Sincere and honest request of Korg

[DennyC]

Honestly, it would not bother me in the least if Korg decided to extend the credit to the option of either purchasing a Kronos or getting the new sounds. I was just having fun...I do know this is a sore point to quite a few.

However, in reality, I don't think they will make the credit options more expansive. All one can say is that these two boards work really well together.

[chansensturm]

Well, I think the complaining O users should all feel a little guilty about Korg's latest offering.

Imagine a company is giving 'something' to past customers, already now 6 years old product.
I think Korg probably feel a little pressured about this and I think we should stop pestering them for more "free things".

Respectfully have to disagree.

[whole lotta blah blah blah]

Dear chansensturm,
You have a right to disagree and thanks for doing so, then one can learn something new, from someones else opinion (but in this case not).
Thanks for your time taken to express your thoughts .......but you're completely wrong (afraid to point that out)

Let's not turn this into a dialog between you and me. This is about the Oasys and Kronos

Linux kernel e.t.c its NEVER as easy as it looks like from the outside. Its easy for a user to point out for example SSD til HD e.t.c. but takes a whole lot more to get it to work.

Well this is how I earn my living - I develope realtime/os software - so this isn't just a random, strong opinion "from the outside".

With Kronos, Korg introduced a new mobo with a new x86 processor. The CPU processor family has not changed (e.g., this is still a 32 bit x86 instruction set). External IO devices have changed, and these IO devices are abstracted from the core operating system by a layered, interface which sits above the drivers for any particular IO device.

For instance, you correctly point out, that there are new drivers for SSD and the LCD encoder hardware; however, usually, these drivers are supplied by a 3rd party OEM hardware vendor, or, they are generic enough to be supported by the general open source community. Either way, Korg didn't have to develop a block-mode SSD driver. The Oasys runtime (where the synthesizer engine lives), when writing or reading files, would make use of much higher level filesystem interfaces than those exposed by the low level SSD driver. All modern OS software is layered in this way, so accessing files whether they are on an HD or SSD, is completely transparent to the level of code that Korg is writing. Nothing would need to be rewritten to take, say, Kronos code which writes to an SSD and make it available to us, with our pokey HD's.

I too would like to pay for an "upgrade" but I dont think its possible.

It is. Keep in mind that Korg didn't just "throw away" their core engine (kernel extension) to implement Kronos. This represents decades of IP investment on their part. No, Kronos is mostly an upward extension which contains both new support for new IO devices, and extensions to the core engine itself (such as streaming). This means, at the core of Kronos, lies the same Oasys. It is at the edges of the software stack - the drivers - where the core engine is insulated the most. This is why the core engine doesn't need to change (much) if one wanted to port it back.

This is rather obvious, I know. But this is precisely why it is relatively easy to provide at least *some* of core software features added to Kronos to us. For instance, they could easily provide us the electric piano engine (at one extreme), or, a simple way of loading (and translating) Kronos patches on the Oasys (at the other extreme). This is generic software that doesn't touch any hardware, hence, it has to be tested and debugged, but generally not rewritten.

All of this is possible because, Korg is doing synthesizer DSP on an x86 CPU and not on special purpose DSP units or ASICs for synthesis.

Korg isn't Apple or Microsoft, they simply don't have the power to do these things as we'd want.

Yes, but I just think we were left "hanging in the dust", when there is a lot of "low hanging fruit" they could provide which will making life for us on Oasys easier. The top of my list is patch/combi conversion, or an editor/librarian. I mean, what vendor puts out a flagship workstation and not have an editor ? !!!

I'm sure you have your own list too.

It dosent mean that its "open" for 3rd parties to add stuff, or open in the sense that the platform allows for constant upgrades over an extended time.

Open is what we all want to project into it - that's the magic of Korg marketing But at the core of the Oasys and Kronos, is a generic PC platform with a generic open source linux kernel with additional proprietary (Korg) synth engine code.

If by your reasoning it all comes down to "beans" i.e. money, then the math is even simpler, because had you paid just 1000USD for your Oasys, then you wouldn't have any gripes at all about the discontinuation of the product. But probably you sold ½ your soul to the devil to get it, therefore the discontinuation of the product feels emotionally more harsh.

Well put. But even with that additional emotional motivation, which I would never deny (and which I know many of us on this board feel) - technically, all of this is absolutely possible.

Your logic then turned to the "software" part of the problem. But software just simply isn't enough.

I agree you here too, but the idea of Korg providing motherboard upgrade kits seemed even more remote to me (though I did suggest this to Korg 2-3 years ago when they sent all of us a "what should we implement next survey"). Still, a lot can be done, at the software level - but - yes - not everything.

No, dear sir, the BEST thing to do, would be in actual fact, to get an upgrade-kit in the form of:
new mainboard
new CPU + RAM
new SSD instead of HD
few other bits of s**t, like a converter board for the touchscreen.

OK, so you are going for the "gold standard" here.....this seems like, well, "the impossible dream" But absolutely, I'll drink that Koolaid .... count me in.

But to make this case to Korg, we would have to make sure that the remaining "shell" hardware (button/slider encoder boards, the LCD screen, audio AD/DA etc....) is compatible with the new HW core. My guess, with the possible exception of the LCD (which might also have to be replaced), we could make that work.

THAT would save, time, money, research, development e.t.c from Korg AND we could get a 'Kroasys' or whatever other Greek/Roman mythological God.

Korg could ask a 20% markup price for this fictitious upgrade-kit and ensure that they get their money, yet again, from Oasys users, AND Oasys users would be happy, except for the few that would complain it wasn't given for free.

There is a lot of logic to this approach. I certainly wouldn't mind about paying an overinflated price for it either.

This makes more sense, than to yet again, rewrite a whole bunch of code to make it backwards compatible for age old hardware

Again, from a software engineering point of view, updates can still be provided which don't require massive rewrites of code - it is more of a "cut and paste" - than a creative enterprise. The code that Korg writes (synthesizer OS + UI), lives at a much higher level in software stack, than the OS drivers (which insulate Korg's sythesizer code from the old, but still more than adequately powered, hardware).

Incidentally, the Kronos HD engine voice counts are slightly less than ours. The Atom CPU isn't exactly a performance demon - this is all about the software.

Finally, in the end, this depends, hypothetically of course, on what approach would be most acceptable to Korg. I can see the logic of both approaches here, but internal politics at Korg might sway such a decision in the direction of software or hardware. I don't know about you, but I think we should push them for both. I'll settle for either. And I'm willing to pay for it.

Thanks.

[cello]

Thanks for everyone's inputs, views and votes - as usual good/valid comments from all

Wonder if Korg might observe, reflect and react? Can but hope!