Korg Grand Stage

[Koekepan]

God loves a trier! You just can't accept the workstation era is over, sure you can't?

Well, darn. If the workstation era is over I'd better get mine while I can! Saving my pennies and dimes for the MPC Live and X while they're still on the market ...

[wma]

God loves a trier! You just can't accept the workstation era is over, sure you can't?

Well, darn. If the workstation era is over I'd better get mine while I can! Saving my pennies and dimes for the MPC Live and X while they're still on the market ...

workstations might not be over yet, often when a company re-color a product they try to sell what was left of that model which can understand that korg is ending up all the keft kronos - the gold is very limited this time. After 2 & a half month comes mussikmesse and there's still hope that korg comes up with the successor within this year

however ...
i know that what differs a workstation over a synth is the sequencer; i wonder how really is it nessesary to be in the keyboard - i mean even if korg comes up whith a synth with karma and some stuff but no sequencer it should not be that big issue .. it's easier to edit and sequence with a daw but its not fun to perform with a daw as using a dedicated keyboard / performance synth .. i wouldn't care much when it's from korg if it's a synth or a workstation

[GregC]

God loves a trier! You just can't accept the workstation era is

however ...
i know that what differs a workstation over a synth is the sequencer; i wonder how really is it nessesary to be in the keyboard - i mean even if korg comes up whith a synth with karma and some stuff but no sequencer it should not be that big issue .. it's easier to edit and sequence with a daw but its not fun to perform with a daw as using a dedicated keyboard / performance synth .. i wouldn't care much when it's from korg if it's a synth or a workstation

Not really. At least from what I have read on the Kronos forum for +5 years.

Many owners gig the Kronos and rely on the Kronos sequencer for various songs during the gig. These folks typically don't like to drag a laptop to the gig if they can avoid it.

Plus there are numerous owners that like the SEQ ( myself included). we are comfortable with it and get the result we like

I doubt it would save much money to pull the SEQ out - the OS would have to be re-written to exclude it. Thats not a 5 minute recode.

finally, Korg would lose a bunch of potential new sales from existing Kronos owners if the workstation excluded a SEQ.

Why not remove the sampler , too ?

[Kevin Nolan]

As I've said over numerous posts - the Kronos is an OASYS with extra pianos and some very nice but superficial enhancements. Given the OASYS was released in early 2005, it means that Korg have not developed a new workstation paradigm in 12 to 13 years.

I'm very confident that we literally witnessed - in realtime - the "demise" of the workstation as a central and strategic part of Korg's future during the OASYS years. If you look over that forum - you'll see about 2-3 years of overwhelming joy among users, overwhelming enthusiasms from Korg including massive outreach including to many of us on the forum who became beta testers; staggering updates and then - nothing. A complete collapse of all of that sometime around 2009.

It was universally agreed that the OASYS sequencer was under spec'd - and as sure as Korg implemented an imporved sequencer in the M3 during the OASYS development cycle - they flatly refused to develop it for the OASYS, and that was THE moment that Korg abandoned their flagship workstation - and they have never returned.

The OASYS forum turned sour - people started complaining, got bitter about it and shortly there after Korg cancelled all development for the OASYS, shut down all communications lines, essentially removed Karma from it's strategic planning and ended OASYS - all within about a year.

We at the OASYS forum could see that, with more commercial developments happening in the M3 than even the OASYS, they had shut down shop. Sure in hind sight we can see that they had clearly shifted emphasis over to Kronos - but when Kronos came out it was a cheap and tacky chasis; a disaster of a Keybed, and literally not one development on the central OS or synth engines on OASYS. A few useful addons and that was it. It was a shadow of OASYS, developed on a shoe-string budget;and with not a single mention of OASYS in the promotion of Kronos - many heard that as fanfare trumpets alerting all that Korg not only had abandoned the workstation, they didn't even want to acknowledge their legacy in that arena.

That was about 6 years ago - and since then they have made cosmetic and minute incremental developments only.

Having worked in several software and engineering design companies I know how this works. It is clear that Korg made a strategic decision sometime around 2010 to get out of the workstation market as their central driver - what they made their fortune on from the M1. They could see the writing was on the wall for the workstation.

