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Hey Kronos-ers!

I'm a multi-instrumentalist songwriter who hasn't owned/touched a set of keys since I owned a Korg DW6000 brandy new outta the box. I'm thinking of adding a workstation that's also easy to use in a live playing setting to my musical toy box. I'm looking/looked at/listened to Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOXs, and a few other of the main name brands in that category. My eye is currently on the Kronos. I've watched some videos on line, played around on a Kronos for about an hour in a store, read the quick start guide, scanned the sounds pdf, and am about to dig into the operating guide. I'd appreciate any input on the following questions from Kronos owners:

1. Your favorite thing/characteristic/sound, etc about the Kronos

2. Ease of breaking the learning curve on getting around on the board, tweaking sounds, and writing songs

3. Your biggest dislike on the board (or anything you find frustrating/have had trouble with.

4. What do you think are the strongest sounds/patches in the Kronos? Which are the weakest?

flemmings27 wrote:Hey Kronos-ers!

I'm a multi-instrumentalist songwriter who hasn't owned/touched a set of keys since I owned a Korg DW6000 brandy new outta the box. I'm thinking of adding a workstation that's also easy to use in a live playing setting to my musical toy box. I'm looking/looked at/listened to Kurzweil PC3, Yamaha MOXs, and a few other of the main name brands in that category. My eye is currently on the Kronos. I've watched some videos on line, played around on a Kronos for about an hour in a store, read the quick start guide, scanned the sounds pdf, and am about to dig into the operating guide. I'd appreciate any input on the following questions from Kronos owners:

1. Your favorite thing/characteristic/sound, etc about the Kronos

2. Ease of breaking the learning curve on getting around on the board, tweaking sounds, and writing songs

3. Your biggest dislike on the board (or anything you find frustrating/have had trouble with.

4. What do you think are the strongest sounds/patches in the Kronos? Which are the weakest?

Hi Flemmings,

All great questions!

1. My favorite characteristic about Kronos as to be the sheer power. Nine synthesis that can be combined in virtually unlimited ways. This kind of power was only available before largely on OASYS, Fairlight, and Synclavier.

2. The board itself has a nice amount of real time controls. In fact a user here posted how he did assignments on the real time control surface such that he could control in real time most of the parameters he needed. If I am not mistaken, he did this to work with the AL-1 engine. The menu system is jammed packed with pages and pages as you would expect from an instrument with this kind of power. The learning curve for the engines themselves will depend on your experience with programming synths - if you plan on doing programming that is. Al-1, STR-1, are a bit tough (but there IS a free graphic editor available for the AL-1 engine written by a member here!). MOD-7 has great step by step tutorials in the operating manual. PolySix is the easiest to program followed by MS-20. HD-1 is the powerful ROMpler engine and is capable of insane possibilities.
3. Sequencing for me at least has been a bit weird. I have gotten so usd to Roland's very intuitive sequencer - and Kurzweil too for that matter - that I rarely use the Kronos sequencer but I WILL learn it!

4. Kronos is loaded with a mammoth soundset so favorites are hard. Acoustic pianos are absolutely top notch. The German Grand is a Steinway Concert Grand. I am not a huge fan of EPs but I like what I hear. CX-3 organs are on par with Kurzweil's KB-3. Pads are beautiful on this instrument. Acoustic guitars are the big controversy for many. I like the acoustics and have downloaded some free acoustics from here that I use a LOT. The electric guitars are ok for songrwriting.

For LIVE work, the SETLIST feature is a godsend. You can change sounds on the fly on the touch screen and Kronos has smooth sound transition so you don't get that sudden cut off when switching from one patch to another during a song - even the effects of the first patch are preserved.

Some have complained about the small fonts on the menus in the interface an some have voiced a dislike for the very small tick boxes found also in the touch screen UI. The best advice I can give you is to actually play a Kronos and work with the UI and see how it fits you as far as vision and touch are concerned.

