Vision?

[cello]

Because of stuff in the day job, found myself thinking about what Korg's future vision is. (Should also say I have good amount of money reserved for such a thing - even with executive marital approval ; but what to spend it on? Cancelled a V-synth order as I heard there might be something new coming...)

The OASYS had vision - ie Open Architecture Synthesis Studio (and how it looked, its build quality and what it did). A vision - doesn't matter whether it happened or not - it was visionary (ie original).

The Kronos? No vision at all. Merely a technical extension of what already existed (and under no stretch of the imagination original) and at a lower price point. Change the game? I don't think so...

What's next? A MicroKronos? Hope not - as again there is no vision. Just capitalisation of a previous vision - at an even lower price point.

So - what's next that's visionary from Korg? Just like can be argued against the others in the big three (Yamaha and Roland), there's nothing visionary to move us music-makers (at what ever level - capability, live or studio, pro or am, etc) to our own relative 'next level'.

What do you think Korg should be doing next? Do we expect Korg to take the visionary lead or what?

(and before the trolls attack - there are amazingly creative machines out there ie Kronos, OASYS, JP-80, Nord, Kurzweil, Fantom, Motif, Virus, etc that could/perhaps should, keep us going for many years. Just appears to me that there's nothing visionary out there just now; or round the corner... just sayin'! - am interested to know what you think ->)

[X-Trade]

The future is, apparently, in software. Hardware sales are too low to fuel innovation. The 'mass market' simply wants the same sounds over and over again. And it's more about quantity than quality.

When you see the most complicated thing a magazine can cover in synthesis is "how to make a Hoover bass" compared to things like SOS Synth Secrets.. I have no faith in a 'way forward' for synthesis technology when over 90% of the market are consumers of presets and sounds, not synthesis technologies.
In which case perhaps the future is something which can automatically create new sounds based on your requirements. Or just has so many of them that it covers every eventuality?

Personally I'd like to see a 'plugin' hardware platform, where we can buy ne synthesizers or modules ad of course sounds for it from an app-store like market.
In synthesis technology, I'd like to see more block-based modular systems like the Arturia Origin, it looks great architecturally but seems to be unnecessarily limited to immatative duties rather than covering new or interesting ground.

[michelkeijzers]

I also think the trend will move towards software, although I probably always like a hardware synth over a (full) software synths.

Probably some hybrid will exist (where the Oasys and Kronos are good examples of). There will probably more EXis in the future and more of everything else (sample memory, patch locations, harddisk space).

And if there will be a real visionary product in the future is hard to say. Hardware builders are mostly quite conservative, I think Korg is for the major brands the least conservative.

[MarPabl]

This is a good concept that can be a great next step: Nord Modular G2

A (more) truly open modular solution where you can develop new specialized modules and you design Programs on the computer, because the UI is complex in order to control the modules. However, you get powerful tweaking capabilities on the hardware side for live performance, add to the list great computer integration (like FireWire on Motif XF), great interface and flexibility (like Oasys/Kronos) and a "traditional" "rompler" with huge RAM/Flash memory for permanently storing user samples without making economies with the libraries because tiny RAM, and you have a great evolution

IMHO, Kurzweil is the closer one to this open modular approach, however Dynamic VAST may be more open and the modules more complex/powerful and with a much (modern) ROM key maps.

[SoulBe]

First I think Korg will try to get all out of the Kronos what is possible, like Yamaha did for years now with the motif, Kronos LE, Kronos rack, Kronos light, Kronos mini, Kronos mono etc, not soon but time after time. That is ok, they did a lot of investment in developing etc.
I also think that softsynth are the future; it is cheaper and you are not obliged within one manufacturer. But that leads the manufacturers of hardware also into a dilemma: when they bring out a keyboard controller on the market that can hold multiple softsynth then they destroy their own base of synth/workstation market.
What I expect is that the manufacturers will develop their own softsynth that can only be played with their own controller keyboards to keep both segments, but time will tell.

best regards
SoulBe

[t_tangent]

The future is, apparently, in software. Hardware sales are too low to fuel innovation. The 'mass market' simply wants the same sounds over and over again. And it's more about quantity than quality.

