Been YEARS - Kronos

[aron]

So it's been over 11 years for the Kronos and I had my doubts about the longevity of this keyboard (since it's like a PC inside).

All I have to say is that it has been extremely reliable and can do things no other keyboard can do (that I know of). It switches patches extremely quickly and I have my software unrealBook switch all the patches via wireless MIDI and this keyboard is simply amazing.

So ..... KORG where's the next gen with DOUBLE the polyphony and 10X speed up for loading???

In 2012 my MainStage rig loaded the patches/samples in 2 1/2 mins. Sound familiar???

In 2022, my MainStage m1 rig - 15 seconds...

Here's to the next KRONOS! May it come SOON!

[ITguy54]

So it's been over 11 years for the Kronos and I had my doubts about the longevity of this keyboard (since it's like a PC inside).

All I have to say is that it has been extremely reliable and can do things no other keyboard can do (that I know of). It switches patches extremely quickly and I have my software unrealBook switch all the patches via wireless MIDI and this keyboard is simply amazing.

So ..... KORG where's the next gen with DOUBLE the polyphony and 10X speed up for loading???

In 2012 my MainStage rig loaded the patches/samples in 2 1/2 mins. Sound familiar???

In 2022, my MainStage m1 rig - 15 seconds...

Here's to the next KRONOS! May it come SOON!

As much as I would like to see a next gen Kronos (or OASYS for that matter) I don’t think the current leadership at Korg gives a rip. They’re quite content milking the Kronos technology through the Nautilus, and quite content with the competition making more and more strides in the workstation arena.

[Derek Cook]

Personally, I am happy that my 2014 Kronos is still the Korg flagship, as it stops me GASing for something else (at least on the Korg front! ).

And as I keep asking, can anybody truly say (and prove) that they have exhausted the potential of all 9 sound engines?

AL-1 still keeps impressing me compared to my VSTs and also some very nice hardware synths I have. My only criticism of AL-1 is that the filter does not self oscillate without a stimulus (or am I doing something wrong?).

[ChrisDuncan]

Personally, I am happy that my 2014 Kronos is still the Korg flagship, as it stops me GASing for something else (at least on the Korg front! ).

And as I keep asking, can anybody truly say (and prove) that they have exhausted the potential of all 9 sound engines?

AL-1 still keeps impressing me compared to my VSTs and also some very nice hardware synths I have. My only criticism of AL-1 is that the filter does not self oscillate without a stimulus (or am I doing something wrong?).

Couldn't agree more. I bought a keyboard that was way, way beyond my playing abilities so that I'd have something I wouldn't outgrow anytime soon. I forget how many years it's been, but there's still no danger of that happening.

I'm just now getting into learning subtractive synthesis. I bought a Prophet 6 because I like the design of all knobs on top and no menu diving, so it's a great learning tool (and of course sounds excellent).

However, my goal has always been to take what I learn in that context and then start playing with the synths in the Kronos. The Polysix is of course more limited than the AL-1, but the UI is well done and user friendly. I still find myself intimidated by the AL-1. The geek in me can see that there's a ton of power there, but it's a deep dive.

So, I wasn't aware that the filter didn't self oscillate, which will save me some head scratching when I eventually do dig into it.

[psionic311]

AL-1 still keeps impressing me compared to my VSTs and also some very nice hardware synths I have. My only criticism of AL-1 is that the filter does not self oscillate without a stimulus (or am I doing something wrong?).

I’ve gotten some fun harmonics with the AL-1. Granted, the dual filter technique below requires a tiny stimulus of noise level set to 1 or 2, but in the end you can’t hear any noise, you only hear the variety of whistle sines.

From an Init patch:

On Program Basic tab:
— Transpose engine down -12. Not strictly necessary, but practical and avoids the super high aliasing. Pitch bend still works for performance.
— Notice some oscillator parameters work, but others don’t. Unison detune thickens up the sound, and spread widens the stereo image, but detune has no effect.

