EXS12, SGX-1 Austrian Piano released!

[NuSkoolTone]

wow it is really pricey.

Anyway, this is the reason why many people stil use cracked software . These companies are way too greedy.

You have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how much money it costs to create this library. Plan for a recording session, conduct a recording session, countless hours editing samples, etc.

I have to point out something with these new libraries. There is NO LOOPING involved. As long as you did your due diligence during the recording session, the rest of the editing/processing is TRIVIAL by comparison IMO. For this alone, I have to agree these libraries are pushing the envelope on price.

Also, if Korg doesn't earn a good profit from each library, why would they ever produce any more?

*SNIP*

I'll do ya one better. How about Korg opens up the streaming capability to the PUBLIC? Then we don't have to worry about what "Korg" wants to produce, nor be beholden to its marketing or decisions on what kind of sounds we need!

[GregC]

wow it is really pricey.


Also, if Korg doesn't earn a good profit from each library, why would they ever produce any more?

*SNIP*

I'll do ya one better. How about Korg opens up the streaming capability to the PUBLIC? Then we don't have to worry about what "Korg" wants to produce, nor be beholden to its marketing or decisions on what kind of sounds we need!

thats interesting.

How could that work ? what is involved( costs, copy protection, etc) ?

How would that benefit Korg ? How would that benefit customers ?

[SeedyLee]

Wonder if Korg would have an issue if we were to setup a BitTorrent download of the library to share with the Korgforums community? The downloads aren't tracked by user anyway, and it will ease the load on Korg's server.

Any thoughts?

[blinkofanI]

Hey NuSkool,
Can't wait to hear your own 6Gb piano library that you'll sell me for 50$!! It should be out soon since it's so trivial to produce...

Blink

[marcdeben]

I would pay $250 for a mini-moog lead download with all the classic Jan Hammer, Tom Coster, George Duke etc leads they made famous.

[NuSkoolTone]

Hey NuSkool,
Can't wait to hear your own 6Gb piano library that you'll sell me for 50$!! It should be out soon since it's so trivial to produce...

Blink

I never said the project was trivial, but in comparison to proper looping the rest of the editing is.

Depending on the sample rate and number of samples/velocities one uses, it's rather easy to blow through 6GB recording samples. Especially with such long notes capturing the natural decay of the instrument.

Getting the recording portion correct is most likely the hardest part. First, a properly tuned Piano in a properly treated room with controlled temperature and humidity. Next Proper Mic choices, phase and stereo field/depth, Preamp choice and Mic placement. Proper Gain staging and depending on taste a touch of compression or limiting to help control overs. Lastly a player that can properly attack the piano.

Next the editing. First choose which samples make the final cut and catalog them. Then trim the attack with consistency being careful not to cut to early (Affects attack tonality and can introduce harshness) and not too late (Will cause a delay when striking a key!). Next Trim the release of the sample being sure not to cut off too early to preserve room ambiance while still removing unwanted noise. Now depending on Korg's format you may have to program a release for short notes, or be able to specify a sample point for the natural release begins.

Lastly, EQ, (Maybe compression), and level matching. Followed by programming and testing.

Now granted this still is a lot of work. But the editing listed above PALES in comparison to finding and implementing good sounding, click free, phase coherent loops for stereo samples in my experience.

[arne v]

hmm...i have listened to the demo several times and in my ears the piano sounds very unnatural and awkvard (?). Maybe im more a germand grand type of guy ..hehe
Price? no comment

Maybe its like the KRS03..it will grow on you and get better over time

[DaveBoulden]

I was a bit disappointed when the price was originally mooted to be $249, but there was always the chance they'd offer introductory pricing. But to find that $249 *IS* the introductory price and they will be charging $299 thereafter has left me completely disappointed. By comparison, 8DIO have just released a 1928 Steinway library for Kontakt that is 12Gb and has an intro price of $149, raising to the normal $199 thereafter. If a small company like 8DIO can do the amount of work required to produce an astonishing piano library at that price point, why can't Korg?

[jimknopf]

Dave, I think the main difference is that the possible market for a software library, despite from a small company, might be multiple times bigger than that for a hardware synth sold in limited numbers.

[DaveBoulden]

I understand your point, but in this instance, since 8DIO are a relatively new company, Despite the library being on the Kontakt platform, I don't think their expected sales potential would be much more than Korg's initially.

[rob314159]

Plus the Bosie has about 10% more keys, so that accounts for some of the price difference.

[MartinHines]

I'll do ya one better. How about Korg opens up the streaming capability to the PUBLIC? Then we don't have to worry about what "Korg" wants to produce, nor be beholden to its marketing or decisions on what kind of sounds we need!

