What's the reason you DIDN'T buy a Kronos?

Synthesizedclapping · Post by **Synthesizedclapping** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:52 am

I agree with Randy. Although I dint have any mobile keyboard currently, I feel the nord stage 2 is a better option for me. And that will be my next purchase.

After losing a lot of the gas for a Kronos, I really started thinking about what would be most practical for me. I needed sounds that cut through a mix in a live setting, and something that's very Intuitive. The nord stage 2 provides for me much more than the kronos could.

That may sound silly but in the context of my needs it's true. If I ever find the money I will certainly still be purchasing a Kronos to compliment the nord. And by that time impRovement will be made. Im really Into how simplistic the stage is and whilst limited in capabilities, I think that will encourage more creativity in my music.

Also, I can get a deal on the NS2 better than a Kronos.

MartinHines · Post by **MartinHines** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:56 am

Randelph wrote: Really? That surprises me. What leads you to that conclusion?

Having done desktop publishing for years, that sort of re-sizing, at least in the desktop world, is tedious but pretty straightforward and not that big of a deal-

The window size is fixed, and most pages do not support scrolling. Therefore, increasing the font size would require the current information on a single screen be broken up into multiple screens.

Take the following screen as an example (I just pulled the first screen I could find in the Operation Manual). This is the Combination P0:Play screen. The small font size allows the window to display all 16 tracks at once. If you increased the font sizes of all of the text on that screen you could not fit 16 tracks anymore.

Korg essentially took screens that were originally designed for a 10.4" diagonal screen (OASYS) and decreased the font sizes so the screens could fit on an 8" diagonal screen (KRONOS).

Unless I am missing something I don't see how one could increase the font sizes without having to redesign all of the screens.

Synthesizedclapping · Post by **Synthesizedclapping** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:11 am

MartinHines wrote:

Unless I am missing something I don't see how one could increase the font sizes without having to redesign all of the screens.

If you look at the font below the knobs. You're telling me they couldnt make that bigger? And those play and mute buttons? I'm sure they could increase the size of those buttons, hence more room for the words

bousfieldj · Post by **bousfieldj** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:44 am

Synthesizedclapping wrote:I agree with Randy. Although I dint have any mobile keyboard currently, I feel the nord stage 2 is a better option for me. And that will be my next purchase.

After losing a lot of the gas for a Kronos, I really started thinking about what would be most practical for me. I needed sounds that cut through a mix in a live setting, and something that's very Intuitive. The nord stage 2 provides for me much more than the kronos could.

That may sound silly but in the context of my needs it's true. If I ever find the money I will certainly still be purchasing a Kronos to compliment the nord. And by that time impRovement will be made. Im really Into how simplistic the stage is and whilst limited in capabilities, I think that will encourage more creativity in my music.

Also, I can get a deal on the NS2 better than a Kronos.

Hello

I saw that you mentioned you were planning on getting an NS2. It is a great keyboard. However, I had initially bought an NS2 and I ended up returning it and getting a Kronos. Here is why........

1). The pianos in the Kronos are much better. And as far as cutting thru the mix, this is a problem for the Nord pianos. Check their forums, there are quite a few theads about it. It is a problem.

2). The hammond emulation in the NS2 is excellent, however the leslie emulation is a bit weak, especially at the fast speed. I actually like the leslie emulation in the Kronos better. If I had kept the NS2 I probably would have ended up getting something like the Neo Ventilator.....

3). The synth in the NS2 is weak. Great for strings and pads but not much else. Kronos is a couple of levels about the NS2 for synth capability.

As far as playing live - the SST and set list features in Kronos are huge, for me at least....

Anyway, best of luck on what ever you decide. I just thought I would share my experience.

Cheers...

Synthesizedclapping · Post by **Synthesizedclapping** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 3:15 am

bousfieldj wrote:
Synthesizedclapping wrote:I agree with Randy. Although I dint have any mobile keyboard currently, I feel the nord stage 2 is a better option for me. And that will be my next purchase.

