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shawnhar wrote:

McHale wrote:And after the OASYS was released, they released 3 new sound engines: MS-20, PolySix, and MOD-7.

Also STR1, not to mention EXs3...

Oasys launched with 3 synth engines (PCM, analog modeling, and organ modeling). Ended with 7, having added best-of-breed physical modeling and FM synths, plus two distinctive 'character' analog emulations. That strikes me as pretty awesome support, more than doubling where it started!

I have to say I don't understand all the negativity in these threads, and am greatly saddened by it. I could never afford an Oasys, but I read all about it and lusted after it for years. Now that a more affordable version is available, I have one on order and am looking forward to finally experiencing for myself what you early adopters have been enjoying for the past six years.

So I head over to these forums, hoping to learn some neat tricks from the experts. And indeed there are many great tricks here to be learned, but also what seems like endless bickering between two camps, both determined to undermine and/or ignore the other.

Come on people, they're basically the same synth! The vast majority of what we learn on one can apply equally to the other. As an eager Kronos owner, it would greatly disappoint me if this ill feeling left me unable to discuss and share with the Oasys owners who were early adopters of this same technology...

If you need an answer, I'm sure you only have to ask. Certainly my opinions on Korg's treatment of Oasys purchasers doesn't affect my ability to help if I can. Heck, I'll even help a Kronos owner if possible. You can even PM me if you think I can assist.

Although probably best not to click on a thread which has a complaint in the title

I also have to say, it's not really clear to me what Korg could have done to avoid this negative reaction...

Obviously they can't be expected to go on supporting a product forever. Most synths get ongoing support for just 1 or 2 years. Oasys got way more than average, but clearly nobody would expect them to still be releasing new features for it, say, 20 or 30 years from now! So where do you draw that line? Seems to me that no matter when they decided to drop support, they would be left with unhappy customers (assuming that their customers still cared about the product, which you obviously all do, and that's a good thing right?

I actually think this is the fundamental flaw in the whole open/extensible idea. That implies ongoing support, but infinitely ongoing support isn't something any company will be able to provide, so this whole approach seems fundamentally designed to end up disappointing customers.

The only way I can see that you could make a platform continue to have support forever is if you made it more of a general purpose device, removing the strong tie between software and the hardware it runs on, so you could end up with many different hardware devices, many different pieces of software, and your customers could mix and match. But if you do that, you basically recreated a PC ecosystem, with all the compat hassles and robustness issues that go along with such a thing! Presumably there is a reason we all chose hardware workstations rather than a PC in the first place, and I think Korg are smart not to attempt to copy the PC ecosystem too exactly. It's one thing to use PC hardware to build a dedicated synth, but quite another to open things up to the point where hardware and software can no longer be so tightly integrated.

So they tried to make a dedicated synth type experience, but also make it open and extensible, for an ill defined "as long as is reasonable" period of time. I don't see how they could possibly win with a plan like that! Upset customers appear pretty much inevitable at some point.

It also seems to me that Korg themselves have realized this. I suspect that is the biggest reason the Kronos is not called "Oasys 2", and why they are not talking at all about it being extensible or future proof. They obviously want to continue with the technology (which makes me very happy, since I think this is awesome tech), but this time around they are marketing it as a more conventional "here's a keyboard, here's a list of what it does", without all the vague future promises. I think that is very sensible of them, as it makes the rules totally clear. If they do choose to release new stuff for it, I'll be happy, but if they don't, or if they release a few things this year and then stop, I'll have no grounds for disappointment since they never hinted at any such things.

I guess my point after all that rambling, is it seems to me the Oasys was a fantastic instrument from a technical point of view, way ahead of its time, but it was mismarketed in a way that basically could never hope to leave customers happy. They would have done better to explain it more like the Kronos, focusing on what it can do today rather than all this vague "maybe it'll also do more stuff tomorrow" idea. The stuff it can do today is so amazing (even 6 years later it still beats the latest and greatest from every other manufacturer!) I'm not really sure why they ever thought they needed to talk so much about the upgradability side of things.

shawnhar wrote:
I have to say I don't understand all the negativity in these threads, and am greatly saddened by it.

If you want to understand go to the very begging of this thread a few pages back.

There was a very nice Oasys owner name Dany who started this thread to raise concern about new sounds added to the STR1 and Mod-7 that Oasys owners didn't get . I didn't even know about them until Dany told us .

Immediately he was attacked and made fun of by people on this thread
with a picture and derogatory statements to the point he left the forum .

shawnhar wrote: So I head over to these forums, hoping to learn some neat tricks from the experts. And indeed there are many great tricks here to be learned, but also what seems like endless bickering between two camps, both determined to undermine and/or ignore the other.

Here's a trick or tip rather, when using effects go to the top right corner of the effect your tweaking main page and hit the drop down menu for some very nice presets for EQ's compressors , reverb etc. Can really be a time saver when your trying to put the finishing touches on a sound or song .

Rocness wrote:

shawnhar wrote:
I have to say I don't understand all the negativity in these threads, and am greatly saddened by it.

If you want to understand go to the very begging of this thread a few pages back.

That part I get, and the reaction struck me as childish and uneccessary.

