Is Kronos on it's way out?

[billysynth1]

Korg should drop a bomb shell now just like Apple did two days ago without an announcement, totally unexpected, and releasing the latest MacBook Pro notebooks with i9 intel processors, 32gb ram, etc...no warnings, no hint, just bang out of nowhere interrupted the status quo of the notebook computer world.

Korg should do the same with a Korg Highbrid Workstation Pro, just bang out of the blue, nobody expecting anything, hit the whole synth community with a Mad Workstation Synth.

That’ll fix ya...don’t you just love that word...’Pro’

Billy

[Kevin Nolan]

I wouldn't call Apple's release a bombshell in the sense you mean it.

While the precise date of release was unknown to us, let's be clear - Apple released a quad iCore7 with 16GB RAM MBP in 2011 - 7 years ago - and have done basically nothing since then.

So when they released that MBP with that silly new Bar above the keyboard two years ago - with otherwise essentially the same spec as a 2011 MBP - the world of Mac users, rightfully, went ape-s**t; and basically put Apple on notice that this was FAR from satisfactory.

The issue was compounded when their head of Mac development then stated in a public statement that he was surprised by the reaction. That is - he in essence indicated that he was completely out of touch with his own user base! That compounded Apple's loss of respect amongst users.


So - they had no bloody choice - and this new more powerful MBP is frankly years late, and sill lagging behind top end PC Laptops costing a fraction as much.

And in this new MBP - with no capability to user-upgrade RAM, and both extra RAM and SSD-capacity costing a full 4 times that of the equivalent from the likes of Crucial, I, and millions of MBP users like me, are sick and tired of Apple. They have become a pathetic joke of a computing company only interested in fleecing their user base at every available juncture because they know they have us over a barrel.


So I'd advise Korg - do the diametric opposite to Apple. Do not delay by years to offer your user base what they ask for; and do not fleece them for every penny just because you can.


The new MBP is nice - but - it is a bare minimum necessity at this juncture - years late and costing an arm and a leg. Thanks Apple!

[Bachus]

I wouldn't call Apple's release a bombshell in the sense you mean it.

While the precise date of release was unknown to us, let's be clear - Apple released a quad iCore7 with 16GB RAM MBP in 2011 - 7 years ago - and have done basically nothing since then.

So when they released that MBP with that silly new Bar above the keyboard two years ago - with otherwise essentially the same spec as a 2011 MBP - the world of Mac users, rightfully, went ape-s**t; and basically put Apple on notice that this was FAR from satisfactory.

The issue was compounded when their head of Mac development then stated in a public statement that he was surprised by the reaction. That is - he in essence indicated that he was completely out of touch with his own user base! That compounded Apple's loss of respect amongst users.


So - they had no bloody choice - and this new more powerful MBP is frankly years late, and sill lagging behind top end PC Laptops costing a fraction as much.

And in this new MBP - with no capability to user-upgrade RAM, and both extra RAM and SSD-capacity costing a full 4 times that of the equivalent from the likes of Crucial, I, and millions of MBP users like me, are sick and tired of Apple. They have become a pathetic joke of a computing company only interested in fleecing their user base at every available juncture because they know they have us over a barrel.


So I'd advise Korg - do the diametric opposite to Apple. Do not delay by years to offer your user base what they ask for; and do not fleece them for every penny just because you can.


The new MBP is nice - but - it is a bare minimum necessity at this juncture - years late and costing an arm and a leg. Thanks Apple!

While i do understand your apple emotions, they do color your pov. Actually that silly bar works very nice with many daws. And apple having done nothing new since 2011? they allways where right on the music with a new MAcbook model with the latest CPU.

The only thing they never did was upgrade the memmory to 32GB..

Sadly an upgrade from 16GB to 32Gb is 999 euro's which is totally unaceptable by todays standards and memory prices. Thats why i am running these days my MAc OSX on a hackintosh(with touchscreen)

[Devnor]

Most high end PC laptops do not have upgrade-able RAM. That ship has sailed. Memory speed, thermal/power management, shock resistance and space constrictions has eliminated the funky header connectors and access panels.