After losing a lot of the gas for a Kronos, I really started thinking about what would be most practical for me. I needed sounds that cut through a mix in a live setting, and something that's very Intuitive. The nord stage 2 provides for me much more than the kronos could.

That may sound silly but in the context of my needs it's true. If I ever find the money I will certainly still be purchasing a Kronos to compliment the nord. And by that time impRovement will be made. Im really Into how simplistic the stage is and whilst limited in capabilities, I think that will encourage more creativity in my music.

Also, I can get a deal on the NS2 better than a Kronos.

Hello

I saw that you mentioned you were planning on getting an NS2. It is a great keyboard. However, I had initially bought an NS2 and I ended up returning it and getting a Kronos. Here is why........

1). The pianos in the Kronos are much better. And as far as cutting thru the mix, this is a problem for the Nord pianos. Check their forums, there are quite a few theads about it. It is a problem.

2). The hammond emulation in the NS2 is excellent, however the leslie emulation is a bit weak, especially at the fast speed. I actually like the leslie emulation in the Kronos better. If I had kept the NS2 I probably would have ended up getting something like the Neo Ventilator.....

3). The synth in the NS2 is weak. Great for strings and pads but not much else. Kronos is a couple of levels about the NS2 for synth capability.

As far as playing live - the SST and set list features in Kronos are huge, for me at least....

Anyway, best of luck on what ever you decide. I just thought I would share my experience.

Cheers...

Thanks. I still have a while to consider everything.

1) If the pianos are a matter of EQ, I have a good amount of experience on how to EQ things just right. I believe in the forums they talk about them getting better. Idk. I'll have to try them out myself.

2) I believe they adressed that issue in an update with the Leslie sim being too fast and unrealistic.

3.) I would say the kronos is leagues above the nord synth. But the nord synth will do everything I need it to do. Nothing too complex just basic stuff. One big seller for me is the nord sample library. Those collections are killer and really open up new doors. I use Mellotrons highly and nord mellotrons are much better than kronos' apparently.

Thanks for your input though. Greatly appreciated

EXer · Post by **EXer** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:20 am

MartinHines wrote:Unless I am missing something I don't see how one could increase the font sizes without having to redesign all of the screens.

Either you're missing something, either your post is biased by the example you gave, which shows one of the most cramped screens, on which it would actually be quite difficult to increase the font size.

But there are many screens on which there is enough space to increase the size of the fonts and the size of the virtual buttons without having to be break them up into multiple screens (which would indeed be a lot of work).

And there are also screens from which useless pictures could be removed to make room for bigger fonts and bigger virtual buttons. Personnaly I don't care about a picture on the display of a synth showing a piano with an opening and closing lid or a Small Stone Phaser plugged in a Fender Rhodes. What I want is a GUI that I can use on stage or during sound design sessions without eyestrain and without back ache.

EXer · Post by **EXer** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:15 am

Synthesizedclapping wrote:One big seller for me is the nord sample library. Those collections are killer and really open up new doors. I use Mellotrons highly and nord mellotrons are much better than kronos' apparently.

You could find good Mellotron samples on the internet to load into your Kronos, e.g. here.

StephenKay · Post by **StephenKay** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:06 am

MartinHines wrote:Korg essentially took screens that were originally designed for a 10.4" diagonal screen (OASYS) and decreased the font sizes so the screens could fit on an 8" diagonal screen (KRONOS).

Hi Martin - not quite correct.

The OASYS display is 640 x 480 pixels. The Kronos display, although physically smaller, is 800 x 600 pixels. The fonts are exactly the same size on the OASYS and Kronos. Hence, the end result is that the fonts appear quite a bit smaller on the Kronos, with more white space around them, even though they are the same "point size". Let's say a particular letter in a particular font was 12 pixels high. 12 pixels is a much smaller distance physically on a Kronos display, because it is higher resolution, and a smaller display to boot. There is actually more display space on a Kronos screen than there is on an OASYS screen. But the fonts and most of the widgets are the same size in both. Or to put it another way: the pixels are smaller on a Kronos screen, and there are more of them - in a smaller rectangle than the OASYS.

