Kronos Editor 2.0 - Feedbacks

[SoundQuest]

The explanation as to why the editor doesn't run in x64 has been discussed previously but to reiterate....

The DAW manufacturers licence a piece of software from a 3rd party company that allows their software to load and use 32-bit plug-ins. This licensed software has a bug in it where it crashes when any plug-in tries to store more than 1MB of data. Even when the data is compressed, the Kronos plug-in requires far more than 1MB of storage space. It is not the plug-in that is crashing but the x64/32 bit translator. The other apps don't crash because they require far less storage space.

Our discusions with Cakewalk about this problem indicate that the 3rd party manufacturer has been aware of the issue for several years and has done nothing to address it.

[neomad]

The Kronos sequencer compared to the m3 or krome and total silence from korg on the issue is not them doing a fantastic job.

True, and its not something new.
Its something told and told "ab nauseam".
And still no word from Korg in this regard.

The non upgraded Kronos sequencer compared to other Korg models its something so many times reported, here in this forums and in other places as well.

The way people were kept in the dark for months over the initial keybed problem was not them doing a fantastic job either.

Absolutely.

Futhermore: Talking time to talk to worldwide distrubutors about the issue (as I did), reveals that they acknowledge this, even they will tell you that this policy of *say nothing for months* about an original defect in the manufacturing of 73 and 88 models had damaged a lot the image of the Kornos as a product, as well as Korg´s reputation.

Korg allowing this V2 editor to be released is also not them doing a fantastic job. They chose to use soundquest, they saw all the customer complaints about v1 and they chose to allow soundquest to continue down exactly the same route.

Again, bingo.

Its hard to accept and even more to explain why, as an example, the M3 plug in editor was able to work in 64 bit environments and the Kronos one cant.

Likewise, the new Krome workstation has an editor which seems to be more developed at least in its external graphic content and GUI, that the one supplied for the Kronos series.
And dont forget we are talking about a model with the 1/3 street price of the Kronos.

Korg chose to subcontract the editor to soundquest. If I get a builder to extend my house, if he uses subcontractors for part of it and those subcontractors do shoddy work, it doesn't matter how good the quality of work is by my actual builder, the end result, what he allowed through, is totally his fault.

Once more, correct.

+1

By the way, who's behind Krome/M3 software?

[Shakil]

Thanks for confirming that it's indeed amount of data issue. People need to realize that there has been no synth so far with as much data as required by the KRONOS. There are so many parameters.

[Shakil]

Its hard to accept and even more to explain why, as an example, the M3 plug in editor was able to work in 64 bit environments and the Kronos one cant.

It's because KRONOS has lot more parameters than M3. The host environments can't handle that much data.

[Corgy]

... I am new to this forum and new to Kronos, so forgive jumping in like this.

I got my Kronos three weeks ago and spent a lot of time with it since. Having used soft-synths for some time now, I can say, the instrument is great and really really coherent. It is IMHO a masterpiece in sound and handling in life situations and it is fun to make music right out of the box.

But if you look to the software level - guys - I had the feeling to be beamed back into the 80ies. If you ever compared the on-board way for synth programming and sequencing with software solutions on Mac or PC today - you know what I mean. The midi sequencer, as an example, compares more to my very very old Kawai Q-80 H/W sequencer than anything else. And this piece of H/W was retired - 15 years ago?

When I sit over the small display, with a pen-tip to operate all those small fields of synth parameters the fun of making new sounds dies fast. I just get a pain in my spine. I think, this was not intended.

I agree, that the instrument does not need a big expensive screen, because not everybody will dive into the synths. But not having an ergonomic GUI on a Mac or PC with a clear view of synth architecture, buttons, switches, sliders, midi-learn capability etc. for each of the great sound-engines - I mean dedicated interfaces - is a shame.

There are some good examples of soft-synth interfaces out there, which give easy access to learn quickly how to set up a new sound or how to analyse a sound you want to learn from. I wish, our Kronos Editor would be like one of those (Korg look at Alchemy, Massive, or FM8 just to name a few...)

Please - this is not about complaining or ranting - this about making tools the right way. IMO the new editor for Kronos is just not state-of-the-art tool and does not fit to the instrument.

[Ojustaboo]

So now I will use my Kronos for playing and my M3-M (hopefully I get it after the weekend) with Radias and KLC for sequencing.

It was scanned at the HERNE-BOERNIG UPS depot at 15:00 today, so you never know, slight chance you might even get it tomorrow.

[Ojustaboo]

The explanation as to why the editor doesn't run in x64 has been discussed previously but to reiterate....

