Korg Forums

burningbusch · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:51 am Post subject:

I will say this, whenever I've been privy to top companies' long term plans under strict non-disclosure, I've been amazed at their long term planning. They can tell you what will be in ver. 1.0, 2.0 and beyond. These are with 18-24 month development cycles. This is not in the MI space but rather software/computers. Japanese companies, in particular, have long been known for their strategic planning and vision.

Fron a Sound on Sound Article
"Back in June 1995, Korg asked me whether I would be willing to exhibit some vintage keyboards at an event they were planning to hold in the Science Museum in Kensington, London. They wanted to demonstrate the progress they had made since their earliest days, so I took a Minikorg 700, a Trident, a Polysix, and a PS3200, and sat back to enjoy whatever it was that the company had lined up for the evening. Soon, I wasn't leaning back, but leaning forward, intent on gleaning everything that I could from the presentation. The event was, of course, the dual launch of the Trinity and Prophecy, and it was riveting.

But dramatic though the launches were, the presenter, Korg's Steve McNally, kept referring to two mythical products that appeared simultaneously to predate and supersede the Trinity and the Prophecy. Both had been developed at Korg R&D in California. The first, called Synth Kit, was a software environment within which the physical models in the Prophecy had been developed. Based on a Mac computer with additional DSP hardware, it was perhaps the first system capable of crunching the numbers needed to perform physical modelling in real-time.

The other was a keyboard designed using Synth Kit, intended for thee and me, and which was mooted to cost £10,000. This huge sum of money was justified by the instrument's ability to run several synthesis engines simultaneously. There was even an example of it on show. It was big, it was blue, it was called OASYS, (the Open Architecture SYnthesis System) and it looked the business. But we couldn't touch it, we couldn't play it, and we most certainly couldn't hear it.

The OASYS concept was an appealing one and, in 1995, quite radical. To quote Mr McNally, whom I subsequently interviewed, "OASYS is basically a computer, rather than a hard-wired keyboard synthesizer. If you want to change how it works you can load a completely different synthesis system from a hard drive. It's multitimbral as well as polyphonic, and can also be multitimbral in the sense that different types of synthesis can be positioned under different areas of the keyboard. For example, you can have a single patch which, when you play softly at the top of the keyboard, gives you an FM sound layered with an analogue sound, but gives you a physical model of a saxophone when you play a little bit harder, and a PCM sample of a pipe organ when you bring in the ribbon controller... It's all completely controllable."

Umm... no, it wasn't. The 'Blue Bomber' (as it was later called within Korg) never appeared. The reason was that it didn't work. Apart from a few limited demos, it had never worked, and it was never going to work. The technology available in 1995 simply wasn't up to the task."

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The results of Korg's long term vision are obvious in the OASYS/Kronos. All I can tell from Yamaha is that they like to trickle-down from the Tyros. Roland I have no idea.

Busch.

burningbusch · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:59 am Post subject:

burningbusch · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:56 am Post subject:

Also, the Nord Electro is arguably the most successful keyboard in the last ten years. It was introduced in 2001. Roland made a half-hearted attempt to compete against it with the V-Combos. Korg brought out the SV-1 in Sept 2009. Yamaha has never produced a direct competitor. Obviously there was a big market for a keyboard like the Electro but the big 3 seemed OK with Nord owning, for the most part.

My point is, just because one company comes out with a very successful product (e.g. Electro), or in the case of the Kronos, a potentially successful product, it doesn't follow that everyone else is going to immediately change direction and come out with something similar.

Busch.

Kevin Nolan · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 3:54 am Post subject:

kandarv · Joined: 15 Oct 2010 Posts: 35

danatkorg · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:12 am Post subject:

In general, I agree with many of burningbusch's points. In MI, most things take a while to come to market. I wanted to address this one point, however:

SpIdErWeB · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:55 am Post subject:

Busch, you're giving the long term vision... Not development.

For instance, Kronos is using Atom CPU/mobo... This wasn't existing 15 years ago, even not 5 years ago when the Oasys has been released. Korg has been able to use new components such Atom, SSD, etc... because the technology became available and they surely adjust the product to those choices.

It clearly doesn't change the philosophy or vision of the future which is closely the same between the Oasys and the Kronos, but improvements and adjustements allow to have dual core CPU and then keeping the same amount of polyphony even with 12 heavy FX.

I'm sure Korg had already in options to use micro-ITX board at the time of Oasys, but they went with the P4 because it was the best choice at this time.
The same way, in early-stage of the Kronos they had a version without the SSD if it wasn't financially possible... The same way they probably wanted to do something else and couldn't and it will only appear in the future products if it will become possible to do so.

Roland isn't different. Will they radically change their vision and philosophy overnight? Of course not! But they can clearly look better to a second possibility/choice in their development if they believe it could help to bring a better product to fit to the current market.

Otherwise, it will only say they don't care at all about customers feedback and they just execute their big 10-20 years plan...

Phil

Kevin Nolan · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:59 am Post subject:

ozy · Guest

ix studio · Joined: 27 Feb 2009 Posts: 41

ozy · Guest

SpIdErWeB · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:49 pm Post subject:

rkuli · Joined: 08 Feb 2011 Posts: 41

SpIdErWeB · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2011 4:26 pm Post subject:

Hi rkuli,

My comment wasn't mean to start a new thread, but it could be now (if a modo wants to split my long post to create a thread, please do it Smile

)

There's ton of things that could be done with the Kronos. Korg could even released an USB-Wifi kit in option, to plug it to the Kronos and go directly to the Store from the keyboard interface.

Or, include the store access in the Editor. The same way I can buy music or app directly from itunes on my computer or on my iPhone.

The Apple 30% eco-system generates great profit for both Apple and developers. Since there's no box, no distribution, no physical support, no payment commission, etc... it's actually a good deal for the developers. And Apple is still making 30% by doing nothing (well, almost nothing, because they still take care of the hosting, bandwidth, payment system, etc...)

Korg could stay focus to develop the hardware platform, the OS and the SDK (with the API required to create expansions). For instance, KARO would be a great candidate to release their sample libraries as native expansions for the kOS devices (Oasys/Kronos).

That way, they could enjoy the benefit of SSD and VMT for the Streaming for instance, and Korg will be assured the Libraries will be conformed to their expectations to be sure it will work the way it's designed to work.

That's not something you will ever get with VST, even on a Linux platform. That's why, I think Korg is the only manufacture (TODAY) that could be doing that, and it could be a great success. Well, at least I do believe it Smile

Phil

kandarv · Joined: 15 Oct 2010 Posts: 35