All that Kronos encompasses is a minute fraction of what would have been put into OASYS to develop it from the ground up - so you can be confident that right now, in Korg, there are only a very small number of people dedicated to Kronos. It's essentially in maintenance mode - sustaining work - with NO developmental work going on except what a small group can handle, with limited resources.

Don't get me wrong - Kronos is amazing, it is the pinnacle of workstations - and the developments are valuable, valid, worthwhile and contemporary - but - it's built on a 13 year old foundation that has barely changed in that time and where there is no current major development work, whatsoever, going on in Korg. If there is a new workstation of the significance of M1 or OASYS going on in Korg, it represents a seismic shift from where they have committed all their resources over the past decade or more.

Korg is now built on analogue synths, EDM and DJ modules and Apps.

Workstations will continue - but it will forevermore be niche, incremental, limited and predictable. I personally don't believe the survival of even such workstation development into the future is as stable as the home-arranger-keyboard market; so it would not surprise me to see the Kronos go int he next few years.

It's already morphing into their new pianos - the new workstation is the Nord Electro & Stage and the Roland RD2000; and any hope for workstations to feature in the future of keyboards is futile. Among the central pointers of that futility is - about 90% of the features of OASYS and Kronos are never used by Korons users, who have since day one of OASYS almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis and a host of other features - so it's a Goliath that is hugely under utilised. Why on Earth would Korg put more resources into adding to such a system if so much of the existing features remains dormant and gathering dust even among their core workstation owners?

[Bald Eagle]

There is to much emphasis on the word "workstation" these days. It was certainly relavent and well defined when PC's were expensive and DAW's were in their infancy. Having everything in one box was a breakthrough.

But now why does a "workstation" have to consist of a single box. The Montage with a cheap PC becomes a workstation. Why not offload some of the features to a more capable platform as long as it's tightly integrated. What if the OASYS had dual screens, one for the sequencer, one for everything else, pretty much the same thing.

Is the workstation dead or is it evolving?

[GregC]

A Among the central pointers of that futility is - about 90% of the features of OASYS and Kronos are never used by Korons users, who have since day one of OASYS almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis and a host of other features - so it's a Goliath that is hugely under utilised. Why on Earth would Korg put more resources into adding to such a system if so much of the existing features remains dormant and gathering dust even among their core workstation owners?

going to pick and choose since I prefer to not do long posts.

"almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis"

Karma is Stephen Kays gig. The fact that he went standalone many yrs ago should tell us something and Korg and 3rd party/partners.

Moving along, does it take excellent skill to have sophisticated programming of
STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis ?

Or is the door of development not open enough ? Is there no money to be made ? Do we need development tools to maximize STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis ?

I have no answers but are those good questions ?

[GregC]

There is to much emphasis on the word "workstation" these days. It was certainly relavent and well defined when PC's were expensive and DAW's were in their infancy. Having everything in one box was a breakthrough.

But now why does a "workstation" have to consist of a single box. The Montage with a cheap PC becomes a workstation. Why not offload some of the features to a more capable platform as long as it's tightly integrated. What if the OASYS had dual screens, one for the sequencer, one for everything else, pretty much the same thing.

Is the workstation dead or is it evolving?

each w/s has obvious strengths.

As we mostly know, each co had a W/s with obvious strengths and some weaknesses. The weaknesses could be augmented by adding your PC technology. Often the weaknesses of the W/s were due to costs or poor ROI of going ' all out '.

[Bald Eagle]

A Among the central pointers of that futility is - about 90% of the features of OASYS and Kronos are never used by Korons users, who have since day one of OASYS almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis and a host of other features - so it's a Goliath that is hugely under utilised. Why on Earth would Korg put more resources into adding to such a system if so much of the existing features remains dormant and gathering dust even among their core workstation owners?

I frequently use AL-1 and MS-20, they are very capable VA engines. If you know analog synths these are easy to use. I also use the CX-3 having grown up on Hammonds.

I use the SGX-2 and EP-1 presets as there isn't all that much to tweak.

MOD-7 is interesting but you really have to know FM synthesis to take full advantage.

I ignore the PolySix since it's somewhat boring to me and STR-1 is just an odd one.

