M3 features that you can't find in a Kronos?

EXer · Post by **EXer** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:05 pm

I'm interested in buying a Kronos (see here), and I just happened to fall on that post:

Daz wrote:...
Enjoy your M3 ! It really did receive a great deal of *meaningful* updates to *important* aspects of the product that Korg failed to address on the Oasys
...

Apart from the Kronos sequencer which is basically identical to the Oasys sequencer which has not received the updates the M3 sequencer received (piano roll editor, etc.), could someone please explain to me which great deal of meaningful updates to important aspects of the product Daz was speaking about?

kimu · Post by **kimu** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 9:51 pm

M3 should have following plus with respect to Kronos (but may be i am going to insert something in the list that actually is also in Kronos....)

- track meter in sequencer mode
- piano roll view
- physical drum pads (kronos have it on the touch screen)
- X-Y features on the touch screen (KAOSS-like X-Y control)
- tilting module that can be separated from Keyboard (more general, no Korg Komponent System)

X-Trade · Post by **X-Trade** » Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:25 pm

kimu wrote: - X-Y features on the touch screen (KAOSS-like X-Y control)

This is replaced by the Vector Joystick. Indeed the XY feature on the M3 seems to be an attempt at providing the OASYS' vector functionality without a physical joystick on the M3.

WorknMan · Post by **WorknMan** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:32 am

I don't care about the sequencer much, but for those of us that are visually impaired, losing the tiltable screen from the M3 is going to be painful

cminor · Post by **cminor** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:59 am

kimu wrote: - physical drum pads (kronos have it on the touch screen)

Well... and how many are going to risk their touch screen hitting it hard to have good velocity response?
That LCD must cost a little fortune, and to hit it as drum pads ain't a pretty picture.

Jon Lord · Post by **Jon Lord** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:33 am

cminor wrote:
kimu wrote: - physical drum pads (kronos have it on the touch screen)
Well... and how many are going to risk their touch screen hitting it hard to have good velocity response?
That LCD must cost a little fortune, and to hit it as drum pads ain't a pretty picture.

The screen is not velocity sensitive, velocity is controlled by where you hit the pad on screen vertically. And the fine thing with kronos is that those pads can be triggered externally by about anything that can send a simple ONE NOTE triggers via midi

cminor · Post by **cminor** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:48 am

Jon Lord wrote:those pads can be triggered externally by about anything that can send a simple ONE NOTE triggers via midi

Ok..
Explain me then how this helps in this gig system:
I have a SP76 (splited in 2 sections) that thru midi out > midi in M3 controls 2 instruments.
On the M3 i have on the keyboard 2 split zones on other 2 instruments (let's say 2 zones) and on the pads I have 1-8 different zones, channels for FX, even strings/hits.
Well?
A Kronos user will have to program the combi in that way, that the last octave of the midi controller (let's say it doesnt have it's own pads, the controller) , meaning every single note, to replace the 1-8 pads.
Seems simple... but what about the "fast move" ?
It's more practical to jump to the middle of the keyboard under the screen to pus a LARGE button, then to jump to some key on the left, or right of the midi controller.

I am not saying that Kronos is not a good keyboard.
I am just saying that the missing pads, are a loss.

Zeroesque · Post by **Zeroesque** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 1:53 pm

Pads would be cool. I've already sold my M3 because the sound just wasn't there for me, though. I would rather have that unprecedented Oasys sound than a few pads that can be duplicated with any number of MIDI controllers (including your feet). No big loss, here, IMO.

Melodialworks Music · Post by **Melodialworks Music** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:43 pm

Zeroesque wrote:Pads would be cool. I've already sold my M3 because the sound just wasn't there for me, though. I would rather have that unprecedented Oasys sound than a few pads that can be duplicated with any number of MIDI controllers (including your feet). No big loss, here, IMO.

However (apart from pads being played by the feet) where do you physically locate the midi controller with pads? Ergonomically?

Zeroesque · Post by **Zeroesque** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:45 pm

Lougheed wrote:
Zeroesque wrote:Pads would be cool. I've already sold my M3 because the sound just wasn't there for me, though. I would rather have that unprecedented Oasys sound than a few pads that can be duplicated with any number of MIDI controllers (including your feet). No big loss, here, IMO.
However (apart from pads being played by the feet) where do you physically locate the midi controller with pads? Ergonomically?

