Korg Forums

[Devnor]

I struggle to see how Naughti, that's what I call it, "loses so much in terms of the control surface". Gone is karma and the wasted controls - instead 6 arps everyday musicians understand. Numeric pad replaced by onscreen keypad. Where the sliders were useful instead you use normal numeric inputs as you would any synth or EFX parameter.

Someone earlier said Naughi is "kronos for dummies". Could you be any more elitist? Underneath the hood, it's a full blown Kronos synth.

Folks should be happy? Wasn't there a letter writing campaign about Kronos being too expensive? That is a rockin price by any measure and comparisons to MODX fall very flat. Neither has aftertouch.

The most ludicrous of all is this idea Naughti isn't suitable for the professional musician. There's no reason Jordan can't play his DT set or Tuomas can't perform with Nightwish today...using Naughti.

My first impression was it looks elegant - reminds me of the Trinity. Love the dark mode graphics. My only complaint is you need to press a button to select the mode and maybe a bit more button mashing in general.
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Fantom 7, Kronos 2, V Synth GT, Moog Voyager

[leonh]

Well Kronos is only 250£ more now than Nautilus (61 keys) here in the UK I personaly don't see how I could buy Nautilus instead of Kronos as far as MODX comparison there is none it is better but 1000£ extra ?

[GregC]

No argument from me, I think the MODX sounds excellent, fantastic pricing, esp compared to Kronos and Nautilus.

But Nautilus is the shiney new thing for 2021. Most instruments on Nautilus will sound more robust vs Kronos.

And its really about sound- Korg is fantastic with sound programming. Folks have yet to hear it in action. A few youTubes hint at it.

I think virtual controls are here to stay. There will be many early adopters for Nautilus is my prediction. Korgs timing is perfect, as usual.
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Kronos 88. MODX8
Achieve your musical dreams
https://soundcloud.com/user-898236994

[Koekepan]

Devnor, go take a look at the website of KORG, or for that matter, your favourite equipment vendor.

Right now the price difference between the bottom Kronos and the bottom Nautilus is about $700. Between the top Nautilus (88 keys) and the bottom Kronos (61 keys) is about $0. In other words, that 88 key keyboard is equal, in their eyes, to the difference between the Nautilus and the Kronos. I guess we can put a price on Karma, aftertouch, faders and buttons this way.

Taking them at their word, KORG is basically saying that their top-of-the-line keybed is a $700 upgrade. However, I can get a very nice, aftertouch-enabled, hammer-action Studiologic SL88 for hundreds of dollars less than that.

For that difference, I'd rather have a Kronos engine in a module, an external keyboard, and some money left over for pedals. So immediately, we have what I might call a pricing credibility gap from KORG.

But what else have they lost, to manage this price drop? Faders - lots of them. Very important for organ players, and quite useful for people doing mixing on the board (which is after all part of the point). They've ditched Karma - and while you might find it too complex or confusing, or too whatever, many other musicians rely upon it. You say that the Nautilus is a full blown Kronos synth under the hood, but without Karma, it's really not. Karma was part of the Kronos package for very good reasons, and valued as such.

You say that this price, at an entry of more than double the entry price of the Krome, is a "rockin price by any measure" but by the measure of the other apparently mid-range board in KORG's range, it's kind of a silly price. Sure, the Nautilus does audio and has multiple synthesis engines, but so does a $500 laptop, and the laptop would at least run software that gives you notation or piano roll or both (even free software) or you could get the laptop and sequence it from the Krome.

KORG could have taken Kronos, including the engines and the audio and the Karma and everything, ditched the controls in favour of additional I/O, made it a module with optional rackmounting and an HDMI out for display, and priced it at $1500 and made an absolute killing. Instead they pulled out core function, made it less convenient to control live, didn't improve the composition experience, and decided that a touchscreen was an adequate substitute for buttons and faders.

For $1500 I could have had an 88 key keyboard with aftertouch, an MPC One, and maybe the Roland MC101 as a really mature additional sound source. If I had $2000 to spend, the Nautilus wouldn't pass the laugh test in terms of bang per buck.

To cap it, let's ask a different question: what does the Nautilus bring that's an actual, serious upgrade from the Kronos? Why, for the price of an 88 key Nautilus wouldn't I get a 61 key Kronos, possibly planning for an external controller keyboard upgrade in the future, which would still be cheaper in total than the full-fat 88 key Kronos?

Something is terribly wrong with KORG's pricing and feature selection strategy, and they should have brought at least four penny-pinching musicians like me into a room to ask hard questions about what makes this a credible deal.

[SeedyLee]

I still maintain the pricing and timing makes sense if you consider the Nautilus to be a Kronos replacement, and the Kronos is set to be discontinued.

The Nautilus pricing doesn’t make any sense next to the Kronos. If the Kronos doesn’t exist, it makes perfect sense.

I don’t hold out hope for a genuine Kronos successor though either. I think the Nautilus will soon be the new flagship.

This is how hardware workstations will end - not with a bang, but a whimper.
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Current Equipment:
Korg Kronos 2 88, Reface CS, Roland JV-1080, TE OP1, Moog Subsequent 37, Korg ARP Odyssey, Allen & Heath Zed 18, Adam F5, MOTU MIDI Express XT, Lexicon MX200 & MPX1, Yamaha QY700, Yamaha AW16G, Tascam DP008ex, Zoom H6, Organelle, Roland J6 & JU06A

Previous: Triton LE 61/Sampling/64MB/4GB SCSI, MS2000BR, Kronos 1 61, Monotribe, NanoKontrol, NanoKeys, Kaossilator II, Casio HT3000, Roland VP-03, Reface DX, Novation Mininova, MPC One

[GregC]

I am not a Korg defender, not even close.

