Korg Forums

[blibli]

I'm about to buy a Korg Kross, the sounds are so good ! Except the pianos, from what I heared on youtube. They just sound too bright, too harsh, even when played with light touch. I know we can edit cutoff filter, does it sounds better with some lowpass filtering ? (i didnt tried it currently, only watched videos)

Can we change how the velocity affects the cutoff frequency ? (to make greater timbre difference between piano/forte playing)

[castorex]

Yes you can !
But what you can not change is the ridiculous ROM size... and piano samples.

If you search for good piano sounds, Kross is not the right choice. Krome is certainly far better, and others brands can propose better piano sounds too if it is required.
And you can use a software solution for the piano sound...

[blibli]

i don't need the ultimate piano sound, i think if i manage to muffle it a bit it should be enough for me (i just want a keyboard to have fun improvising, playing with sounds, maybe playing in a band. i already compose music on my computer with samples libraries). Oh and i forgot, i'm also worried about the piano decay time, on the demo i heared the notes fades very quickly. Is it possible to increase it with ADSR or this decay is sampled ?

rom size is ~166mb from what i heared, i don't know why they don't use bigger chips. small Flash (hundreds of Mb) and small ram (some Mb) costs nothing...

[blibli]

after watching this video i don't think anymore the sounds are too bright : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lKlpObDlLc

or maybe they were tweaked. I'll try to play it at the music store tomorrow

[Korglee]

Did you get to play one at the music store?

[rammstein]

the kross has great dark piano programs. i suggest trying out the
Dark Piano (A006) and the German Dark Grand (U005) from the 512 Free Sound Pack.

also, you can adjust the "brightness" on the default Kross Grand Piano (A000) by moving the modulation wheel.

[blibli]

I tried the Kross at the music store and bought it
Once connected to my hifi speakers the default piano sounds very good, i tweaked it a bit : lower the cutoff frequency, increase the EG (to have a softer timbre on the quiet notes but the same agressivity when i play forte)

Personnaly i like the keyboard velocity to 5 (default 4 : high velocities impossible to reach even if i play fff)

The keyboard action is ok. You'll feel the switches while pressing a key (makes a slight 'plock plock') but i'm not annoyed by that.

I'm impressed by the amount of parameters that can be changed, i don't regret buying this keyboard instead of a PSR !

For the other sounds - the e pianos and brasses are good, strings are very good but needs a bit of tweaking (to much highs to my taste, same for sounds like mellotron that seems to have too much resonance peak), woodwinds are not good except the bassoon in my opinion, guitars are fun to play (maybe not the most realistic), basses are good. There is a lot of really nice synth-bell sounds.

As a programmer, i think i'll have a lot of fun programming this. I hope i can edit trough my PC, editing hundred of parameters directly on the keyboard won't be easy^^

[tommymandel]

Good going! Glad you got the Kross, and have fun programming it. I do it a lot too, and what I find strange is that often changing the Cutoff with the macro they offer a few pages down in the editing (on the keyboard) screen, doesn't act as expected. Is it because they have the sound configured with one high-pass and one low-pass filter? In series? In parallel? But thanks for the tip about increasing the EG amount on the same page to balance the Cutoff adjustment you've made downwards. That works (sometimes) for me. But combining it with making the Global Velocity Curve = 5 is a great idea!
I have been comparing the piano sound(s) on the Kross to those on Roland's VR-09, and the Korg's sound a lot fuller. And maybe 'realer' too - but it's hard to get an absolute judgement on what sounds 'realer' in synths, especially with piano sounds - does it sound like a *real* piano recording? or a *real* piano when you stick your head inside it? Or a *real* piano from 6 feet away or across the room, or from a concert hall seat? Arghhh!!! Korg does seem to have anticipated users feeling the piano might be too bright - by dedicating the mod wheel on many piano patches to do just that: make them darker, just as Rammstein has pointed out.
To me, mellotron strings almost always sound too resonant. But if you take that away, then do they still *sound like* mellotrons? more dumb questions, sorry!
To me, Korg organs and strings often sound too shreeky - peaky around 1.75k, approx. But when I play one of their pro Arranging Keyboards (Pa-1x or Ps50sd) the same sounds sound perfect! So my theory is that Korg anticipates we users playing their (non-speaker system) keyboards through different amplification than commonly used - because when THEY are designing the amp/speaker combinations - these sounds are awesomely better balanced in the frequency range and sound GREAT.
(alternate interpretation) - Korg assumes Pro-Arrangers will be playing in restaurants and therefore gives them fuller, mellower less rocked-out sonic textures.