Is someone out there really playing 2-manual + feet organ music while needing to trigger a separate MIDI event in real time during a complicated section where all limbs can't possibly go more than an inch or two away from the notes being played?

But I digress. You can get a second MIDI controller of any type and mount it on a double or triple tier stand just like you would a second or third keyboard. Or use MIDI foot pedals, or a MIDI floorboard controller, or a controller w/ pads, or drum triggers, or one of those body suit thingies. You could even devote an octave at the top of your 88 to just triggering samples, or bring it in w/ aftertouch, a switch, joystick movement or any other controller. A small controller could mount on one of those raxxess accesory risers anywhere. Or get some velcro. Or mount any of these things on a separate stand. Or make someone else in the band play the damn thing.

If it's really some huge issue with some song that you simply must play, and you can only have one keyboard with no external midi controllers, and you don't want to tap the touchscreen, then I guess you need a different keyboard. The Korg Kronos is not for you. I don't know what you did before a few pro keyboards had these things on them. Did anyone even make music before there were pads on a some keyboards?

OR, the Korg Kronos is perfect, because w/ Smooth Sound Transition, you can create two versions of all of your sounds. One is the basic sound. The other is a combi w/ that basic sound on the whole keyboard plus your triggered sample on just that one key you'll be hitting at the moment you want during that song, and it will be in perfect time w/ your playing. Then you can switch back after you hit it, and it will ring out like normal. OMG...the KRONOS is better than having pads! You can actually play the keyboard!!!! (This is actually how I do things when I occasionally need this functionality, only I bring in that sample trigger layer w/ a switch or volume pedal or something)

No offense. I may have just offered a way to trigger sounds that will appeal to some people more than a bank of pads.

Melodialworks Music · Post by **Melodialworks Music** » Wed Feb 02, 2011 6:24 pm

Zeroesque wrote: I may have just offered a way to trigger sounds that will appeal to some people more than a bank of pads.

The "you could even devote an octave at the top of your 88 to just triggering samples" idea is very good, and not something, I suspect, that many will have thought of!

WorknMan · Post by **WorknMan** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 4:19 pm

Zeroesque wrote:I don't know what you did before a few pro keyboards had these things on them. Did anyone even make music before there were pads on a some keyboards?

I don't think it's the lack of pads that rub people the wrong way, but rather the pads, the tiltable screen, and (as I understand it) a superior sequencer were all in the previous model, and they removed them in the Kronos, which actually costs MORE than the M3.

One thing I have learned from software development is that you don't REMOVE features, unless you are CERTAIN that nobody is using them. Otherwise, you're bound to piss some people off.

For the record, I don't really care about the pads. The screen, on the other hand ...

Sina172 · Post by **Sina172** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:34 pm

iixorbiusii · Post by **iixorbiusii** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:41 pm

Sina172 wrote:I'm gonna be brutally honest here:

if the M3's features do NOT make it to KRONOS within the following year, I'm gonna get it in the same quantities as the Tritons I have before they sell out and max it out with ALL options (Firewire, EXB-M256) for the Sequencer and Combi upgrades and RADIAS Option (Rack AND Expansion Card).

M3-M (just like my Triton racks strictly for previewing and trying out PCG Files and playback of Sequences as well as using them as USB Audio/MIDI controllers for my DAW System)
M3-61 (w/ RADIAS Module on the first 8 mounted above and M3-M on the other 8 mounted above)
M3-73 (w/ RADIAS Module on the first 8 and M3-M on the other 8 mounted above)
and M3-88 (w/ M3-M one the first 8 and RADIAS Module on the other

Sina

Sina172 wrote:
....M3 was a joke. Period.

Sina

....

Akos Janca · Post by **Akos Janca** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:18 pm

Jon Lord wrote:The screen is not velocity sensitive, velocity is controlled by where you hit the pad on screen vertically. And the fine thing with kronos is that those pads can be triggered externally by about anything that can send a simple ONE NOTE triggers via midi

Maybe it works, but I'm not sure about that. Please have a look again on this question and Stephen Kay's answer, and the following posts.

So, does it mean that we CAN trigger the virtual pads from an external MIDI controller (just like using them from the screen), but we CANNOT trigger them from the local keyboard?