I would assume Korg is concerned about performance impacts that might occur if people could stream their own samples.

Currently since all user samples are fully loaded to RAM, the audio performance of the Kronos is controlled, i.e. Korg knows exactly what polyphony counts people will get with each of the different engines, and there is no audio delay or dropouts. This environment would not be guaranteed if Korg opened up the SSD for sample streaming.

If people started getting performance delays, they would of course blame Korg.

All the extra user samples I have are Akai libraries, which work well in the Kronos, or super large Kontakt libraries which work best in Kontakt.

I never said the project was trivial, but in comparison to proper looping the rest of the editing is.

Now granted this still is a lot of work.

You mentioned you would like to see an unlooped library of great strings, R&B/Latin horns, and guitars. How much do you think you would have to invest up-front to create such a library, including recording and testing? $10,000, $20,000?

What would be a fair price for your library? $100? (You obviously can't charge $249).

I think $249 is on the high end, but to me a not unreasonable price given the work and risk involved.

[burningbusch]

Hey NuSkool,
Can't wait to hear your own 6Gb piano library that you'll sell me for 50$!! It should be out soon since it's so trivial to produce...

Blink

I never said the project was trivial, but in comparison to proper looping the rest of the editing is.

Depending on the sample rate and number of samples/velocities one uses, it's rather easy to blow through 6GB recording samples. Especially with such long notes capturing the natural decay of the instrument.

Getting the recording portion correct is most likely the hardest part. First, a properly tuned Piano in a properly treated room with controlled temperature and humidity. Next Proper Mic choices, phase and stereo field/depth, Preamp choice and Mic placement. Proper Gain staging and depending on taste a touch of compression or limiting to help control overs. Lastly a player that can properly attack the piano.

Next the editing. First choose which samples make the final cut and catalog them. Then trim the attack with consistency being careful not to cut to early (Affects attack tonality and can introduce harshness) and not too late (Will cause a delay when striking a key!). Next Trim the release of the sample being sure not to cut off too early to preserve room ambiance while still removing unwanted noise. Now depending on Korg's format you may have to program a release for short notes, or be able to specify a sample point for the natural release begins.

Lastly, EQ, (Maybe compression), and level matching. Followed by programming and testing.

Now granted this still is a lot of work. But the editing listed above PALES in comparison to finding and implementing good sounding, click free, phase coherent loops for stereo samples in my experience.

I disagree that looping is all THAT difficult. Tools like Redmatica's offer several different sophisticated looping algorithms which can be applied in batch mode. You can then go in an fine tune/experiment afterwards. Looping is about finding the dog with the least flees anyway. It's easy to hear the loops on any digital piano or ROMpler--just listen. It's the point where that beautiful acoustic piano now sounds like an RMI. I don't care how much time someone spends on looping, in the end a looped sample library is guaranteed to sound inferior to one where the instrument is heard in its entirety. Why would I pay more for something that sounds worse?

What is remarkable to me with the Kronos piano libraries is the note-to-note consistency. I was comparing the new EXs12 to Ivory II Bosendorfer and the Korg is much more consistent note-to-note. The East West QL pianos are even less consistent, sometimes just wacky. All three sample each and every note. Now I'm not saying the Kronos sounds superior to these libraries across the board, but in this area I do think they're superior. Having personally sampled several Rhodes where I did sample each note at many velocities, I can tell you it's much more difficult to build a consistent instrument where every note is sampled. It is much easier to bypass those dead/problematic/odd harmonic notes by just grabbing an adjacent note and stretching it.

With regards to pricing I look at it this way. Right now the Korg Kronos universe is small, relatively speaking. Maybe 5,000 or so users. If you're creating a computer-based sample library there are many hundreds of thousands of people creating music on their computers. Obviously the larger pool of buyers allows you to sell at a lower price. I have a Protools TDM system. TDM plugins have always been significantly more expensive than native plugins. It's just a much smaller pool.

Busch.

[burningbusch]

I understand your point, but in this instance, since 8DIO are a relatively new company, Despite the library being on the Kontakt platform, I don't think their expected sales potential would be much more than Korg's initially.

Competition has pushed down the price of these libraries. The original Miroslav Vitous Orchestral Library (5 CDs) was $3500. You can now buy it for less than $250. The Scarbee Rhodes was originally $250+ as I recall. You can now buy it for $79 and it doesn't require a dedicated sampler as the original did. Years of competition has pushed down the price people are willing to pay for a piano library, orchestral library, DVD of loops, etc.

Busch.

[Mystic38]

Lol..

Looping is about finding the dog with the least flees anyway.