I think Nautilus sounds need to be heard and evaluated.

And watch the Korg marketing machine get behind Nautilus.

Until then...

And the quantity of used Kronos for sale on reverb [ US ] doubled in the past few days.

There were 25 last Friday.

Now there are 50 for sale, used.

Conci-dink ?
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Kronos 88. MODX8
Achieve your musical dreams
https://soundcloud.com/user-898236994

[GregC]

[conundrum]

The price difference doesn’t make sense in areas where there is currently a $500 USD discount on Kronos. But isn’t that just the US? (And from the sound of this forum, maybe the UK?)
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M50-61, KLC, Korg iApps;
Roland A33, Mac mini

[MartinHines]

[SeedyLee]

[Kontrol49]

I think its a good move by Korg to create a product thats from the Kronos Lineage and open it up to a more budget minded musician with a mid priced product that sits under the Kronos,the Market needed it.

It was always going to happen in the same way the Kronos became a more affordable option to the original Oasys,How many of you could afford the Oasys price bracket??but were happy to see a more affordable option with the Release of the Kronos!! the Kronos then become more accessible to a larger user base of musicians ...And so we have the same thing with with the Nautilus.

I don't understand the negativity towards the Nautilus,its not aimed as a replacement for the Kronos per se,its merely an alternative option to its sound engines,its not going to make the Kronos any less of an instrument, or investment

For me I kind of like the idea of a Nautilus being a cheaper alternative for a gigging board rather than use my Kronos,The Kronos allowed me to retire my Oasys in the same manner,so at least this allows me to still have access to those sounds if my Kronos ever gave up the ghost without having to fork out full whack for a Kronos again!
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--Korg Nautilus~~Korg Modwave--Korg SV-1-Korg Wavestate--

[entonio]

The only danger the Nautilus poses is if Korg tries to pass it off as a Kronos replacement, which it isn't - and they are sort of doing that when they place it on top in their website. But it's obvious to anyone that something without aftertouch can't be the top of the product line (I can't be bothered about aftertouch, but that's the way it is). That's the anger, that people are being taken for dummies.

The other problem is that the visible lag in the Nautilus OS reflects very poorly on Korg. It's angering to see a brand's reputation hurt that way.

The Oasys wasn't meant to be a mass product. The Kronos was the (different enough) mass product based on the Oasys experiment. The Nautilus isn't based on an experiment because the Kronos isn't an experiment. So it isn't comparable. But if the Nautilus is something like 'Kronos Essentials', then fine (except for the poor UI performance). But we still need a new Kronos or a replacement. Korg doesn't want to provide it? OK, then loyal customers will give the Montage a go, or, heaven forfend, the R-brand Fantom. They're not as good as the Kronos? Well, but they don't take 15 minutes to boot and their screen doesn't look like it's 1985. And they are filled with controls, someone forgot to tell them that the way forward is menu-diving.

[jimknopf]

I've been talking to several gigging musicians, and NONE of them would acccept such a crappy controller surface as that of the Nautilus for live play, along with all the other downgrades:
- no Sliders and not enough encoders
- no vector joystick for additional modulation options (like with the Montage and even ModX knob). Even the 1000 bucks ModX has A LOT more useful controller surface than the stupid Nautilus concept offers
- no aftertouch
- no KARMA

But all these really heavy downgrades more than eat up the whole price difference from my view, so that I can't even regard the Naultilus as better bang for buck, apart from not wanting to use such a concept at all, by any means.

The only possible option seriously discussed among the keyboarders I talked with, would be buying a Nautilus as backup keyboard for gigging, meaning that you could have a Kronos sound arsenal prepared, but being more ore less limited to rather static preset play, for the rest of the gig, after a Kronos failure.

Else probably the only real market for a Naultilus are amateur players, who just play static presets without much of dynamic sound changes during play, and don't need a useable controller interface, because they are not used to handle these copntrollers anyways. So why not have a Nautilus replace your hobby stage piano in the living room? That may work out in limited numbers for Korg.
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Kronos 73 - Moog Voyager RME - Moog LP TE - Behringer Model D - Prophet 6 - Roland Jupiter Xm - Rhodes Stage 73 Mk I - Elektron Analog Rytm MkII - Roland TR-6s - Cubase 12 Pro + Groove Agent 5

[kday]

Nautilus is the Kronos lite, period.

Korg will still come out with the Kronos 3, but further away because they've decided to provide a lite version because either the Kronos 2 is still selling well, or because they don't think they should release a Kronos 3 at this time for one reason or another. People will buy the Nautilus being one thousand dollars less. Many people wanted the sound engines of a Kronos, but didn't want to pay for all the bells and whistles included in a full blown Kronos. So the Nautilus serves that purpose. This is traditional route taken by the keyboard companies.

Korg doesn't need to release a Kronos 3 for profit, they can generate the same profit through Kronos 2 sales and Nautilus sales, while preparing for the major debut of a Kronos 3 when the time is scheduled. I'll give the Kronos 3 another three to four years. The Nautilus user interface lets me know that many aspects of this new UI design(which sorta copies the Fantom UI design) will be implemented into the next Kronos.

[GregC]