Kronos II - when ?

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 10:25 am

Having read through all the posts - I think I need to qualify some comments on KARO where I may have been a little harsh. While KARO did pull support for OASYS and many of their libraries for OASYS remain unusable; some of their libraries are truly excellent - their Bosendorfer Grand Piano is, in my opinion, wonderful.

Back on topic - I would absolutely love for Korg to release a Kronos simply updated with, say, a quad core i7 processor and, say 512 GB SSD, and a Thunderbolt interface for Audio and MIDI I/O (and a DAW integrated editor to die for (eave everything else the same).

Continue to offer Kronos as is, but also release the improved hardware version for a higher cost. Imagine, say 300 - 500 note polyphony and even better responses; well integrated into DAW environments. Now that would be a powerhouse.

This would give Kronos a gargantuan advantage over the competition and give Kronos a lengthy life span. Then, just keep adding libraries every year for the next 5 years or so...in fact - imagine the virtual acoustic and virtual analogue synth engines you could run on that

I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons why this is not technically or economically viable; but I'd still absolutely love it....

Kevin.

apex · Post by **apex** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:36 pm

Kevin Nolan wrote:Having read through all the posts - I think I need to qualify some comments on KARO where I may have been a little harsh. While KARO did pull support for OASYS and many of their libraries for OASYS remain unusable; some of their libraries are truly excellent - their Bosendorfer Grand Piano is, in my opinion, wonderful.

Back on topic - I would absolutely love for Korg to release a Kronos simply updated with, say, a quad core i7 processor and, say 512 GB SSD, and a Thunderbolt interface for Audio and MIDI I/O (and a DAW integrated editor to die for (eave everything else the same).

Continue to offer Kronos as is, but also release the improved hardware version for a higher cost. Imagine, say 300 - 500 note polyphony and even better responses; well integrated into DAW environments. Now that would be a powerhouse.

This would give Kronos a gargantuan advantage over the competition and give Kronos a lengthy life span. Then, just keep adding libraries every year for the next 5 years or so...in fact - imagine the virtual acoustic and virtual analogue synth engines you could run on that

I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons why this is not technically or economically viable; but I'd still absolutely love it....

Kevin.

Kevin... seriously... what is the purpose of a Keyboard with these types of specs?

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 5:15 pm

I'm sorry to say that I always have to laugh when reading all these wonderful ideas of wonder boards for the next generation to come, no matter if it is for keyboards, iphones, cars or whatever. 95% of it simply is economical and/or technical nonsense, besides one or two nice ideas, and this thread offers some of that kind.

Kevin, you at least indicated that you are aware of what I mean with your last sentence. How would you cool an i7 in a Kronos?? With an even louder fan and some big holes at the rear or on the bottom of the Kronos for hot air exchange??? Or with a fabulous mix of water cooling and silent fan, raising the price around 300$ just for that????

This all sounds a bit silly to me, like "I want the best of a Porsche, a Ferrari and a Lambroghini in one car - and while you are at it - make it amphibian with four wheel drive, but lightweight and sportive at the same time".

Sorry to say it: this thread is plain silly IMO, just Kindergarden stuff, and the few useable ideas could be sent to Korg R&D - just in case they aren't aware of them anyway.

What would be REALLY useful, is not a futile Kronos II debate, but some user feedback to Korg about making the present user interface and some basic HD-1 sounds and effects (like overdrive) even better. Welcome here and now!

clipnotic · Post by **clipnotic** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:24 pm

jimknopf wrote:I'm sorry to say that I always have to laugh when reading all these wonderful ideas of wonder boards for the next generation to come, no matter if it is for keyboards, iphones, cars or whatever. 95% of it simply is economical and/or technical nonsense, besides one or two nice ideas, and this thread offers some of that kind.

Kevin, you at least indicated that you are aware of what I mean with your last sentence. How would you cool an i7 in a Kronos?? With an even louder fan and some big holes at the rear or on the bottom of the Kronos for hot air exchange??? Or with a fabulous mix of water cooling and silent fan, raising the price around 300$ just for that????

This all sounds a bit silly to me, like "I want the best of a Porsche, a Ferrari and a Lambroghini in one car - and while you are at it - make it amphibian with four wheel drive, but lightweight and sportive at the same time".

Sorry to say it: this thread is plain silly IMO, just Kindergarden stuff, and the few useable ideas could be sent to Korg R&D - just in case they aren't aware of them anyway.

What would be REALLY useful, is not a futile Kronos II debate, but some user feedback to Korg about making the present user interface and some basic HD-1 sounds and effects (like overdrive) even better. Welcome here and now!