The DAW manufacturers licence a piece of software from a 3rd party company that allows their software to load and use 32-bit plug-ins. This licensed software has a bug in it where it crashes when any plug-in tries to store more than 1MB of data. Even when the data is compressed, the Kronos plug-in requires far more than 1MB of storage space. It is not the plug-in that is crashing but the x64/32 bit translator. The other apps don't crash because they require far less storage space.

Our discusions with Cakewalk about this problem indicate that the 3rd party manufacturer has been aware of the issue for several years and has done nothing to address it.

So why not just write a 64bit plugin?

[Saxifraga]

The explanation as to why the editor doesn't run in x64 has been discussed previously but to reiterate....
...
Our discusions with Cakewalk about this problem indicate that the 3rd party manufacturer has been aware of the issue for several years and has done nothing to address it.

If you think "Apple" (?) then why do you still use Carbon and don't switch to Cocoa and produce a better true 64bit plugin without translator?

And why do you copy 1:1 the Korg UI and don't invent a better UI with better workflow? Or did Korg made it a prerequisite?

But you will surely not talk about any of that.

[Saxifraga]

So now I will use my Kronos for playing and my M3-M (hopefully I get it after the weekend) with Radias and KLC for sequencing.

It was scanned at the HERNE-BOERNIG UPS depot at 15:00 today, so you never know, slight chance you might even get it tomorrow.

I am checking every 30min!

[midiman]

Overall, too many pessimistic comments

ok,ok - I will let the plugin speak for itself - when opened:

* * FAIL
--------------------------------------------------
AU VALIDATION FAILED: CORRECT THE ERRORS ABOVE.
--------------------------------------------------

validation result: failed validation

updating properties of AU Korg Kronos v2 by Sound Quest...done.

In this case, I am sorry but you are discussing Apple. This is an AU Validation bug introduced in 10.7.5 and acknowledged by Apple as being their error. They have discussed a fix but there has been no mention of a timeline. If you have not yet upgraded to 10.7.5, I would recommend staying away from it as this bug is affecting the AU authorization of a range of plug-ins.

This bug has already been resolved by the 10.7.5 supplemental update available here - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1599

I just tested the plugin in 10.7.5, and it validates fine.

[midiman]

In this case, I am sorry but you are discussing Apple. This is an AU Validation bug introduced in 10.7.5 and acknowledged by Apple as being their error. They have discussed a fix but there has been no mention of a timeline. If you have not yet upgraded to 10.7.5, I would recommend staying away from it as this bug is affecting the AU authorization of a range of plug-ins.

Sorry but can't be a 10.7.5 bug - my studio mac is 10.6.8 and of all the plugins I have installed paid and free - this is the only one to fail. Literally the ONLY one. I have never seen this error before.

So what you're saying is that the Apple engineer who admitted that there is a problem and showed the code segment where the problem is located is wrong. The bug doesn't affect all plug-ins but it does affect Kronos' on 10.7.5. Run 10.7.4 and you'll find that it is fine.

I think, more likely, he is experiencing a different issue. Ed, I tested on 10.6.8, and it validates fine for me. So, you probably have something going on on your end causing the issue.

[Ojustaboo]

OK I've used the editor in stand alone mode for the last hour.

My honest opinion after this short period is as follows.

It isn't that bad at first glance.

But the bits that in my opinion are missing, make it much more long-winded than using the touch screen when it should be easier (or at least no harder).

After an hours use, these bits make it a pain to use. It could easily be so much better.

Of course it could be user error (but I don't THINK it is)

So I get all the info from my Kronos and save it as per the instructions in the manual. That all worked fine.

I click the PROG tab and click BANKS.
I select A-11 JAPANESE GRAND + STRINGS

All fine so far, I play the Kronos and the correct sound is playing.
But here's where it really lets its self down.

On the actual Kronos:
On the Kronos main page, I click the piano pic and it takes me straight to page EXi1

I press the play tab again, and this time click on the "EXi2: MOD-7" and it takes me to the correct screen.

On the Editor, none of these do anything if I click on them, I have to actually click on the actual required tab.

OK not a biggie, but it still interrupts the flow.




On the Kronos touch screen I touch the EGs, third down on the right hand column and I'm taken straight to the "EG8" tab, or I touch the bottom right EGs and I'm taken straight to the "Amp EG" tab

But as everything except the tabs along the bottom do nothing on the actual main editor screen, to get to the "EG8" tab, first I have to click on the "EXi 2" tab, which you would think it would take you to the last screen it was on, after restarting the editor, it defaulted to "Patch Panel"






Then I have to click on the EG tab







Then I have to click on the Eg7/EG8 tab to finally take me to





So to get to EG8 on the actual Kronos, it's one touch of the screen, to do so on the editor, I have to do the above extra steps.

