Korg Forums

[joemusik]

I am a sound person, real fussy , I am the Piano Technician for all the big shows in CT plus the Piano Tech for Yale.

Last night I was using the drum tracks in the Korg that I really like and enjoy and Playing the EP sounds from the Kurzweil itself sitting behind the Kurzweil. I know I could not ever part with either machine. The Ep sounds are great in the Korg too but the Kurzweil sound still moves me

All The best
Joe

[Hector Space]

At the beginning of 2019 I took the plunge and bought a Kronos 2 61. I’ve never owned a Korg anything before. I’m a musician running various live bands doing about 60 gigs a year.

My main board since 2014 has been a Kurzweil Forte. It’s been a real workhorse, it certainly does most things you’d need in a band well, but did take about six months of programming to get it to sing how I wanted.

After six months of programming the K2 I took it on the road last summer and have been using continuously since up until lockdown. So I suppose I can give you a very exact comparison.

Why did I buy the K2 61 when I’d already got a Kurzweil Forte? Several reasons
1. I wanted to reduce the size a weight of my rig.
2. Kurzweil’s KB3 is very weak.. much weaker than Korg’s CX3
3. I wanted better VA synths with easier editing.
4. I wanted a good piano action - the Fatar TP40L is strong and good for EP but it is a poor compromise for piano.

Using the K2 61 with a Casio Privia PX5s as a good piano action, lightweight controller gave me the firepower, weight and size I wanted.

Getting the Kronos to sound as good as the Kurzweil eps, brass a strings has been tough. Getting the CX3 to sound good was almost a deal breaker. But I got there in the end.

My view of VAST is that it’s very much a legacy system that is in need of a major update. Especially as far as the user interface is concerned and how the system manages object references. Most serious gigging musicians will want to use the Forte’s multi system (ie combi) but there is no librarian or proper system for managing the KDFX chains, Programs used.

The worst bit is the systems slow envelope attack times and modulation frequencies. Also because the design is built around 48k DSP there are aliasing problems. All inherited from the MARA chip used and now enshrined in the LENA FPGA used in the PC4.

And then there's KB3.. suffice it to say I bought a Neo Vent 2 to try and sort out the poor rotary simulation on the Kurzweil. It worked up to a point, but for gigging I still got a better organ sound out of my old Nord NE3.

The Kronos has solutions to most of these problems. There are many 3rd party libraries that solve its sound weaknesses. It has a passable built in vocoder and even the CX3 can sound OK with some work. And it doesn’t need the Neo Vent 2! But it is not so rugged, it has way too few user sound banks, it’s midi spec is dysfunctional, Karma is in need of a major usability overall and it’s system for managing add on EXs' is utterly pants.

On paper the Forte and Kronos have a similar number of voices. In practice the Forte seems to manage to do more with less. And when it does run out it does dynamic voice allocation much better than the Kronos. On the Forte voice stealing is almost unnoticeable. On the Kronos, even with priority set on the lead timbres in a combi and the global mode switched to live you can get very noticeable dropouts far too easily.

I’ve now sold the Forte.

[GregC]

Hey Hector, excellent analysis.

What you said about eps, brass and strings for Kurz is a big deal.

I think I solved strings/orchestra for my Kronos, thru 3rd party.

I don't gig, a home studio person, so my requirements aren't as deep.

I agree with your observations on Kronos. IMO, what we have is all we can expect.
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