This forum is really a great forum with great and helpful users but sometimes I feel like you: "Kindergarden"

- the Kronos still has a loud original fan und you can fix that with less money - or!?
- my small and really thin notebook is quiet and has no problems with cooling! And it has no water cooling but it has a good cooler!
- other gear is small and thin but has a Core i7 in it! How could that be?
...

With this expansions, the Kronos would be really a future product and you could be sure, that there will be no problems with polyphony ... in the future ! Especially when new synthese expansions come up for example ... nobody knows or? And not everybody only plays keyboard with a band or piano ... With a synthesizer which has 9 syntheses - you could do MUCH more! But for more you need polyphony and cpu power or not?

You should look to the whole market and possibilities and for the reasons, people want such expansions before you use words like "silly" ...

For an enhanced Kronos version like Kevin wrote, I would pay more money, too - no problem!

And then everybody could choose what they want and that silly quarrelling could be come to an end!

By the way, this enhancement option you can find in other gear, too!

And please:

Look what you bought - the Kronos still is a PC with many synths and a sampler ... and the Kronos is not and was never a typical keyboard !!

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:45 pm

Even with the present very low airflow required for the Atom processor and the rest of heating, a silent fan is still audible (I put in the noiseblocker and know what I am talking of).

So you will hardly tell me that a Kronos with an i7 mobo and other enhancements will need similar or less cooling. A notebook has a very small surface with a very short way out for hot air: I doubt that cooling it is comparable with avoiding hot air accumulation within the Kronos casing.

My interest for a Kronos 2 in the near futrure is ZERO, and I sincerely hope that Korg will instead(!) put most of their limited R&D resources into OS development and sounds, before beginning to develop new hardware specs. And when they finally do, probably everyone will once more shout why they didn't chose the latest "i14 1/2" PC generation of mobos.

Once more: to me this is an absolutely low priority discussion compared to things which are much more relevant for my Kronos music making right now than limited voices, within ranges which I can handle very well. I dislike layered sound walls and sound mud anyway, but I love cool sound ing program patches and high OS usability - which both is well possible to be updated within the present hardware specs.

You will probably get your updated synth. Just not now or very soon - and I can't see any problem with that.

clipnotic · Post by **clipnotic** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:53 pm

No:

- a better cpu needs a better cooler but a better cooler can be quiet too, or not? Thats the reason to pay more money! Again, I have no problem to pay more for that - it's ok!

and

- the actual cpu in the Kronos has not really an good orginal cooler or?

But that's not the problem - the real problem here is:

Some users here are thinking they know all and instead of thinking about why other users have this wishes and how they work if they make music ... such all knowing users tell us what they only need and our wishes are only silly ...

And that's wrong and not good for Korg, too!

The Kronos is a big machine and because it has such many possibilities, much more musicians are looking for it! So not only the typical workstation users are looking but much more new and other musicians are looking, too! For example I'm a plugin musician since years but the Kronos is really attractive for me! If it can do what I want, I will tell all my plugin friends "hey that machine is really cool and can do what we want!"

And sorry but we plugin musicians are not working with a netbook ... ?

And if Korg would be clever, they could enhance the Kronos for all of us and then the Kronos could be THAT machine everbody wants! Or they made a full VST version without hardware ... there are many possibilities and people like us tell this possibilities for free here to Korg, too, to show them another thinking and that is what Korg really needs if they want to bring that workstation concepts to the future! If they only listen to the always same customers ... well only that customers will buy that machine ...

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:12 pm

Well, I see a bit better where you come from, reading your comments, clipnotic, but I guess there is a differnce between your expectations and the original target market for the Kronos.

As far as I understand, the Kronos is mainly bought by musicians for
a) live purposes (the most flexible all purpose axe available for playiong gigs)
b) an allrounder synth with unified OS and surface for recording into your software DAW, getting your favorite live sounds directly into recording 1:1.

What you are after, seems to be a workstation replacement for the software plugin solutions. There have been some efforts to provide such a "keyboard music computer" over the last years (Lionstracs etc.), but they all have not been remotely as succesful as expected. And I see some reasons for that, for example: for home or pure studio use, what is the difference between hooking a master keyboard yo your DAW with all the VSTs and effect plugins available, opposed to having it in one case with a keybed? The difference isn't worth much from my view.

Sorry if I sounded a bit impatient, but for me and other Kronos keyboarders which I know, it is much more important to see the present Kronos develop to full maturity than think of a successor.

