Korg Forums

I have a customer who just purchased a Kronos, and is asking me where to get some additional sounds to round off the Kronos.

His main complaint was in comparing to the Yamaha Montage,

Vocal uhhs/ahhs/oohs (realistic)
Acoustic guitar
Distorted Guitar
Electric guitar/Wha
Saxophones

I'm sure he can purchase separate sample packages, but that becomes quite expensive, especially comparing to what is already in the Montage.

So if there are any ones I should point him too, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

There's a vast array of expansion libraries available for the KRONOS.

Here's a link to my page on KORG that support Acoustic Guitars, the other 3 libraries contain various Choir / Vocal sounds. More so than others (EXS90 probably having the most vocal based sounds)
http://shop.korg.com/Kronos/IrishActs

The links on the left allow you to browse other third party developers libraries. Everything you see is downloadable and can be installed on the KRONOS before making a purchase.

In demo mode the KRONOS will simply make the sounds fade in and out every 10 seconds or so. If he likes a library and wants to purchase it, KORG will give him a Key Code that stops the demo version from fading in and out.

In effect the demo versions are the full versions. They just fade in and out until you purchase a key code, but it's a perfect way to try before you buy.

There's also various sound packs avaialbe on the forum here for free if he searched around for them.
Some more free stuff in our download section here too. http://www.korgforums.com/support/kronos.htm

Regards
Sharp.

Thanks Sharp,

I'm still trying to get Korg to add a few of those samples on their dime.

It would make all the sense in the world, to at least have what your competition does, then what you have that is better will really stand out

Thanks again

Audioworks wrote:Thanks Sharp,

I'm still trying to get Korg to add a few of those samples on their dime.

It would make all the sense in the world, to at least have what your competition does, then what you have that is better will really stand out

Thanks again

speaking of, how do you rank/rate Kronos 2 sales for the past 2 months, and Montage sales for the same 2 months ?

Audioworks wrote:Thanks Sharp,

I'm still trying to get Korg to add a few of those samples on their dime.

It would make all the sense in the world, to at least have what your competition does, then what you have that is better will really stand out

Thanks again

To be honest that sounds quite silly. You wouldn't ask Yamaha to put seven more engines in the Montage either. They are simply different boards with different strengths, though the Kronos is vastly more expandable.

Audioworks wrote: Vocal uhhs/ahhs/oohs (realistic)
Acoustic guitar
Distorted Guitar
Electric guitar/Wha
Saxophones

Regarding the vocals, I'm a little surprised. Yamaha has generally been weak in terms of vocals with Roland and Korg providing better options, e.g. jazz vocals (maybe that changed with the Montage, I can't say). Make sure he searches the COMBIs under vocals (PAD/VOCALS==>VOCALS). Jazz Singers is one plus additional choirs. Also, make sure EXs15 Classical and Ambient Choir is loaded (I assume this is a new Kronos and this should be included).

Concerning the guitars, I purchased a commercial license for Jensen Guitars and these are available for free. They include electric and acoustic guitars.
You can find them here.
http://www.purgatorycreek.com/page17/st ... page3.html

I also have another free library, Flame Guitars which you can find here (I prefer the Jensen):
http://www.purgatorycreek.com/page17/st ... index.html

I don't have any new saxophones that are available for free, but EXs3 - Brass & Woodwinds is not fully loaded by default, meaning there are additional samples/programs included in the instrument that are not loaded.

Whether all of this gets your client what he wants I can't say. The Yamaha guitars are some of the best sounds in the instrument, IMO, but many of the favorites are quite old and can be found on even a Motif ES Rack which can be found in the $300 - $400 range.

But, as was stated above, there are a huge number of excellent 3rd-party sounds that can be added.

Busch.

The SoundIron vocal libraries are very extensive and don't cost a lot. Check out SoundIron at the Korg Shop.

https://shop.korg.com/kronosSoundLibraries

Audioworks wrote: Vocal uhhs/ahhs/oohs (realistic)
Acoustic guitar
Distorted Guitar
Electric guitar/Wha
Saxophones

"Brass & Vocals Suite" plus "Guitars Suite' from WavesArt and done !
http://wavesart.eu/KronosEXs

Audioworks wrote:I have a customer who just purchased a Kronos, and is asking me where to get some additional sounds to round off the Kronos.

His main complaint was in comparing to the Yamaha Montage,

Vocal uhhs/ahhs/oohs (realistic)
Acoustic guitar
Distorted Guitar
Electric guitar/Wha
Saxophones

I'm sure he can purchase separate sample packages, but that becomes quite expensive, especially comparing to what is already in the Montage.