Oscillator Mixer:
— Here’s a little factoid it took me a couple years to figure out, after wondering if the dual filter was broken. You have to set Balance to 50 to hear both filter A and Filter B. At the default of 0, you only hear Filter A. So you’ll want to set Noise Balance to 50.
— Turn down the everything else but Noise.
— Set Noise level to 1 or 2. Higher values are slightly louder, but then you also hear aliasing.

Filter section:
— Set resonance value to 99 and type to Full.
— Select Serial, and enable Link. Filter A is the master here, so when you tweak cutoff of A, Filter B follows.
— Leave Link Offset to 0. This way Filter B reinforces Filter A, enabling the self oscillating whistle.
— Pro tip: Take advantage of the Control Surface defaults. Press the Real Time / KARMA button, and now Knob 1 is free to twiddle to perform on cutoff. Careful though, it’s easy to get confused since it adds to / overrides the cutoff value in the filter section. If lost, press and button hold Reset Controls (above Solo button), and press RT / KARMA button to wipe away any real time tweaks you made.
— Set Filter A cutoff to 30. With key tracking still at its default of +99, this value allows you to play the filter in tune with A440, like what you’d do on an actual analog synth. In fact, the self oscillating filter values at every 10 is another in tune octave. So, for a sine sub, set cutoff to 20. You may need to bump up the Noise level a bit for it to kick in, or compress the whole patch

Sorry for the long post, but hope that helps you rediscover some back alleys in AL-1.

[psionic311]

Here’s the shortened TLDR version to get filter whistles (aka sines from self oscillation).

In the OSC Mixer page:
— set filter Balance to 50 to hear both filters when in dual mode
— set Noise level very low, and other levels to 0 (no Osc1 or 2, etc).
— optional: in Osc Sub tab, adjust Noise frequency cutoff and Saturation

In the Filter page:
— Select Serial to route Filter A through Filter B
— Set Cutoff to 30 to play the filter in tune. 20 is octave down, 40 octave up
— Set resonance to 99, type to Full
— Enable the filter Link, leave Filter B Offset at 0.

Have fun whistling Dixie. Or having a sine sub or top to your VA sounds.

[billysynth]

Be patient.
The Nautilus is an interim keyboard as was the M3 after the Oasys production was stopped. The Kronos came out 3 years later. The M3 carried the company forward while Korg was completing the Kronos.

I believe Korg will re-introduce the Oasys ( as Roland has done with the Fantom). I believe the new Oasys will incorporate things like 64bit, Korg Collection, prophecy etc, and more....hopefully we get a full version of the ARP 2600 in it (??) It will definitely be their next 10 year Pro WorkStation.

Why would anyone assume Korg has abandoned the high end workstation market when all the other manufacturers are still producing workstations. Even 'small screen' Kurzweil recently released the K2700. You can see it's all plastic rubbish. The Fantom has superior hardware along with superior software.

Korg need to make sure the new Oasys has superior hard to go along with its superior software. Korg software is high end. I think that one of the expansions in this new Oasys will be EDS-XP: Enhanced Definition Synthesis - Expanded as found on their newly released PA5x.

Every manufacturer on the planet has low end, middle end, and, high end products, premium products that you pay much more for. Example: iPhone 14 Pro Max, or Samsung S22 Ultra. You're going to pay for the premium quality parts! If you can't afford it, don't worry, come down to the middle end product which is the Nautilus. It's all logical.

Be patient...I believe they will release a KILLER Workstation. Wait!!

Korg didn't do all this work for decades to abandon it...

Vas.

[Johnf_tx]

Thanks to all of you for the great information: I am grateful for how so many of you have shared your knowledge on how to program and operate the Kronos. I'm probably one of the least capable players here but I love the Kronos and started with a DX7 many years ago and yes, I had an M1 also. But I know that the Kronos was the product of lots of people pulling together. I really do suspect cord is working on something in the back room but I will probably never be good enough to outgrow The Kronos.

John

[Derek Cook]

AL-1 still keeps impressing me compared to my VSTs and also some very nice hardware synths I have. My only criticism of AL-1 is that the filter does not self oscillate without a stimulus (or am I doing something wrong?).

I’ve gotten some fun harmonics with the AL-1. Granted, the dual filter technique below requires a tiny stimulus of noise level set to 1 or 2, but in the end you can’t hear any noise, you only hear the variety of whistle sines.