The news of thermal throttling on the new 6 core is concerning, the machine actually performed better only when it was running intensive tasks inside a freezer.

Oh, I think the touch bar is quite useful.

[burningbusch]

Yes, the thermal throttling appears to be a big issue, quite possibly a design issue that can't be remedied.

https://youtu.be/Dx8J125s4cg

I wouldn't say Apple "interrupted the status quo of the notebook computer world" by any stretch. 8th gen PC laptops have been out for months. Some supporting up to 64GB RAM and offering a true desktop alternative without the throttling issues (though, obviously, in a larger less thermal restrictive chassis). You can find 8th gen i7 6-core laptops at Costco for a little over $1,000USD.

There was a time when the "Apple tax" bought you cutting-edge CPUs and performance in addition to the other attractive aspects of the platform. Now they seem to always be late to the party, at least as far as their computers go.

Busch.

[BobTheDog]

The bad throttling seems to be from one guy on youtube? Maybe he has a bad one?

The Geekbench benchmarks for the new machines posted so far show significant performance increases over the older models.

[Gargamel314]

So I'm just a bit curious reading about the Karma experience to some of you fooks. For the record I'm one of them do a loop kinda home musician which is a bit to static to call making music.

I saw Karma in action in video's like the one with Jordan Rudess at Kraft M one of my favorite, And understood its not a fixed pattern, something is happening here differently. Every sound is moving with and in conjunction of a rhythm. I can't do this with a sequencer.

Have some tried to follow the video courses done by karma-labs to lessen the difficulty mastering and what the experience after that.

Karma is where I feel like I underused my M3, and now the Kronos. What holds me back is that it's not very easy to use it with an external sequencer. I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I know there is a way, but by the time I pull up the tutorial, make adjustments to the workstation settings, and then try to set up Sonar, I end up in Scary MIDI Hell, all for using Karma with one part. I'm a musician, not a programmer, I get lost in all the settings menus.

I feel like Karma is better for people who perform live, or use the on-board sequencer to record their music. It's amazing, but off limits to someone like me. I welcome anyone to argue me, I really want to be wrong here.

[GregC]

So I'm just a bit curious reading about the Karma experience to some of you fooks. For the record I'm one of them do a loop kinda home musician which is a bit to static to call making music.

I saw Karma in action in video's like the one with Jordan Rudess at Kraft M one of my favorite, And understood its not a fixed pattern, something is happening here differently. Every sound is moving with and in conjunction of a rhythm. I can't do this with a sequencer.

Have some tried to follow the video courses done by karma-labs to lessen the difficulty mastering and what the experience after that.

Karma is where I feel like I underused my M3, and now the Kronos. What holds me back is that it's not very easy to use it with an external sequencer. I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I know there is a way, but by the time I pull up the tutorial, make adjustments to the workstation settings, and then try to set up Sonar, I end up in Scary MIDI Hell, all for using Karma with one part. I'm a musician, not a programmer, I get lost in all the settings menus.

I feel like Karma is better for people who perform live, or use the on-board sequencer to record their music. It's amazing, but off limits to someone like me. I welcome anyone to argue me, I really want to be wrong here.

I hear your challenge. As a song writer, I enjoy karma drums immensely using the SEQ.

I have a friend who is making some progress with Karma into Cubase.
He might not see this post- maybe start a new topic on the challenge.

[Kronos2ison]

One can only wish the Kronos will have a successor soon but it appears not. If so you would be seeing hefty discounts and rebates. Maybe next year..

[Bachus]

One can only wish the Kronos will have a successor soon but it appears not. If so you would be seeing hefty discounts and rebates. Maybe next year..

Thast not how it works anymore.

The only thing that counts is how many Kronos's does Korg have in Stock.. And we can not know such..

[iowagold]

i think korg missed the boat on cake walk
they should have bought it...
then used sonar as a direct interface with all the korg units!!
new and old!!

daw direct as well as back wards...
they could have made it so easy for the music non tech guy to program a keyboard and record too!!

as for me...
we as a tech first as well as software designer and hardware guru...

