths of today will surely be gone in a decade from now. If you want to re-mix a job done on Omnisphere in 15 years from now, chances are you will not be able to do it. The life time and longevity of DAW / Plugin based work is far less that for hardware based work - and this issue is increasingly of concern even to museums holding digital art from only a few decades ago. I realise everything has a life time, even hardware, but the longevity of your work will be increased if done using hardware.

Well, yes and no. if you replace your PC and upgrade the OS your soft synth may no longer function. But if you keep an old PC with an older OS for the sole purpose of running your soft synths then you're good. In fact you may be better off than an OASYS. If the hardware fails it is more likely that you can find a cheap PC that can run your old software than you will find parts for the OASYS.

I had considered this strategy for iPad based synths but in this case you are probably correct. It's unlikely that Apple with support older iOS versions on newer hardware so you may be out of luck at some point.

But most people do not do that. They don't hang onto old computers. And in any case even if you intended doing this, it would become impractical - different computers for different plugins and so on.

I agree regarding the iPad. I am the proud owner of an iPad Air, but I also bought an iPad 1 and it owes me nothing, but it has been hugely frustrating to see both Apple and App developers abandon it. It's only 3 years old! I see no future for iPad in music beyond controller functions - I have all the latest and greatest iPad synths but they just can't be integrated well into a DAW environment - cumbersome, latency ridden, protocols don't exist, mostly no support for MIDI (!), and on and on...

Apart from that, I would not trust committing a job to an iPad APP synth because chances are that in 3 years it will not be accessible.

And - iPad is not a good controller environment for synth virtual knobs!


Going back to workstations, I believe the following would open up new workstation markets (and have partially been demonstrate by Kronos and Intagra):

- All current capabilities
- Omnisphere-level program library support
- Full digital and MIDI integration into a DAW
- A commitment to library development and driver development (for DAW integration) for the VERY long term
- Adopt plugin level on-board storage capabilities (limitless program storage)

These are the sorts of features that would mature a workstation into the modern age and prod media composers to consider them. At the moment, few if any media composers consider any sound generating devices outside of the computer (and for good reasons of optimized work-flow, speed, ergonomics, storage and archival) and so on.

Why Yamaha and Roland have not realised this fully given they own DAWs is beyond me; and Korg seem utterly oblivious to the possibility. Perhaps they just believe that that market will never materialise. Nevertheless, and this was just recently reported - the fastest growing job sector in the US is - media composer! 2nd to none!!

[gjvti]

But most people do not do that. They don't hang onto old computers. And in any case even if you intended doing this, it would become impractical - different computers for different plugins and so on.

Having collection of different old synths (just in case) is practical?

I have all the latest and greatest iPad synths but they just can't be integrated well into a DAW environment - cumbersome, latency ridden, protocols don't exist, mostly no support for MIDI (!), and on and on...

Have you looked here?
http://iconnectivity.com/iConnectMIDI2plus

Apart from that, I would not trust committing a job to an iPad APP synth because chances are that in 3 years it will not be accessible.

just don't connect it to internet as you do with your hardware and I'm pretty sure everything will be accessible even after 5 years

And - iPad is not a good controller environment for synth virtual knobs!

well, I would agree with that. I find iPad is fine for patch programming, but not for live use. Touchstrip and XY control operation however are petty usable for sending CCs.

Going back to workstations, I believe the following would open up new workstation markets (and have partially been demonstrate by Kronos and Intagra):

- All current capabilities
- Omnisphere-level program library support
- Full digital and MIDI integration into a DAW
- A commitment to library development and driver development (for DAW integration) for the VERY long term
- Adopt plugin level on-board storage capabilities (limitless program storage).....

Workstations .... Main and probably the only advantage of such hardware workstation is live use allowing you to switch between projects/sequences seamlessly and Karma scenes to switch between parts within performance - what Kronos does and I think no software DAW, no other thing does. Regarding this Kronos probably is the only hardware workstation design, which makes sense, all others just do not count. Others are just pianos, controllers, synthesizers. I find that Kronos as workstation is quite complete actually, just missing proper sequencer and timestretch for audio and I wish next gen it would be in more compact format - if Triton brain can be fitted in tablet size box I think with today's technology Kronos brain could be as well.

[vEddY]

Have you looked here?
http://iconnectivity.com/iConnectMIDI2plus

What Kevin was saying isn't that "iPad doesn't have MIDI connectivity". What he said was - iPad synth apps lack MIDI support, which in turn means that iConnect and similar devices are useless. And he is right, btw. A lot of the iPad synths don't offer CoreMIDI support, and even worse, many MIDI devices for iPad don't offer full CoreMIDI support. Alesis IOdock, Akai Synthstation 49,.... For example, SysEx doesn't work on them, and yes, I do have both of them so it's a pretty "personal pain", if you will. So most of the basic MIDI functionality isn't really there on iPad synths.

Workstations .... Main and probably the only advantage of such hardware workstation is live use allowing you to switch between projects/sequences seamlessly and Karma scenes to switch between parts within performance - what Kronos does and I think no software DAW, no other thing does. Regarding this Kronos probably is the only hardware workstation design, which makes sense, all others just do not count. Others are just pianos, controllers, synthesizers. I find that Kronos as workstation is quite complete actually, just missing proper sequencer and timestretch for audio and I wish next gen it would be in more compact format - if Triton brain can be fitted in tablet size box I think with today's technology Kronos brain could be as well.

Agreed, although it does go a bit further then that. I have been using Mainstage (tried with Cantabile, Forte,... ) for the past couple of years. While I do appericiate the fact that I can just backup my patches, buy a new computer and have everything up and running rather quickly, it's just not as "flexible" and it sure as hell isn't as "controllable, expressive, ..." as having a synth in front of me with knobs, sliders etc. In terms of importance, interface is very much on par with design and features, if you ask me.

Just as an example - Roland might have had a chance to have a very good product with Integra-7, which they blew with world-class-stupid design decisions (64 studio sets, only 4 modules available at any time). I swear, last week I was recondisdering buying this module, but when this reality set in once again, I gave it up. Also, iPad editor has no librarian functionality, what the heck's up with that? Sound-wise, I think it's excellent, but it's too limiting