From an Init patch:

On Program Basic tab:
— Transpose engine down -12. Not strictly necessary, but practical and avoids the super high aliasing. Pitch bend still works for performance.
— Notice some oscillator parameters work, but others don’t. Unison detune thickens up the sound, and spread widens the stereo image, but detune has no effect.

Oscillator Mixer:
— Here’s a little factoid it took me a couple years to figure out, after wondering if the dual filter was broken. You have to set Balance to 50 to hear both filter A and Filter B. At the default of 0, you only hear Filter A. So you’ll want to set Noise Balance to 50.
— Turn down the everything else but Noise.
— Set Noise level to 1 or 2. Higher values are slightly louder, but then you also hear aliasing.

Filter section:
— Set resonance value to 99 and type to Full.
— Select Serial, and enable Link. Filter A is the master here, so when you tweak cutoff of A, Filter B follows.
— Leave Link Offset to 0. This way Filter B reinforces Filter A, enabling the self oscillating whistle.
— Pro tip: Take advantage of the Control Surface defaults. Press the Real Time / KARMA button, and now Knob 1 is free to twiddle to perform on cutoff. Careful though, it’s easy to get confused since it adds to / overrides the cutoff value in the filter section. If lost, press and button hold Reset Controls (above Solo button), and press RT / KARMA button to wipe away any real time tweaks you made.
— Set Filter A cutoff to 30. With key tracking still at its default of +99, this value allows you to play the filter in tune with A440, like what you’d do on an actual analog synth. In fact, the self oscillating filter values at every 10 is another in tune octave. So, for a sine sub, set cutoff to 20. You may need to bump up the Noise level a bit for it to kick in, or compress the whole patch

Sorry for the long post, but hope that helps you rediscover some back alleys in AL-1.

Sorry for delay reply - I missed this reply of yours.

Thanks for this, and sharing the knowledge. I knew this was possible, but have just gotten used to various soft synths and my hardware devices all doing this without having the input stimulus of a bit of noise to start it off. With real hardware, it is of course probably the inherent noise in circuits that gives the kick needed. Most digitally modelled synths are probably still being a bit too clean. You can only assume that VSTs that have filters that do self oscillate on their own (like U-HE's DIVA and REPRO) have modelled a bit of noise in the filter.

Isn't it amazing that grit and dirt are so important in what we heard all those years ago?

Anyway if you do not have other self oscillating sources, your tips are great to get people going, and I also never knew about that balance control in relation to the dual filters! You live and learn, and goes towards my point that I do feel bemoaning lack of a Kronos replacement is moot if we have not fully exploited what is already in front of us.

AL-1 still remains a fantastic synth and I can get some really great sounds out of it. My job today after spending the past few weeks figuring out all of the key sounds in Steve Hillage's Rainbow Dome Music on an Arturia ARP 2600 (what they most likely used in original form, along with a Moog) is to program those into AL-1 for stage use, as a Combi with 16 timbres gives me a lot of mono synths and keeps my VST compute power and real hardware synths free for other things in the foreground .

Whilst talking about self oscillating filters, it's worth mentioning (to spread the knowledge) why they matter. It took me a long while to realise the use for them (more my ignorance than anything else!), but when you realise that it was rare for a vintage synth to give you a perfect sine wave from its oscillators, and a self oscillating filter giving you that sine wave is a lot more controllable from envelopes, LFOs etc (esp bearing in mind limited patching options on a fixed architecture mono synth) and all of this is the core for getting all of those wonderful psychedelic/ambient sounds that graced so many albums of the 70s like Steve Hillage, Gong, Hawkwind, etc. Once I realised that, self oscillating filters became very important to me!

I also had an epiphany moment last year - probably me being very slow on the uptake.... - but if you want to manipulate perfect sine waves in this manner, then MOD-7 or any other similar FM synth will cover that ground quite easily as well. So another choice for a bit of hippy tripping,

And of course the key to making these sounds spacey/trippy is to add a shitload of delay (and lots of delay feedback), here the Kronos Ping Pong delays or cross delays work really well.