P.S. I am no technophobe, so no need to explain to me that the Kronos is a PC. I build all my PCs from components since years instead of buying them ready, and I updated my Kronos with a new fan, RAM, and a new 240Gb SSD. Other synths are kind of PCs since years as well, by the way, and the Kronos is just one step further. But in the end, what it is is not so much defined by specs, but much more by the way it is designed, works and is used.

Ich merke jetzt erst, dass Du aus Deutschland bist...

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:16 pm

jimknopf wrote:Even with the present very low airflow required for the Atom processor and the rest of heating, a silent fan is still audible (I put in the noiseblocker and know what I am talking of).

So you will hardly tell me that a Kronos with an i7 mobo and other enhancements will need similar or less cooling. A notebook has a very small surface with a very short way out for hot air: I doubt that cooling it is comparable with avoiding hot air accumulation within the Kronos casing.

My interest for a Kronos 2 in the near futrure is ZERO, and I sincerely hope that Korg will instead(!) put most of their limited R&D resources into OS development and sounds, before beginning to develop new hardware specs. And when they finally do, probably everyone will once more shout why they didn't chose the latest "i14 1/2" PC generation of mobos.

Once more: to me this is an absolutely low priority discussion compared to things which are much more relevant for my Kronos music making right now than limited voices, within ranges which I can handle very well. I dislike layered sound walls and sound mud anyway, but I love cool sound ing program patches and high OS usability - which both is well possible to be updated within the present hardware specs.

You will probably get your updated synth. Just not now or very soon - and I can't see any problem with that.

I am positive an i7 Processor (in the Kronos) is not going to inspire me to be a better keyboard player.

If I was an Intel employee, it might be something to blab about.

clipnotic · Post by **clipnotic** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 7:20 pm

@jimknopf:

( ah noch ein Deutscher hier - super! Und ist alles ok, ist ne ganz normale Diskussion, typisch für ein Herstellerforum, und mein Englisch ist auch etwas schlecht, wer weiß wie das genau rüberkommt !?

)

And no, it must be not the full DAW replacement! I got here some great tips to connect the Kronos to my DAW!

And of course you are right, as yet mostly live musicians are looking for workstations.

But this big Kronos synthesizer machine has 9 syntheses !! If I create a song with my DAW I at most use only 4 or 5 syntheses. So with a Kronos I could enhance my sound level very good, too IF it has enough power to do that!

The Kronos is a synthesizer MEGA machine with all sound whishes in it which every musician could have but the hardware is only made for the old crew

It's like I would install my whole vst plugin collection to a little netbook and put a masterkey on it ...

GregC wrote:I am positive an i7 Processor (in the Kronos) is not going to inspire me to be a better keyboard player.

If I was an Intel employee, it might be something to blab about.

OK, than you could use a 50$ Casio keyboard, too? If you are a good keyboard player your music will be fine there, too! (only a joke!)

Kevin Nolan · Post by **Kevin Nolan** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 8:26 pm

jimknopf wrote:I'm sorry to say that I always have to laugh when reading all these wonderful ideas of wonder boards for the next generation to come, no matter if it is for keyboards, iphones, cars or whatever. 95% of it simply is economical and/or technical nonsense, besides one or two nice ideas, and this thread offers some of that kind.

Kevin, you at least indicated that you are aware of what I mean with your last sentence. How would you cool an i7 in a Kronos?? With an even louder fan and some big holes at the rear or on the bottom of the Kronos for hot air exchange??? Or with a fabulous mix of water cooling and silent fan, raising the price around 300$ just for that????

This all sounds a bit silly to me, like "I want the best of a Porsche, a Ferrari and a Lambroghini in one car - and while you are at it - make it amphibian with four wheel drive, but lightweight and sportive at the same time".

Sorry to say it: this thread is plain silly IMO, just Kindergarden stuff, and the few useable ideas could be sent to Korg R&D - just in case they aren't aware of them anyway.

What would be REALLY useful, is not a futile Kronos II debate, but some user feedback to Korg about making the present user interface and some basic HD-1 sounds and effects (like overdrive) even better. Welcome here and now!

Well, my early 2011 17" MBP has a quad core i7 and there absolutely no noise from it - it's a quiet as a mouse. There are two fans in there - one for the cpu and one for the gpu, but I can never hear them. By contrast, my OASYS sounds rediculously loud and utterly unecessarily so - we're talking relative old and cheap fan technology in the OASYS and Kronos.

So cooling and keeping quiet a quad core i7 is not an issue - it has been technically resolved buy every laptop manufacturer.

To the posters who asked why I would want such a high spec and redicule it. I have to throw the question back - why are you questioning the ambition and aspiration of composers and performers? Do you know the limits composers desires and conceptions?