When you see the most complicated thing a magazine can cover in synthesis is "how to make a Hoover bass" compared to things like SOS Synth Secrets.. I have no faith in a 'way forward' for synthesis technology when over 90% of the market are consumers of presets and sounds, not synthesis technologies.
In which case perhaps the future is something which can automatically create new sounds based on your requirements. Or just has so many of them that it covers every eventuality?

Personally I'd like to see a 'plugin' hardware platform

Sonic-Core have exactly that idea with their Scope platform, and while not without it's problems the concept was and still is visionary. Basically you can chose what you want to load on to the routing window and then connect the various devices together with virtual cables. The actual devices, synths, mixers, effects, etc are loaded on to a nimber of Analog Devices SHARC DSP's which are renowned for their real time processing abilities which in turn is part of the reason for Scope synths having such a "warm" sound.
Hans Zimmer has been quoted as saying Scope was his "secret weapon", and in fact one of the developers for some of Scope's synths, John Bowen, used to be involved with Korg's OASYS PCI project. Here are some links which might be of interest, and worth checking out especially for modular freaks is Scope's Modular IV

http://sonic-core.net
http://www.zargmusic.com/
http://cwmodular.org/index.html
http://modularsynth.co.uk/index.shtml
http://www.adern.com/home/index.php
www.digitalaudiosoft.com

[cello]

Excellent and interesting replies! Fully agree with X-Trade.

This hardware/plugin idea is intriguing (thanks for the links t_tangent!).

And SoulBe - you exactly hit the nail on the head with the reason behind my post - ie all I can see is more and more being squeezed from existing platforms (motif, fantom, kronos, stage, V-Synth) and wondered when does something new come out?

Really is interesting to read your thoughts... so should I be adding a Mac to my budget??!!

And do we think Korg is going to take the visionary lead (when the time comes - I guess there's a good bit of mileage in the Kronos yet!)?

[Kontrol49]

Its hard to say what the future is for them,its hard to see how to go further with the Kronos/Oasys or whats for the next generation that can better those??the more you add the more it become expensive and out of reach of the masses to the point,is it going to be a profitable return for them.

Given the mass produced lower end of the market gadgets Korg produce maybe there future is in low cost high volume devices.

it seems that with the way prices are today,high end hardware is becoming less attractive,Korg saw the potential in the Oasys,and perhaps took the price as the problem and hence made the Kronos to appeal to a wider budget audience

Which kind of shows the hardware workstation is still desirable,but I think nowadays its more performance orientated instruments that seem to be the order of the day.

The Workstation as a unit is only applicable to a small chunk of users that require everything in one box,with many prefering software or outside the box for anything sequence based,so pretty much all these things are redundant on a workstation except for the engines.It would be interesting to see how many hardcore sequencer users there are in these workstations


Maybe the workstation is becoming a dying breed??given little how the Sequencer in the Kronos has developed perhaps Korg see it too,and with Roland throwing in the Jupiter 80 as a mass performance synth its maybe obvious that what a user requires in a high end pro synth isn't the all in one studio badge!

I'd like korg to produce something based on the Kronos/Oasys just a pure sound generation performance synth with the potential of the Jupiter 80 for live use,and build on the options of the set list they included in the kronos.

So perhaps Korg will continue to make niche High end synths and perhaps branch out into software as it probably seems obvious that most people prefer software for sequencing....they've done some interesting software emulations of their classics...

What I do find interesting,Korg has just released a Polysix (Rack extension) for Propellerheads Reason,which I think is quite significant,perhaps they are starting to see the mass potential in software packages like Reason,and tapping into a huge user community of this,Reason has some great instruments but this kind of moves it to a new level and gives Korg more and more options,what else is in the developing stages!

I've been an on and off Reason user,for a few years but this makes for really promising and positive news not only for Props but for Korg also,that seems to be a massive leap forward for Korg,given they are the only one of the big 3 that have tapped into the huge potential of Reason

[DennyC]

I'm on the same page as Cello. Wow, if only the O could be radically expanded...I mean the build quality...Wow!