[psionic311]

Well I hadn’t explored self oscillating filters until you mentioned it.
It does add a nice textural possibilities to AL-1.

Dual filter capabilities in AL1 may as well be a hidden feature.
But they really open up the otherwise mundane stock filters.
You can go from 303 squelch to Oberheim sweet parallels.
The key is Link, the multi filter, and Drive all together.

Of course most of us have barely scratched the surface with the Kronos.
Even with modern software, it is still relevant.
It’s strengths are many, especially when combining engines.
It’s challenging to get French horns with just AL-1 or MOD7.
But combine the two engines, and new colors and textures appear.

MOD7 as a modular FM synth is still top rung compared to modern FMs.
It’s waveshaping portion has few rivals to this day.

The Wavestate ups the wave sequencing game, but only partly.
Kronos can import user waves, and again, combine with other engines.

The STR-1 physical modeling synth finally clicked for me.
It’s wonderfully pristine, and can make tons of timbres.
Besides plucks and bells, I’ve gotten choirs, French horns, wind chimes,
fantasy whooshes, a djent guitar, and even whale song.
Anima Phi / Omega, Iridium, or even Reaktor PM synths aren’t as robust.

I could go on, but we all know Kronos is a beast yet to conquer.
Here’s to wishing everyone and Korg a Happy New 2023…

[Derek Cook]

I fully agree with you, and sometimes think we spend too much time chasing "enabling technology" without making full use of what we have.

Here's a learning more about the Kronos in 2023!

[blazerunner]

I think I've always been indifferent about the Kronos. My problem with it has never been about it's capabilities but rather how we access it's capabilities. I always felt the keyboard lacks an update to bring it on par with technology of 2022. Just streamlining it's features and engines to make them more user friendly, adding new effects to the IFX,adding new modern features to the sampler and of course fixing the sequencer. It's an all around mess with a terrible audio and midi editor. Lots of bugs and problems you never run into until you REALLY get into using it. Don't think the Kronos really needed a successor but more like a true update. I think the Nautilus is a ripoff. It's old tech with old problems Korg never addressed shoved into a new shell. I only see it as Korg trying to save $$$ by shoving leftover Kronos and Krome parts into a newly restyled keyboard and selling it for less.

I speak passionately about the keyboard at times on here but it's because I use it almost daily. There are a lot of areas I avoid with it because it's learning curve is to steep. Sometimes reading the post on this website I realize most of us specialize in different areas of the Kronos. Some of us never see the problems that others run into.

[tunaman]

I speak passionately about the keyboard at times on here but it's because I use it almost daily. There are a lot of areas I avoid with it because it's learning curve is to steep. Sometimes reading the post on this website I realize most of us specialize in different areas of the Kronos. Some of us never see the problems that others run into.

And therein lies one of the most wonderful aspects of the Kronos - one ancient machine can be so many different things to so many different people… still.

I myself are looking forward to many more years of learning, exploring and using my K2s.

[average_male]

That is one thing I like about the Kronos, so many parameters and features that can be tweaked and the complexity and depth makes sense once you get used to how it all fits together to get the sound you are looking for.

[Derek Cook]

There is a good debate going on here, and no view is incorrect.

I get that people will want a replacement to Korg's flagship product due to its age, but hopefully we can also see that the Kronos still has a lot to offer and exploit, and if ever I met somebody who has exhausted everything the Kronos can do, then they are a far better synthesist than I am with far more time than I have!

I still love mine and what it does, and at some point it will become classic like my Yamahas: SY99, TG77, AN1x, FS1r and EX5. They all circa at least 25 years old now in terms of when they were on the drawing board or starting production, but still sound great too with plenty of untapped potential.

Now we are over Christmas, I have maxed out space capacity in my studio (addition of an ASM HydraSynth for its Polytouch and four octave ribbon capabilities and sound design capabilities that are slightly different to what else I have.

So, I am back to a "one in, one out" policy, but I think I have everything I will ever need hardware wise now. The only way the Kronos will be leaving is if Korg release a 100% compatible successor - the Nautilus is close but not 100% due to everything it loses, which i need. And I do not think Korg are in that space any more - whatever their reason for that.