Karma is a lot of fun and I have even made some of my own GE's although it's not for the faint of heart and I'm far from an expert. I find Vector synthesis is nice for evolving pads, nothing complicated there.

I do make use the sequencer. It's great for use as a quick performance recorder and to make quick fixes. RPPR is a nice feature to. But I prefer a PC based DAW when putting a song together that uses multiple synths.

So although I don't use 100% of the features, I would say it's not 90% that are not used. It's nice to have options. My car has cruise control which I never use but it didn't keep me from buying it.

[Bald Eagle]

But back on topic about the Grand Stage ... I think it will be an excellent stage piano. It has the Kronos core so I would think there will be a lot of great sounding presets and that's what a stage piano is all about, simplicity. I would not want to walk on stage to be confronted with a Kronos if I had never seen one before.

They should have at least had sliders for the CX-3 drawbars, and they would be usefull for the other engines too. It wouldn't overly complicate things.

[Koekepan]

Perhaps what KORG is doing, is trying out a limited Kronos that is essentially just a performance tool. Their attempt might be to differentiate the gigging musician as a market, from the composer.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that this is what they intend. They may then attempt to determine how much of a driver sequencers are. If they determine that the sequencer brings them nearly no sales, they have no reason to bother with one and will simply produce performance tools and point at something like Arturia's Beatstep Pro, the Electribes, the Squarp Pyramid or Social Entropy's Engine. More likely yet, they'll try to find some way of integrating MIDI out from Gadget and tell people to use that.

Alternatively, they may determine that there is a real market for dedicated hardware sequencers and composition interfaces, and bring a new entry that plays nicely with whatever sound sources they produce.

I can't speak for anyone else, and I realise that I'm way off in the tail of a very skewed bell curve, but I bought two KORG workstations precisely for their sequencing capabilities. In fact, my Krome is a studio queen and I have no intention of ever hitting the road with it. The Kross I have taken gigging.

I suppose we might discover that KORG has a dedicated sequencer waiting in the wings, and that their real plan is, as Bald Eagle hints, to break up the workstation and move towards a more functionally modular design. This isn't far off some of my own speculations on the topic. Given that I buy workstations for the sequencer, and as a sort of packaged sound library, this suits me fine.

So, what price KORG ElectroSequence and Grand Stage as a pair?

[Kevin Nolan]

A Among the central pointers of that futility is - about 90% of the features of OASYS and Kronos are never used by Korons users, who have since day one of OASYS almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis and a host of other features - so it's a Goliath that is hugely under utilised. Why on Earth would Korg put more resources into adding to such a system if so much of the existing features remains dormant and gathering dust even among their core workstation owners?

going to pick and choose since I prefer to not do long posts.

"almost complete ignored STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis"

Karma is Stephen Kays gig. The fact that he went standalone many yrs ago should tell us something and Korg and 3rd party/partners.

Moving along, does it take excellent skill to have sophisticated programming of
STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis ?

Or is the door of development not open enough ? Is there no money to be made ? Do we need development tools to maximize STR-1, MOD-7, AL-1, Karma, Vector Synthesis ?

I have no answers but are those good questions ?

I agree - these are excellent questions - they right questions. I'm being a tad harsh when I say nobody's programming these resources. Me saying that is a bit like saying - nobody's using all of MS Word's resources when writing documents.

They point you make well here is - all of these synth engines (and Karma) are extraordinary technologies in scope and depth. They are tough to master so few do.

So what I'd love to see on the next generation workstation is those same engines, with some updates ( for example perhaps slightly deeper bit depth, different classic oscillator and filter characteristics and so on) - but - to update the interaction with these synths in better ways.

For example, STR-1 and MOD-7 could do with a more basic mode - but a smart basic mode like smart controls in Logic - where the user could get to exploit the power of those engines in more musical and intuitive ways. the Yamaha VL1 is very good at that, for example.

As for Karma - I've been banging on about his for a decade - and Stephen if you're reading please do this - put a new front end on Karma al-la Stylus RMX or Ableton Session View - some easy GUI way of viewing, managing and performing GE's, and in assembling them into songs. Karma is THE most sophisticated rhythm engine in the world, period - but - for most of us it's impenetrable. I'm still slowly learning it - but its hugely challenging because of the sophistication of the underlying GE-type concepts, and vast number of things going on, and the relatively challenging GUI interface to it.