And I mean - this is a technology forum. Don't you want to push boundaries. I find it proposterous that you would not seek the very best that technology can deliver for your creativity. Why limit a Kronos to an ATOM processor when we already know that even at 170 note polyphony, combi layers can limit the polyphony to a handful of notes. I can stack enough oscillators on one AL-1 program to only allow my OASYS play 1 note (in polyphonic mode). These instruments are, in my opinion, underresoruced given their sonic potential.

But the power of OASYS / Kronos is their stunning engines, libraries and effects at effectively near-zero latency and tighly coupled to a surperb performance and controller setup - it puts current computer environments such as NI and Spectrasonics to shame because they can floor even a serious computer with unusable polyphony and latency all too easily; and if provided with muitl-hundred voice polyphony, I could imagein Kronos winning an entire new user base of media composers who would find the huge polyphony across such a diverse set of synth engines at near zero latency extremely desirable.

As just one example, in a current composition, I intend using 64 separate instances of AL-1 (on the one program) across multiple tracks - akin to the Strings Choir in an orchestra. I'm having to do it in stages and record to Logic - but the ambition of the piece could really do with that many instances of AL-1 in real time. I can think of many a sound track that could demand equal resources (in the electronic components of a sound track or in sound design).

So there is every resaon and validity to push the boundry - surely that's what Kronos is - at least to synthsesists and instrumental composers like I am.

In the long term of music technology, we're only getting started - think bigger and higher !!!

Kevin.

Ojustaboo · Post by **Ojustaboo** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:36 am

jimknopf wrote:How would you cool an i7 in a Kronos?? With an even louder fan and some big holes at the rear or on the bottom of the Kronos for hot air exchange??? Or with a fabulous mix of water cooling and silent fan, raising the price around 300$ just for that????

I read. In this months sound on sound about a totally silent daw pc from Rain Computers.

You can put a 3.1 GHz i7 in along with 16 GB 1333 MHz RAM, two 480 GB SSD drives and it all runs totally fan and noise free.

To buy the i7 with 16GB RAM and one 120 GB SSD in the totally silent case costs £1,150 which isn't extortionate for a totally silent daw.

The actual case is the heat-sink, wonder how much more it would add to the cost of the next Korg if they went this route, maybe part of the case being aliminium etc, I could imagine something like this is not that way out there in fantasy land at all, although I admit I'm no expert, just looking at the Rain one and thinking if they can do it, why can't a keyboard manufacture use it's keyboard chassis in a similar way .

http://www.raincomputers.co.uk/event-muse-a/270.htm

1jordyzzz · Post by **1jordyzzz** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 1:09 am

i just wish one thing for kronos 2
BETTER SYSTEM (no bugs, crashes, improved stability, and everything working smoothly)

for those who says kronos with i7 there, i think that's not possible... the kronos will be the most power hungry and the most "hot" (heat) hardware workstation (despite being the most powerful)
on ordinary CPU systems, the CPU has reserved power for background process, OS, etc, etc.. while on kronos, it has no reserve for system (or at least very little).. it's devoted for controls of sound... so maybe it's useless to put i7 there. only for sound processing.. but if 5-6 years later, the intel atom 5 maybe will have the same power as now intel core i7... and it will makes more sense for korg to get it into hardware workstation...

i'm a bit confused on people here.... you guys (and me) simply has the most powerful self contained, stand alone keyboard workstation on the planet... yet you keep bragging about the hardware.. i mean, those motif and kurzweil users didn't brag about the hardware they had there (ARM processor, less ram ??)... i mean, are you going to make music, or keep bragging on hardwares??

for now, let's enjoy our most powerful workstation in the planet and make some good music with it

LivePsy · Post by **LivePsy** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:24 am

It is too soon for us to speculate on the next Kronos, but it is not too soon for Korg. Do they have a road map for the Oasys platform or is the Kronos the start (or end) of repackaging of the OASYS design?

It seems to me that Keyboard manufactuers don't have plans for the next 2 or 3 generations, unlike the high tech companies like Microsft, Apple and Intel. Each keyboard company has at some point dropped a line and each model could be the last of its kind if marketing say so.

The Kronos is so much power and so close to perfection, use it or not but don't wait for something better.

B

Scatter · Post by **Scatter** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 2:56 am

76 key synth action.

robinkle · Post by **robinkle** » Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:48 am

I would think the Kronos II would have a similar update to other workstations.
More memory & storage, better display, better editor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, more polyphony, better design. better connections (Thunderbolt, USB 3.0) and more engines.

Hey I got the answer