Designing the GUI pages of Korg's proprietary software interface is not like changing the font size in a desktop publishing program. If only it were that easy, it would have been done. I've not worked with it myself, but I've been told that designing the GUI screens at the engineering level is quite involved and difficult given their current set of tools. It may be (and I'm just speculating), that every single fixed label and every single text field, on every single page and screen in every mode, would have had to be individually resized, repositioned and retweaked from the OASYS versions - there's no global setting to change the font size. Maybe there should be, maybe someday there could be, I don't know - but I remember hearing that changing the font sizes and the size of some of the widgets would have added another year to the software development. FWIW.

madbeatzyo111 · Post by **madbeatzyo111** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:32 am

Ok so how about a magnifying tool (like in Windows). It could work like the X-Y button, only onscreen (eg "magnify"). Toggle it on and then wherever you touch is magnified a small bit. Touch another place and it will magnify there too. Now toggle another button ("magnify hold"), and normal touchscreen functionality is restored, but the magnified pop-ups remain. Now toggle the "magnify" button off, and all the pop-ups go away.

Randelph · Post by **Randelph** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 9:46 am

bousfieldj wrote:

Hello

I saw that you mentioned you were planning on getting an NS2. It is a great keyboard. However, I had initially bought an NS2 and I ended up returning it and getting a Kronos. Here is why........

1). The pianos in the Kronos are much better. And as far as cutting thru the mix, this is a problem for the Nord pianos. Check their forums, there are quite a few theads about it. It is a problem.

2). The hammond emulation in the NS2 is excellent, however the leslie emulation is a bit weak, especially at the fast speed. I actually like the leslie emulation in the Kronos better. If I had kept the NS2 I probably would have ended up getting something like the Neo Ventilator.....

3). The synth in the NS2 is weak. Great for strings and pads but not much else. Kronos is a couple of levels about the NS2 for synth capability.

As far as playing live - the SST and set list features in Kronos are huge, for me at least....

Anyway, best of luck on what ever you decide. I just thought I would share my experience.

Yeah, the Kronos is hard to pass up. But my personal experience is that with the limited time that I have for music, I end up getting involved in the technical side of things when I've got a workstation; at least that's what I did with the Motif XS- fussed with learning and conquering the board instead of just playing it.

And there's something daunting to me in how to relate to so much endless, open possibility. Perhaps the Kronos is better than the M3 in this regard, but there was no easy way to look at the board and know what was routed to what for the controllers, esp. in Combi mode. And instead of setting up voices in a matter of minutes like I do on the Stage, a well done Combi can easily take an hour or two.

Which is not a complaint- I really enjoy the sound design capabilities of such an advanced workstation, esp. since the sounds are of such high quality (my biggest complaint with the M3), and the screen is large enough that you don't have to bounce around so much like with the M3. But I know myself, I can get lost easily in doing that instead of getting back to getting my keyboard chops up.

And better quality sounds are relative. I use the Steinway D close mic'd piano on the Stage and while I'm sure there are better pianos out there, I am very very happy playing it, same with the EPs- a real joy, same with the organs and synth sounds. I realize the synth section, esp. on my Classic, is very limited compared to what the Kronos can do, but it sounds great to me- it's got real sparkle and sheen and is a huge upgrade from romplers trying to do analog.

I hadn't heard about the pianos having a hard time cutting through the mix; certainly not my experience. In live situations I play a lot of piano/ep/soft leads, some organ, and it really sits well, I get a lot of compliments on the sound quality. I'm not playing in raucous heavy metal bands (working now with a guy doing Doors and funked up upbeat Beatles songs for most part).