I still use old school methods to get down the outlines of a good track or riff...

and now I do it digital... I leave all the recording gear ready to go...

that way all I have to do is turn it on and click record!!

and I have a few basic sound modules with basic organ, piano, drums, strings...

so I can lay down a basic sound fast...

then later when I have time to great "the sound" for the new track I can program up the m3 and the radias units with the desired unique sound!!


right now I have my own unique patches for my sound....
or my clients sound...
not for sale...

nice to be able to click a few buttons and record for sure!!


now if korg made a new line of synths and a daw software library like in sonar with their own daw made just to run with that gear!!

yea I would buy one at 10 grand usd…

as we are right now it takes a bit over 20 grand usd
to do pro tracks or more depending on your interface choices...

250 grand is not out of the question for a medium small studio these days...
let alone add a few hard to find classic old keyboards at 20 to 50 grand each for a good one....

yup the new keyboards under 6 grand are cheap...

heck it is all butchered by the time you record it to digital...

lol I miss the old 1/2 track tape days!!

the music was not pure, but recording was unique!!
and always a challenge!!
and if you did it right after 100 layers it sounded pretty good too!!

these days sonar and pro tools has me spoiled...
I just wish the computers could keep up with the data stream!!
you just get going good and then crash!!
and hope your backups are good...

I run a recorder live... split the I/o tracks with send to daw and the live recorder...

and have raid backups on the daw…
it has saved my bacon more than once!!

[GregC]

One can only wish the Kronos will have a successor soon but it appears not. If so you would be seeing hefty discounts and rebates. Maybe next year..

Thast not how it works anymore.

The only thing that counts is how many Kronos's does Korg have in Stock.. And we can not know such..

Thats accurate. The Korg factory/assembly site has a monthly "work in progress #" or their plan for running the assembly line to complete a Kronos 2 .

My guess is they plan 3-4 months out on quantity production.

Then we have the " distributor " channel and retail channel. Korg distributors are not going to carry large amount of stock. Possibly a 30 day supply. They exist
to feed the retailers- at least thats the channel here in the US.

If I worked for Sweetwater I could get a fair sense of whats going on with inventory supply and monthly sales. Since we don't have any data points its almost impossible to guess " total inventory " or " completed stock on hand "
as a total.

[GregC]

i think korg missed the boat on cake walk
they should have bought it...
then used sonar as a direct interface with all the korg units!!
new and old!!

daw direct as well as back wards...
they could have made it so easy for the music non tech guy to program a keyboard and record too!!

you are possibly correct. If I ran Korg, I would produce a "hybrid' platform.

As we know, Korg has historically done things the " korg way'.

I am not sure of the president of Korg [ since 2012]. My take he is straddling the various niches of the synth market, IOS, etc etc etc. Take a long look at their product lineup. They play in 8 different market niches . Thus their 'focus ' or resources is spread or split 8 ways.

Since we focus heavily on 'flag ship' , even this approach is back wards looking.

I think its difficult to look forward if Korg will actually innovate on 'flag ship'.
Mostly everyone assumes so, either 2019 or 2020.

I think the key is software development. For innovation.

[Devnor]

If I worked for Sweetwater I could get a fair sense of whats going on with inventory supply and monthly sales. Since we don't have any data points its almost impossible to guess " total inventory " or " completed stock on hand "
as a total.

Had you worked for Sweetwater you would have signed an NDA to keep you from revealing this kind of info

Kronos going to be around for a good while longer. Enjoy your synths.

[GregC]

If I worked for Sweetwater I could get a fair sense of whats going on with inventory supply and monthly sales. Since we don't have any data points its almost impossible to guess " total inventory " or " completed stock on hand "
as a total.

Had you worked for Sweetwater you would have signed an NDA to keep you from revealing this kind of info

Kronos going to be around for a good while longer. Enjoy your synths.

yes, the NDA has 'silenced ' many employees who have to hang onto that job , even while not tipping there many keyboard friend on whats going to happen