Overall, I think you touch on an important point - all the heavy lifting work has been done by Korg and Stephen Kay - and wouldn't it be marvellous to see them evolve with update characteristics but also radical new GUI interaction. THEN OASYS / Kronos could truly shine and advance into the future.

All of that said - the new Kronos OS feature - Simple Layering and Simple Splits are a nod in that direction - for the first time as an OASYS owner I;m jealous of Kronos owners getting that very nice update

Gold is also stunning as a colour for a Kronos!!

[Kontrol49]

The Workstation isn't dead,as with everything else trends come and go and what is "in" is all about fashion musical instruments are the same,What the current crop of musician require at this time perhaps doesn't reflect on a do it all workstation.

Musical times are different and musicians require different tools at this time,the future is always dictated by history,so I'm sure the Workstation concept will come full circle again when its dead and buried and people miss the concept

Why does anyone require a standalone MPC when you can do it all in a laptop....so why does Akai now make such an appearance onto a very shaky market in that sector,because it's what people want because they are tired of the same old same old,how many times can they keep reinventing the DAW.

There are musicians I know that always reminisce on how things were easier in their simpler basic form we have all embraced new technology yet are now so full of options to create music its hard to know how we worked without it,and spend most of the time exploring the possibilities just because we have the option to keep adding and adding and end up being lost in some bubble bogged down by the endless options,that it detracts us from making music.

Just look at synth history,since it's beginnings the synthesizer as a sum of its parts hasn't changed from the early days of analog to the 90s era of VA its now come full circle so we have gone back to replicating the originals in the truest form,back in the late 80s when these things were given away by people jumping on the digital revolution would you have said these will make a comeback???Probably not.

I dare say there would have been the few who said Analog is dead and digital is the future,who would have guessed 25 years later the likes of Moog making a new Minimoog would see a comeback or DSI making analog polys in a word rife of every flavour and clones of popular vintage gear in software,the Workstation will as is evident of the past will become a fashionable ideology again in years to come,

We as a species love nostalgia what is considered boring or dead now will almost certainly become revived once people become bored of the latest greatest when everyman and his producer has done it to death and we hanker for the simpler days of a workstation.

[Jan1]

The SV-1 showed us that the retro look can be very attractive, this design of the Grand Stage unfortunately shows us the opposite.
And I really don't like the flashing logo on the back as if you're a paid KORG promoter.
I don't mind the logo showing the world the kind of instrument is used, but this is over the top and dominates in a bad way. I hope it can be turned off.

On a different note, I do like the different color options KORG introduced with the Monologue and now the KRONOS.

And of course the notion that the workstation is dead is nonsense.
You can say that there is no revolutionary development of a particular instrument (which btw is quite subjective), but that does not mean it is dead, as convincingly argued before.

[GregC]

The Workstation isn't dead,as with everything else trends come and go and what is "in" is all about fashion musical instruments are the same,What the current crop of musician require at this time perhaps doesn't reflect on a do it all workstation.

the w/s isn't technically dead. But its an aging demographic and a few millennials discover it every day and become enthusiastic which can only help extend its relevance.

if you notice, only Korg is interested in supporting the w/s with color iterations. That should tell you something. With all the etc etc about Yamaha and Roland- nada.

I understand most of what Kevin is stating. Us old dogs who have toiled for decades in the corporate world, have seen product life cycles/evolution/death up close. The plug gets pulled every day on great ideas. I don't believe many here have worked in such a money/#'s oriented environment. If you are 100% creative and dream it would be difficult for you to thrive in such a corporate results only environment.

[dfahrner]

As I said in a previous post, it always seems to come back to pianos, organs, and a few classic synths (OK, Bachus, DPs and strings/pads too, but accordions?)...I don't think it's just nostalgia: these instruments, and their usage in modern western music, have been developed over many (even hundreds) of years, and they work well with the familiar, standard keyboard as the main controller...that's why musicians want instruments that sound and play like pianos, organs, etc., and why companies continue to spend resources on producing them....

df