And its a different way of working. Instead of having 20-30 parameters, or more, for a single Program, that allows guys like BurningBusch to work faithful re-creation magic; instead there's typically a handful of parameters that, instead of getting down on the micro level and tweaking every parameter, instead it operates more old school with simple eq, compressor, knobby fx, easily setup layers and splitting, and easily assigned controllers. It took me awhile to get used to this simplified approach, like, aren't we missing something here? But I get extremely musical results very quickly. If I needed specific sounds for a lot of different songs, then the limited sound pallete and tweaking options would be too limiting, but for bread and butter sounds, I'm very very satisfied.

The other issue for me with the Kronos is its size and weight. In my mid-50's, I'm not eager to transport a 50 pound board (total of 80 pounds with a case) up flights of stairs, etc. At 40 pounds, the Stage is just about as heavy as I'm willing to lug around. And the extra 5-6 inches of length from the joystick is very meaningful- I would have trouble fitting it in the space I have for it now in the livingroom, and would possibly have to compromise and get a 73 note board (which doesn't go all the way down to C- bummer).

And the size of the fonts is kind of a big deal as well. The example Martin Hines showed of that one screen- yeah, that would be hard to do much with. But there's plenty of other screens that could be tweaked. Sounds like I have no idea of whats involved in changing up the display- that's too bad- it's really much more inviting to have screens that can be easily read.

For now, simple is good, and I've got my M3 to learn on, so when I do get a Kronos, I'll hopefully be mostly up to speed!

Randy

EXer · Post by **EXer** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:28 am

[edit] post deleted

qfingers · Post by **qfingers** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:27 pm

StephenKay wrote: The OASYS display is 640 x 480 pixels. The Kronos display, although physically smaller, is 800 x 600 pixels. The fonts are exactly the same size on the OASYS and Kronos. Hence, the end result is that the fonts appear quite a bit smaller on the Kronos, with more white space around them, even though they are the same "point size". Let's say a particular letter in a particular font was 12 pixels high. 12 pixels is a much smaller distance physically on a Kronos display, because it is higher resolution, and a smaller display to boot. There is actually more display space on a Kronos screen than there is on an OASYS screen. But the fonts and most of the widgets are the same size in both. Or to put it another way: the pixels are smaller on a Kronos screen, and there are more of them - in a smaller rectangle than the OASYS.

Designing the GUI pages of Korg's proprietary software interface is not like changing the font size in a desktop publishing program. If only it were that easy, it would have been done. I've not worked with it myself, but I've been told that designing the GUI screens at the engineering level is quite involved and difficult given their current set of tools. It may be (and I'm just speculating), that every single fixed label and every single text field, on every single page and screen in every mode, would have had to be individually resized, repositioned and retweaked from the OASYS versions - there's no global setting to change the font size. Maybe there should be, maybe someday there could be, I don't know - but I remember hearing that changing the font sizes and the size of some of the widgets would have added another year to the software development. FWIW.

Well I first the OASYS display 1024x768 pixels. So, the Kronos is a smaller in display. In order to keep the screens the same, the font *has* to be smaller (or larger) given the fact there are less (or more) pixels on the screen.

EDIT: I was wrong it is 640x480. I just looked up the specs. Sorry Stephen... Wow, that big of screen with that little pixels.

As far as designing screens that scale requires much more effort. And it has to be done at the beginning. You can't add it later easily. Every screen would have to be touched, which is where the Kronos/OASYS GUI currently stands.

Web browsers solve the font scaling stuff easily all the time. I constantly scale the fonts when people design web pages with to small of fonts. It is a simpler problem to solve because text is normally formatted in paragraphs and can be wrapped between words. When all the data can't fit on the screen, horizontal and vertical scroll bars get added. Mind you, I don't think that is the answer either because it makes the interface clumsy. Tablets (IPad and Android) seem solve it without constantly visible scroll bars and finger gestures. The touch screen hardware would need to support this type of input. I understand Korg's problem though. They wanted to create a machine with an elegant user interface. Adding a *hack* to fix the problem is not really a solution.