Now all of that said, there are GREAT patches available for free right here on the site. Qui Robinez is a veritable wizard when it comes to creating simply outstanding patches for Kronos. Kevin Nolan, Kid Nepro, and Basari Studios are equally amazing. In fact I hope to purchase Basari Studios Distorzia electric guitar sounset. THOSE guitars have that real heavy crunch I need for rock! I also want to mention Sharp's Kronos Assault offered now by Korg. If you you Celtic music, ambient, or need some very unique sounds, Kronos Assault is stellar.

All in all, in my estimation at least, there is simply no hardware workstation in existence that can touch the Kronos in terms of capabilities.

Best to you on whatever decision you make!

Vlad

1. Your favorite thing/characteristic/sound, etc about the Kronos
- The possibility to import all kinds of samples you like into the Kronos and use them as if they are original presets.
- The programming possibilities for live use in terms of layers, splits, etc. are among the finest I have worked with. I could sell al my other boards because I have it all in the Kronos.


2. Ease of breaking the learning curve on getting around on the board, tweaking sounds, and writing songs
It's easy enough to get started, but then you probably only use a few % of the potential of the Kronos. Especially so because the Kronos has 9 engines, in fact you have 9 synths in one board, and each has its own architecture.


3. Your biggest dislike on the board (or anything you find frustrating/have had trouble with.
The memory structure is quite hard to understand, especially when you want to load programs/combi's at the same time. Also, I find loading and saving samples still very unlogical.

4. What do you think are the strongest sounds/patches in the Kronos? Which are the weakest?
- I like the AL1 synth sounds, I had a Moog Voyager but sold it because I got so very close with the AL1 to my original Moog leads.
- I still want to discover the Polisix and M20's, these preset also sound very "real" to me.
- I like the hammond clone Cx3 quite well.
- The piano's are generally OK. I like that they are not looped (piano's in many workstations fall "dead" after a second or so)-
- I still can't believe the poor quality of the on on board Electric Grand (CP80). But I solved that by using a sampled alternative.

My favorite things are:
Sounds... Acoustic Guitars, both Nylon, and Steel String. The Pianos are flipping incredible, and I know there are even better ones you can purchase. The E. Pianos are extremely expressive, and in my opinion, it cover ALL of the bases for Synh sounds. Of course it goes without saying that the Poly Six is spot on.
The sounds that I feel are lacking are the E. Guitars, Brass, and Saxes. I know the Distorzia program nails the crunch stuff, but still looking for some Gritty Strats. What encourages me is that the technology is there to actually do them!

Three things that were for me the MOST disappointing was the Sequencer, the Action, and the Fragile nature of the board itself.

Sequencer: It seriously lacks editing capabilities. I seem to always have trouble with tempo changes, and time signature. I have Ben sequencing since 1988, and have used the Korg M-1, Roland MC-50, Yamaha Motif and finally the Roland Fantom G. The Fantom beats the Kronos hands down, so I am using my Fantom for the sequencer, and the Kronos sounds.

Action: I am pretty light handed which really makes it hard to get a velocity of 127. I REALLY have to hit it hard regardless of the sensitivity settings. At first I thought it was me, but after midi-ing it up to my Fantom, velocities of 127 are easily obtainable. In fact, the Kronos sounds so much better as a module because those high velocities sound so good.

Fragility: I feel this keyboard is not as rugged as former synths I have had. I recently had a disaster when the Kronos slipped to the side of my 2 wheeler, and even though it was safe and secure in its case, the keybed was destroyed. That accident cost me $350.00 and more than a month without it.

All of that being said, I would buy this keyboard again, and I highly recommend it. The few negative points are completely outweighed by the benefits of having it.

I hope this helps you. I also want to say that my FAVORITE perk about the Kronos is this FORUM! These guys are a 'Godsend', and I would have been lost without them. They have also been a refuge of comfort while my baby has been in the shop! I read it everyday, and believe me, you will NEVER quit learning cool things about the monster!

Many Blessings,
Dan

1. Your favorite thing: the MOD7 engine with DX sysex compatibility. No one else is doing that, and there are so many free FM sounds online that can be enhanced by the additional parameters and effects in the Kronos. Also worth considering is that the CX-3, EP-1 and PolySix have embedded effects that don't use up the main 16 effects slots. Kurzweils use 8/16 DSP effect blocks for regular Leslie, 15/16 for Dual Leslie!