And from there it just spiraled downhill into "Kronos sucks", "Oasys owners are all spoiled children", "Kronos owners have no place posting in an Oasys forum", "everyone is a hypocrite", and "Korg are so evil I will never support them ever again", none of which strike me as sensible points of view!

Hence my sadness.

On a more positive note, nice tip about the effect settings!

I'm in love with the MS20.

shawnhar wrote:
So they tried to make a dedicated synth type experience, but also make it open and extensible, for an ill defined "as long as is reasonable" period of time. I don't see how they could possibly win with a plan like that! Upset customers appear pretty much inevitable at some point.

From my point of view it's not quite as simple as that. The future proof story needs to be considered in conjunction with the very high original price of the Oasys (no discounts allowed remember ?).

If the Oasys had been slightly more expensive than say, a Yamaha Motif or a Roland X, there would be less complaints (or even none). As it was, the Oasys cost nearly three times as much as one of the competitors' workstations. The feeling at the time was that the high cost (certainly by me) was justified to buy into the so-called future proofness of the machine. So to pay three times as much for a future proof workstation that is then discontinued while the newly introduced and much lower priced M3 has been given an updated sequencer was taking the p!ss as far as I'm concerned.

I know, for example, that sequencer piano roll for the Oasys was considered but then not implemented. So the M3 ended up with sequencer piano roll but the flagship Oasys didn't.

I've said enough on this. My opinion won't be changed by people who either didn't buy a new Oasys or might be fortunate enough to be able to buy in bulk.

Rocness wrote:The sad part is , Oasys users have to beg Korg to do right buy Oasys .

The Oasys was built for theses new expansions . Wasn't it ?

Anybody remember the term Open Architecture .

This is the main reason the Oasys cost $ 8000 .

I can't believe Korg would do this to Oasys owners .

Korg please do the right thing and support the Oasys with new technologies as they become available like you promised .

+1
Korg has disappointed me with the Oasys.

+ 1

Yes, SirRoy and Rocness.

KRONOS obviously launched on the back of OASYS's development, and 'Open Architecture' in the OASYS WAS the lure.

KRONOS's sales revenue SHOULD be reflected back as OASYS support.

If the MIDI exclusive data files can be revealed by Korg, then it would be possible for shared EXIs and possibly HD1 to make a PCG conversion from Kronos to Oasys programs (and combis too). However, a lot of these documents are available, EXCEPT for the Oasys.

I already contacted Dan Philips about this issue, but sadly I have not received a reply yet.

Hi,

good to hear that it should be possible even by skilled users with the correct information to convert the PCG. So I do see no reason why Korg should either give this information or (even sell/charge) the programs as sound collection to Oasys users.
Thanks for your work michelkeijzers. Keep uns informed

best regards
SoulBe

SoulBe wrote:Hi,

good to hear that it should be possible even by skilled users with the correct information to convert the PCG. So I do see no reason why Korg should either give this information or (even sell/charge) the programs as sound collection to Oasys users.
Thanks for your work michelkeijzers. Keep uns informed

best regards
SoulBe

Well, the information I talk about is available for any model ... except for the Oasys. I really don't have a clue why this is so. With this info, it would probably be a lot easier to convert (a part) of the Kronos sounds to Oasys.

So how long would Korg have needed to go on supporting Oasys for you guys not to feel disappointed?

Not trying to dig here, just interested to understand more about what sort of expectations people had.

shawnhar wrote:So how long would Korg have needed to go on supporting Oasys for you guys not to feel disappointed?

At least 10 years for a OPEN architecture synth .

One of the most important things to remember is
the Oasys is a acronym (O.A.SY.S) unlike the Kronos .
Future updates was one of the main selling points of this $8000+ synth .

shawnhar wrote:So how long would Korg have needed to go on supporting Oasys for you guys not to feel disappointed?

Not trying to dig here, just interested to understand more about what sort of expectations people had.

The question asked is an over-simplification what has gone on over several years.

Korg introduced the M3 and soon after updated it's sequencer (at zero cost) to include piano roll. Surely the flagship Korg synth costing many times more than the M3 should have had a sequencer update to at least put in on a par with M3.

Clearly Korg were not bothered (even at this stage) to properly support Oasys.

My impression (obviously wrongly) when I bought Oasys was that the support was truly open ended, with the phrase Open Architecture (teasingly) promising third party involvement and hence the exhorbitant price.

The marketing spiel said future proof. Maybe I should have been less trusting when I handed the money over. As I've said on numerous occasions, Korg will not get another chance for me to trust them or otherwise.

Shawnhar, with respect, if I were you I would just enjoy the Kronos rather than worry too much about why Oasys owners might feel aggrieved. Unless you were in at the beginning and fell for the marketing hype and dutifully handed over a large chunk of change (like many here did) then it will be impossible for you to understand.

TonyGen wrote:Korg introduced the M3 and soon after updated it's sequencer (at zero cost) to include piano roll. Surely the flagship Korg synth costing many times more than the M3 should have had a sequencer update to at least put in on a par with M3.

Then why didn't they put piano roll on the KRONOS if it's so easy?

Possibly the M3 was already in development and a branch was taken for the Kronos, that's why not all features of the M3 have made it to the Kronos, possibly due to time shortage.