Korg Forums

[Stephen Butler]

Korg KRONOS:

Without a doubt the greatest synth/workstation that's ever been produced, by anyone.

Korg NAUTILUS:

Complete and utter rip-off. It shows that Korg is slowly duping the public into taking less for more. Sure, the piano sounds great - they always do on YouTube videos; the piano is one of the best things about Korg workstations. But £2,500 for the 88-note? Come on... it sounds to me like Korg have not moved on from the Kronos at all and instead of making the tech better, they're simply going to change the covering, give it a CURVED aluminium base, and call those design features! You can push in the EQ knobs! But they appear to have halved the number of combis (although increased the number of programs), removed KARMA, changed the display to something that looks like HTML with pictures, and charged the earth for it! They say they are going to keep manufacturing the Kronos but for how long? How long before the NAUTILUS becomes the flagship, or they put out another keyboard that can't do as much as the Kronos did?

I'm so sorry for the rant, but it's raining hard here, and it looks miserable outside. And my Kronos' battery has gone. x
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Stephen Butler

www.vipersquadron.com
www.stephen-butler.com

[voip]

And, for what it's worth, I actually like the Kronos screen, just as it is, and the Nautilus' screen somewhat less so, especially the Combi main screen, which is just naff!

.

[GregC]

[Musicwithharry]

[conundrum]

$1700CAD/$1300USD plus tax is a *huge* difference to make up for the loss of features. The Nautilus makes sense in Canada, if no where else.

With duties and shipping, the used market doesn’t make up for that either.
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M50-61, KLC, Korg iApps;
Roland A33, Mac mini

[burningbusch]

Those who are posting that the Nautilus is just a Kronos in a less expensive package are missing major differences in the included samples.

EXs301 Gernan2 D Grand
EXs302 Italian F Piano
EXs303 Japanese Upright U Piano
EXs304 Prepared Piano
EXs305 Historical Keyboards
EXs306 Vintage Keyboards 2
EXs307 Strings and Synths
EXs308 Guitar Collection
EXs309 Bass Collection
EXs310 World Essence
EXs311 SFX & Hits
EXs312 Found Percussions

Note: none of these libraries exist on a Kronos with the exception of the Italian Grand which was included in a limited-edition (red) Kronos.

These include, among other things.
New pianos and finally an upright
Prepared pianos
FortePiano (historical)
Harpsichord (finally stereo)
6-vel layer E. Grand
4-vel layer Clav all four pickups with rel
Full sampling of the Vox and Farfisa combo organs
New guitars and basses including a 4-vel stereo nylon string guitar
New strings and brass
Many new drumsets
Many new loops and phrases
1500 new arps

How good these sound vs. the Kronos we won't know until we get a chance to work with them. But at the very least, we have to acknowledge Korg spent a good deal of time curating many new samples. Most manufactures keep 90% - 95% of their old samples with a new keyboard release. I don't know the exact percentage here, but it feels like easily 50%+.

Also note, with the exception of the pianos and two drumkits on the original Kronos, the other samples were largely from the OASYS library and optimized for the OASYS HD-1 engine which did not support the SSD streaming of samples. Hence the samples were designed to fit into the RAM constraints of the OASYS. It appears that the new Nautilus samples are not designed with that constraint.

Busch.
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Kronos 73, Nautilus 61, Vox Continental 73, Monologue, Yamaha Montage 8, Rhodes Suitcase, Yamaha VL-1, Roland V-Synth, Yamaha AvantGrand, Minimoog Model D, Studio Electronics Omega 8, CSS, Spitfire, VSL, LASS, Sample Modeling, Ivory, Komplete 12, Spectrasonics, Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.
http://www.purgatorycreek.com

[leonh]

If I want flagship workstation I still prefer Kronos for 250£ more why I or anyone would for the sake of small saving get a poorer version of Kronos ( with the same internals it seems ) is beyond me that is unless the stop production of Kronos and then we have no choice.

[Musicwithharry]

[Koekepan]

It's really about value for money.

OK, so the Nautilus has some new samples.

Let's even stipulate that they may be nice samples.

It has an updated interface on ... an outdated, limited touchscreen interface.

It has a less featureful control interface, in ways that actually limit the usability of some of the key sounds. (Just ask the drawbar organ guys.) Removing Karma is also a problem for its value in performance polish.

Its weakened interface selections also make it less useful for mixing, mastering and related production roles.

If you're looking for a gigging keyboard with more bread-and-butter sounds and the ability to record a gig including a singer, the Nautilus should be OK for what you want - but so would another couple of boards out there, for very competitive prices. If you're looking for a studio hub with everything that a workstation should do for you? You'll get more of what you want, for less money, from other manufacturers.

That's the problem.

[GregC]

to me, its all about that great Korg sound.

IMO, its progressed from great to greater.

As far as controls, its not subtraction, its a matter of training finger muscle memory. Some don't like that , as it can be a slow process to train finger memory.

Pro's and con's.
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Kronos 88. MODX8
Achieve your musical dreams
https://soundcloud.com/user-898236994

[leonh]

[jimknopf]

[SeedyLee]

[GregC]

[SeedyLee]

They’re not really software changes, more a change to the bundled content...

If you buy a synthesiser for the included presets, you’re doing it wrong :p
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Current Equipment:
Korg Kronos 2 88, Reface CS, Roland JV-1080, TE OP1, Moog Subsequent 37, Korg ARP Odyssey, Allen & Heath Zed 18, Adam F5, MOTU MIDI Express XT, Lexicon MX200 & MPX1, Yamaha QY700, Yamaha AW16G, Tascam DP008ex, Zoom H6, Organelle, Roland J6 & JU06A

Previous: Triton LE 61/Sampling/64MB/4GB SCSI, MS2000BR, Kronos 1 61, Monotribe, NanoKontrol, NanoKeys, Kaossilator II, Casio HT3000, Roland VP-03, Reface DX, Novation Mininova, MPC One