[Kevin Nolan]

I don't know what's next for Korg vision-wise; and agree that perhaps new versions of Kronos may arise given it's seemingly successful sales to date,

But I will say this: Korg are primarily a hardware company and I believe they will stay firmly in that territory. It is not easy for a company to change fundamentally and survive, so for better or worse, I believe they will always be in hardware.


And they have been excellent in this regard since the M1, and in more recent times with the Wavedrum, Microkorg, Kronos, KAOSS, SV-1 and so on, there's clearly no shortage of ideas within the company.

But you also have to hand it to Korg on the software front - from the sheer quality of OASYS and Kronos feature set (including very deep synth engines given the number of units sold and which are in my opinion hugely under appreciated even within the OASYS and Kronos communities (judging by their lack of programming)); to the beautifully crafted Legacy and iPad software synthesizers - Korg are utterly in control of software too. Very exciting in that department.


And then there's the Monotron and Monotribe, in part responsible for the current mini-revolution in small but quality analogue devices.


So overall I think Korg are very much in control - at least as well as they can be within the financial constraints they surely battle with - and are, IMO, still among the very, very best synthesizer and music technology companies. I think we can look forward to many more years of truly exciting instruments and music technology from Korg and long may it last.

Kevin.

[Dany]

I think back to the early eighties, (when I was still a child playing the piano), when I walked into a musicstore with my older cousin and just saw for the first time in my life a real synthsizer, in form of an Oberheim OB-8, sitting in front of me, ready to be played. I carefully touched one key and heard for the first time in my life the incredible sound of a synthesizer, in fact an OB-8! I was very, very deeply impressed and I got immediately infected by the synthesizer virus (and became indeed sick the following night and had high fever). The OB-8 was an unreachable dream and it was incredibly expensive. Just the same week, I saw a german music magazin at a newspaper stand, which had a picture of a JUNO-6 on the front page. That was it!

The following weeks and months, I was constantly nagging my poor parents about purchasing a Roland JUNO-6 for me, which was the only payable option in those days for a polyphonic synth. The JUNO-6 (just as the Polysix) was the first payable poly synth available in history. So the synth fever just hit me in the right moment, when I was very young. And I am infinitely thankful to my parents for finally having purchased a JUNO-6 for me to christmas. This has changed my whole life.

My synthesizer fanaticism never ceased and I was following every development of the industry since then.

If I want to know the future, I have to look at the past and the present and my conclusion is:
Hardware synthesizers are getting almost exponentially better and better, since my first synth, when I was a child. It's just a dream to be a synth player nowadays. The instruments have never been better. And if the world economic situation doesn't fully collaps, we will see a continuation of this trend.

Time has proven, that all the fears, that software synths will push aside hardware synths forever, were baseless. The contrary is the fact.

Let's hope Korg will completely redesign their user structure and eliminate the seperated modi and create a better GUI. It's of course quite clear, that Korg will base all new developments on the Kronos technology. I hope they have learned from the Kronos hardware debacle and will present a more reliable and better hardware design with their next flagship.

Let's not forget: Korg is currently already working hard on their next flagship, because they have to, it's their job...
-

[Kontrol49]

Time has proven, that all the fears, that software synths will push aside hardware synths forever, were baseless. The contrary is the fact

+1

[michelkeijzers]

Time has proven, that all the fears, that software synths will push aside hardware synths forever, were baseless. The contrary is the fact

+1

+1 ... although I think hardware synthesizers will always be behind computer specs (like memory, harddisk space etc) and pricing.

[michelkeijzers]

Let's not forget: Korg is currently already working hard on their next flagship, because they have to, it's their job...
-

There always will be musicians wanting to play on a real synth. Eventually there probably will not be too much difference in a PC with plugins and a connected keyboard and a hardware synth with plugins.

[Yatrix]

There always will be musicians wanting to play on a real synth

Yep. And to control it by mind force instead of seeking for right button on midi controller.