2. Ease of learning curve. Well if you come from a DW-6000 it is a whole new universe. If you look for presets by category and set up Set Lists for yourself, it can be pretty basic for starters. Tweaking sounds is a beehive of parameters, less so with the piano and EP engines.

3. Dislikes: loading new Combis+Programs from a .pcg file is a hassle because they are stored as specific bank locations. If you load the Programs in a different bank, the Combi's Program references will be wrong. You have to rectify this in the editor or with PCG Tools.

4. strongest sounds/patches: Obviously pianos, jazz and rock drums, CX3. Weakest: electric guitars, not a fan of the EP-1 Wurlys, vibes

My favorite thing about the Kronos is it's power I have had it for 9 months now and it is still blowing my doors off.
I enjoy the piano sounds, the synth sounds are great and also like the organ sounds.

The ease of learning the Kronos depends on your background, I myself am just a keyboard playing weekend warrior that loves to play and I am learning the ins & outs of the Kronos, DAW and trying to better myself and much as I can. The machine is very deep but I like that because I will continue to learn as I go for quite some time. It also helps to have great people on this forum who do everything in their power to help everyone who has a question. A major plus!

My biggest issue with the Kronos is the sequencer, I never got used to it and went out & purchased Logic 9 instead.

I like the Piano, Synth sounds mostly but it is hard to say because from week to week I discover or tweak something else and come to like those sounds as well.

I hope I helped you in some way. I hope you find what your looking for whatever workstation you buy.

1. The flexibility and power of the board (The USB saved my gigging carreer for this year), the disk streaming and ability to make your own libraries.
2. It depends where you're coming from. If you really want to dig in, it an be a lot of (rewarding) work.
3.The awful distortion algorithms (with exception of the Electric Piano model). It's near impossible to get a great "rock B3" sound without a $500 ventilator pedal. That you can't make your own Basic GEs for Karma without buying the full software, There's only one pedal input instead of two (even a TRS that could be split would have been nice), the sequencer is woefully out of date, the HORRIBLE joke of an editor, and while not an "issue" I still wish I had more program banks because there's so much you can do soundwise. THE KNOBS SUCK. Really hard to grab live. I replaced all of mine.
4.Strongest sounds: Synth and Piano/EPs. Weakest: Awful guitars, especially electric (though this can be remedied with a library). Inability to get a good sounding overdriven/distorted organ.

With the exceptions of libraries and sounds by 3rd parties becoming available, make sure you like the rest of the functionality AS IS. My gut feeling is there will NOT be another update like 2.0.

I'm hoping for more responses to this question, but I wanted to say thanks very much to every one who has kindly responded to my query already--and so quickly (Vlad, Iaandodeman, FirstLovedan, Xp50player, and NuSkooltone). A couple of you mentioned how outstanding this forum is, and these responses, plus the other threads I've seen make this board one of the friendliest and most helpful music forums I've seen.

VLAD - thanks for the great feedback, especially the tips on the available patches and those who make them. Your line about it being the best work station out there pushes me more toward a decision to get this over others I'm looking at. IAANDODEMAN made an even stronger comment--that he could get rid of his other boards. Those are important for me to consider b/c I really am trying to buy one horse to do many things.

VLAD and NUSSKOOL, your comments about the functionality of the board are well taken. In the hour I got to play with the board, I found the small fonts to be frustrating to actually click on, especially since I'm a bass player and have calluses on the tips of all my fingers. Finally, I figured that I can lean up so my nail does activate whatever you're trying to access, but I wondered about that small font in terms of a live setting. I also wonder whether a stylus, like those used on an Ipad or E-Reader would be helpful? As for grabbing the knobs - what kinds of knobs did you replace yours with NUSKOOL?

FIRSTLOVEDAN - sorry to hear about your board--that's pretty amazing (or sad rather) that your board was damaged even though you had it in a small case. Hope all is and stays well with that.

XP50Player - yeah, and it's been a L O N G time since I had that DW6000, and keyboards are massively different now. So long that I have to ask, what does FM mean with regard to keyboards?