To get to the Amp EG tab, similar thing, first click on "Exi 2" tab, then click on "Amp & Mixer" tab, then click on "Amp" and I'm finally there rather than the one press on the actual Kronos.

That one thing makes it a pain to use. It might only be a few extra clicks but it adds to the workflow rather than helping it. If Soundquest could link the main screen items to the extra pages, the editor could actually be useful to me.

Similar, say I want to play with the patch panel, on the Kronos I touch the patch panel on the main page and I'm there.

On the editor, it's weird. When I first started it up and clicked on the EX2 tab, it defaulted to the patch panel tab. But the last tab I had open was the AMP tab, so logically it should open up on the AMP tab again.

I've just tried this twice, I've just gone to the AMP tab as I described earlier, clicked on Play to take me back to the main page, clicked on "EXi 2" tab, and for some reason the default tab this time is the Filter tab.

So I have to click on the Patch Panel tab to get me to where I want to be, still more steps than doing it directly on the Kronos screen.

This one thing is such a huge pain and if they simply could link the pics on the main page, I think it might be useful to people (well those that aren't concerned about DAW use).

For example, ignoring the extra step that's a pain to get to the actual drawbars page if I select UC36 Lots O Drawbars SW1, once I'm at the drawbar page in the editor, its actually easier to play around with individual drawbars with the mouse than it is to do on the touchscreen with the sliders. I can go onto EXi2 Split/Drawbars and have both the Upper drawbars and Upper EX Drawbars on the same screen and can simply move any of them around as I wish with the mouse while playing a note and listening to the changes. Its two separate. tabs on the Touch screen

So it does have potential.

This is just my brief observations on a short period of use. Maybe there's more that needs addressing, but until this one basic main page thing is addressed, it makes using the editor harder and it simply shouldn't be that way.

Best

Joe

[Corgy]

I only checked out the stand-alone editor and had stability issues on my notebook (i7 processor, Win 7-64). It just crashed after some minutes and I had only switched between the tabs. It took me also a minute to realize, that handy functions of the touch-display had not been implemented like the selection of the synths in the two slots just by pointing to their images on the screen. At least I clicked around with my mouse and nothing happened. Why?

The positive side is, that you can operate the buttons and the sliders with the mouse, which makes for faster access and change. The not so positive side is, it's just the on-board editor, which IMO is a compromise, or better, has to be a compromise between usability and the size of the screen.

The editor is somehow organized like a phone book - complete in a logical order but not supporting my workflow. There is too much switching between the tabs to do tasks I am used to do on larger screens without changing the content of the display. An external editor could make use of the available display area and also provide for some kind of modulation matrix or modulation list, showing at a glance, which modulator is effecting what parameter. For me it seems that all the modulation functions are distribution around all the tabs and you have to know where to search if you want quickly to change the one or the other modulation.

[Shakil]

For me it seems that all the modulation functions are distribution around all the tabs and you have to know where to search if you want quickly to change the one or the other modulation.

That's because, unlike other synths, KRONOS modulation source/destinations are TOO many combinations. There is no single modulation matrix page, like on some synths, like 4 sources into 4 desitnations. On KRONOS almost everything can be modulation by almost anything.

I think the Editor is doing a great job in keeping all these parameters organized. Don't compare it to the single page editors of software VSTis. There are just too many parameters.

[SeedyLee]

The DAW manufacturers licence a piece of software from a 3rd party company that allows their software to load and use 32-bit plug-ins. This licensed software has a bug in it where it crashes when any plug-in tries to store more than 1MB of data.

So why not just write a 64bit plugin?

Exactly. In my opinion, using a third-party bridge to compensate for the lack of a native 64-bit VST, then explaining that this time-saving "cludge" is the reason a 64-bit version doesn't exist is a poor excuse.

It's akin to making an excuse that a Windows 7 version of a piece of software doesn't exist is because the Windows 3.1 emulator they use isn't up to the task.

I am not blaming SoundQuest for this however. Korg must have known the limitations of SoundQuest's product when choosing to use them as a vendor.

Personally, I have an awesome full-screen dual-monitor touch screen setup for editing sounds on my KRONOS: on the one monitor I have my DAW, on the other monitor I can edit parameters just by touching them on screen. It works great with a 64-bit environment as well.

That second monitor is the KRONOS' touch screen.