So if there are any ones I should point him too, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

What on earth were you doing selling a customer a keyboard that was so disappointed with that particular range of instruments available? Didn't you realise that the Kronos obviously wasn't for them? This is one of the reasons I got rid of the Kronos - those instruments lacked entirely from start to finish whereas the Montage ticked every single box completely - most especially in the guitar and orchestral departments. I would suggest this is more geared to your lack of knowledge of the instruments than asking questions in this forum to be honest. If it was me, I would be throwing the keyboard back at you and asking for a refund based on your poor initial judgement! Sorry, but I do have to be honest when we're talking about such a range of instruments.

Kind regards
Steve

stevomuzo2 wrote:

Audioworks wrote:I have a customer who just purchased a Kronos, and is asking me where to get some additional sounds to round off the Kronos.

His main complaint was in comparing to the Yamaha Montage,

Vocal uhhs/ahhs/oohs (realistic)
Acoustic guitar
Distorted Guitar
Electric guitar/Wha
Saxophones

I'm sure he can purchase separate sample packages, but that becomes quite expensive, especially comparing to what is already in the Montage.

So if there are any ones I should point him too, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

What on earth were you doing selling a customer a keyboard that was so disappointed with that particular range of instruments available? Didn't you realise that the Kronos obviously wasn't for them? This is one of the reasons I got rid of the Kronos - those instruments lacked entirely from start to finish whereas the Montage ticked every single box completely - most especially in the guitar and orchestral departments. I would suggest this is more geared to your lack of knowledge of the instruments than asking questions in this forum to be honest. If it was me, I would be throwing the keyboard back at you and asking for a refund based on your poor initial judgement! Sorry, but I do have to be honest when we're talking about such a range of instruments.

Kind regards
Steve

Your comments assumes too much.
You make it sound like Audioworks tied the customer to a chair and beat him untill he purchased a KRONOS.
Maybe the customer really wanted the KRONOS, but wanted to shore up the weak spots.
Also it could be that there are phickle people in the world, when they buy something they boo hoo how bad it is right after purchase, cause they dont know what they are doing, or what they want.
Maybe Audioworks used sales tactics, or maybe he didnt.
Im sure not going to use my imagination to project if i think a salesperson is honest or not, without knowing why the buyer purchased a KRONOS to begin with.

Frankly, I think the customer bought the Kronos, tried it, then asked about free libraries. The salesperson is simply looking for library info. No need for anyone to be rude with the O.P.

Btw, I know it costs a bit, but Antony Sharmman's GUITAR SUITE DEMO is amazing. I will probably pick this up in a while. It wouldn't even fit in the Montage's 1.75 gig flash RAM, yet Kronos can load several of these sound sets, via SSD streaming.

Montage is great; I've played one, but I'm partial to Kronos and my many sound libraries. So easy to sample my old STEVE STEVENS' guitar library and many others.

Mike Conway wrote:Frankly, I think the customer bought the Kronos, tried it, then asked about free libraries. The salesperson is simply looking for library info. No need for anyone to be rude with the O.P.

.

+1

Fortunately there are a bunch of high quality libraries available for free, and they have been suggested along with paid options. The only thing I find weird is the supposed request to Korg to add in several hundreds of euros worth of libraries simply because the buyer doesn't like a few sounds after his purchase. Normally you would check a board out and base your decision to buy on the sounds and possibilities of it. I wouldn't buy a Montage and then demand Yamaha adds a VA engine to it, I'd have been better off with a different board to begin with.

Just to add a few cents in my own opinion:

The weakest part of the Kronos is definitely the electric guitar sounds. It's not so much the original sample however but it's actually the effects; I've run my actual guitar through the Kronos effects, and none of the tweaking I did would get a decent amp tone. At the end of the day, it's not that there are weak effects, so much as they're weak as a guitar effect.

At any rate, the electric guitar distortion sounds I blame on the effects section. When I run the guitar sounds through a proper guitar modeller and such though, it sounds quite good and I think that's where roland and yamaha have the advantage: Roland has the COSM effects and Yamaha has had more realistic guitar effects for a while too.

There's a bunch of sample libraries out there yes, but I'm a firm believer of trying to get the sound you want without the need for sampling ideally (At least when dynamic performance comes into play)

Just my 2c about the guitars anyway.

Mike Conway wrote:Btw, I know it costs a bit, but Antony Sharmman's GUITAR SUITE DEMO is amazing. I will probably pick this up in a while.

Thanks Mike , I really appreciate it !

You know guys , treating this only as a keyboard player , I own almost all brand's flagship keyboards ( plus latest Montage)
and for many years I have never been satisfied even with a single factory sound library compared to VST production
level that I deal with for more than 20 years (including development) and this will never change since keyboards will be
always 15 years behind so in my opinion as a Music producer and performer I prefer to purchase a completely empty
workstation with top rated OS and engine features in the reasonable price and purchase separately third party or Korg store
libraries that I will choose as more realistic and well developed sound libraries to built my setup and never complain again
for insufficient libraries that a workstation is shipped with and searching who is generous to offer me free libraries for God sake ...

Just my thoughts