Someone here mentioned they had problems with the sequencing and bought Logic instead. Logic is what I use for my computer recording, and I know there's a lot of stuff in there, and if I buy the Kronos, I will sort of have two beasts that can do similar things, but sometimes, using Logic can be time consuming, and it seems that just being able to sit down with a keyboard that has lots of already great sounds plugged into it--at the tip of your fingers--that that might be better, or at least another avenue for creating. Are you using the Kronos as your midi board to control the sounds in Logic? How does that work/sound?

In the meantime, I'm still reading through the manual and will probably have a few other questions when I get all the way through it. Before I spend this much money, I'm going to read all the way through it and hopefully, get some more play time on an actual Kronos, but right now, the store that has one is not very near to me.

[quote="flemmings27"]I'm hoping for more responses to this question, but I wanted to say thanks very much to every one who has kindly responded to my query already--and so quickly (Vlad, Iaandodeman, FirstLovedan, Xp50player, and NuSkooltone).

Nice I complete the essay question and the don't get extra credit what a load of shite.....

Can I change my response to go buy a Casio?

Not a problem at all just being a wise guy. It is all good.

"Some days your the dog and some days your the hydrant"

I was so busy being an idiot I did not read your response beyond your apology.

The Casio thing was just me being a dope. I do use my Kronos as my midi controller for midi, some say what an expensive controller.......but I am mostly recording with the Kronos as audio mostly. I really like the synth's piano's and effects.

My best advice for you is to do what I did, initially I was hell bent on buying the Yamaha Motif. And one day after a few weekends of going back & forth to Guitar Center the sales associate said to me "have you checked out the Kronos? it is a beast" So for the next three weekends I brought my headphones to GC and Played the Kronos, the Kurzweil and the all the higher end boards and I really dug the Kronos.

Whatever you choose has to fit you, especially with the cost of these boards. 18 month financing is the way I bought my Kronos, my Mac and the next big purchase I make I will ask if it can be done using 18 month financing.
I hope I do well on this essay......
Best of Luck.

" XP50Player - yeah, and it's been a L O N G time since I had that DW6000, and keyboards are massively different now. So long that I have to ask, what does FM mean with regard to keyboards? "

FM=Frequency Modulation, Yamaha DX7 series, hence the Kronos engine MOD7. FM was invented, when samplers were mega expensive, to make complex sounds from simple waveforms like sine, though it need not be only simple waveforms. MOD7 can also use samples in FM synthesis like Yamaha SY99 and SY77. You can load patch banks or individual sounds from any DX7 compatible sysex file.

As for the sequencer, I don't think are too many advantages to using the Kronos sequencer unless you need it live, as a hotel room sketchpad or don't own a computer. Even though an 8" display is considered generous on a synth these days, a 24" PC monitor is much preferred IMHO. If it had the OASYS' larger & tilting screen, maybe...

Diego5150 wrote:I was so busy being an idiot I did not read your response beyond your apology.

The Casio thing was just me being a dope. I do use my Kronos as my midi controller for midi, some say what an expensive controller.......but I am mostly recording with the Kronos as audio mostly. I really like the synth's piano's and effects.

" So for the next three weekends I brought my headphones to GC and Played the Kronos, the Kurzweil and the all the higher end boards and I really dug the Kronos.

Whatever you choose has to fit you,

I hope I do well on this essay......
Best of Luck.

A++ Diego . No worries on the casio 5150--I thought you were wise-cracking and razzing me a bit. Good point about the fit. I've had one play on the Kronos, and have been reading the user guide. Unfortunately, there aren't any musical stores close to me that stock the Kronos (not even my local GC, which is weird), but I'll probably go again to the one that has it and do a marathon play on it. That store has it a lot cheaper than some others, so that's the added attraction of the drive there. Did you happen to play the Kurzweil PC3LE? If so, what did you think of the sounds in it. On youtube, that one sounds great, but I don't think you can do much editing to those sounds.

XP50player, thanks for the explanation and extra info. There's starting to be so many acronyms and abbreviations for musical instruments/sounds, etc that there needs to be a book just to define them all!