I will say I have ordered a Kronos 88 so this response is not necessarily on topic. For me the screen size and layouts are not a problem. I've played one and actually like it.

q

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 1:59 pm

RonF wrote:
Shakil wrote:
RonF wrote: Just curious....what other keyboard(s) or gear are you thinking of which does allow this? I am always on the hunt for good implementation of this exact feature...but find it rarely.
RonF...

Roland workstations... Fantom-S, Fantom-X and Fantom-G (within same phrase) let you record on different midi parts in continues loops... you can also activate rehearsal mode, where the sequencer is looping in record mode and you can try different sounds, without acctually reocrding them.. I like this non-stop loop recording for building patterns......
I also have the Emu Command Station, which does this better than any hardware sequencer I have seen. You can do just about *anything*, edits and all, while the sequencer continues to play, jumping in and out of record mode at will.
The only two other's that I know of are an MPC or a Roland MV.

RonF
Fantom X and G mill let you do that as well. You can do anything while the sequencer is running. On Fantom G it is even better. The sequencer is independent of sound generator mode. You can have the same song song playing, and recording while editing the patch or live set or studio set. This is what lets you record different live sets as audio on different tracks with in the same song. I wish Roland had supported this board better and just add the missing features from previous models and improve the file system.

If KRONOS had the features I listed in my post, I would have sold Fantom-G and M3-m.

Shakil · Post by **Shakil** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 3:10 pm

Shakil wrote:
RonF wrote:
Shakil wrote: RonF...

Roland workstations... Fantom-S, Fantom-X and Fantom-G (within same phrase) let you record on different midi parts in continues loops... you can also activate rehearsal mode, where the sequencer is looping in record mode and you can try different sounds, without acctually reocrding them.. I like this non-stop loop recording for building patterns......
I also have the Emu Command Station, which does this better than any hardware sequencer I have seen. You can do just about *anything*, edits and all, while the sequencer continues to play, jumping in and out of record mode at will.
The only two other's that I know of are an MPC or a Roland MV.

RonF
Fantom X and G mill let you do that as well. You can do anything while the sequencer is running. On Fantom G it is even better. The sequencer is independent of sound generator mode. You can have the same song song playing, and recording while editing the patch or live set or studio set. This is what lets you record different live sets as audio on different tracks with in the same song. I wish Roland had supported this board better and just add the missing features from previous models, improve the file system, and fixed the effects routing design.

If KRONOS had the features I listed in my post, I would have sold Fantom-G and M3-m.

RonF · Post by **RonF** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:35 pm

Shakil wrote: RonF
Fantom X and G mill let you do that as well. You can do anything while the sequencer is running. On Fantom G it is even better. The sequencer is independent of sound generator mode. You can have the same song song playing, and recording while editing the patch or live set or studio set.

Hi Shakil...Gee I don't think the Fantom X/G will allow *any* edit procedure to be executed while the Sequencer is playing, let alone recording. AFAIK, you cannot go into the "microscope" edit window to shift the timing of a note, or to apply various quantize templates, etc., while the sequencer plays/records. You certainly cannot change tracks,....but I do understand you can change "parts" (read: midi channels, int/ext/ARX). I know you can make certain quick edits to a patch.....but you cannot edit sequence data while playing/recording. If I am wrong, PLEASE enlighten me.

As far as your latter comment....

This is what lets you record different live sets as audio on different tracks with in the same song.

Can you please elaborate on this? Are you saying you can record separate tracks of audio without stopping playback? Again, I don't think this is the case....but please enlighten me, because that would be great if true.

PS...I sent you a PM, and please feel free to respond by PM if you feel the subject matter is off-topic enough.