Few thoughts - welcome your thoughts/opinion

[Kevin Nolan]

while the comparative rarity and significantly superior physical chassis / control of OASYS will make it desirabl[/i]

I think the Kronos superseded the Oasys in virtually every respect accept size and style for me , i was pondering a cheap oasys a few months back ( £2500 ) but thought i would hold back and see what Korg did with all the developments and then Kronos was announced ( it was exactly what i was hoping for - an Oasys mk2 ) .

Kronos killed my want for an Oasys stone dead and my guess is many others feel the same.

I treat a Roland vsynth / motif hybrid as a different machine

For me you need both , vsynth technology goes places the Kronos never will and vice versa but i buy synths for their synthesis ability and not as workstations.

I certainly hope Roland update vsynth technology so it can actually load decent amounts of sample data ( 64 mb is really tedious) and that they maybe implement some new and novel synthesis types like Convolution etc.

Well, I agree with you - for the medium term. But the Kronos is essentially an OASYS with some add-ons. 7/9th of it is identical and as said the other 2/9ths will be largely irrelevant in the long run as vastly superior pianos make the Kronos ones redundant - the two piano models are ironically the aspect of the Kronos which will date the most. Yes Kronos has newer electronics, solid-state drive (but to be honest housing 2 GB of 3rd party samples, loaded immediatley after bootup, is fine) and the performance mode; but in _the_ significant ways - the synthesizer engines - they are largely the same. You'll know what I mean when you own one. I'm talking about the architecture of MOD-7, the polyphonic LFO's and Step Sequencers and that sort of thing.

So as said originally, I believe in perhaps 10 years or more OASYS will be more sought after, relatively speaking, because of it's comparative rarity, superior physical presence and otherwise largely similar features. I realise that's a controversial thing to say on the 'eve' of the release of Kronos, but I believe this will be how it will pan out. But for now and for quite a while, I agree, the differences are (superficially) seemingly quite large. And, I'm not trying to to an A-B comparison, I'll likely buy a Kronos, but I would suggest that anyone owning an OASYS who feel they should upgrade at the expense of selling their OASYS should look long and hard at that. Overall, the OASYS is a class act in ways arguably Kronos can't be. Kronos will be magnificent too, but I suspect it will not inspire long-term interest quite as much.

Kevin.

[GregC]

That makes sense, given Yamaha's non-existent presence in the synthesizer market, and being king of the PRS 'junk for the masses' genre of keyboard. When one considers a legacy of GX1, CS80, CP80, GS1, DX1/7, SY77/99 and VL1, it is quite staggering how pathetic a company they have become. They're like NASA after it abandoned the Apollo programme - squandering a rich legacy and letting all of their engineers retire. Those running Yamaha electronic keyboards ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Maybe Yamaha is giving to the market what the market is asking for. They don't need to be innovative they just need to be reliable to artists, performers and composers. Could you imagine any blind artist trying to switch or program a sound with a touch screen? Kurzweil is on that track too, reliable, strong and durable gear. That's just my opinion no pun intended.

While I understand that producing the classics of the past was probably not financially worthwhile in themselves, those classic instrument helped shape the history of music. To me, that's an important dimension to this. There is no point to producing _only_ instruments that 'the market wants'.

Furthermore, as no doubt Steve Jobs would point out - the 'market' often does not know what it wants. That's why companies innovate. And this is the crux of the matter for Yamaha. They stopped innovating synthesizers, electric pianos and all round in electric and electronic music instruments at the EX5. The classics I mentioned came from a desire to be innovative within Yamaha and that made them a very exciting company with astounding instruments that affected the face of music. None of that happens today.

What saddens me the most about Yamaha in particular is that they have massive resources - and - they still have incredible knowhow through their pianos, disklavier, silent range, digital mixers and yes the excellent Tyros. If only they'd bring some of that expertise to synthesizers in earnest; they above all other companies could change the game for synthesizers, as they used to.

I had hoped that OASYS / Kronos would have motivated Yamaha and Roland to engage the synthesizer/ workstation market with real earnest; but perhaps that's just wishful thinking. Certainly within Yamaha there seems to be a blanket declaration to _not_ be involved in synthesizers.

But the suggestion that Tyros/PRS and Motif exist because it what masses want in a sad indictment on Yamaha, and on the masses / market for that matter. How incredibly drab. Is that the sorry state of music in the wider population? And - reliability should be a given, not a goal in itself. Are you suggesting that no innovation needs to happen - we've covered it all? Synthesizers mean new approaches to music - and it seems that Yamaha in particular is run by managers who do not understand that point (but all companies, including Korg, struggle with this premise in my opinion - even with OASYS/Kronos, we're nowhere near where we could/should be if all synthesizer companies innovated the way they used to).

Kevin.

this is a fair generalization about large co's. And I have worked for them for 30 years. Large co's (like Y) do have massive resources. Unfortunately
large co's often shut down creative ideas and innovative new/exciting products. Large co's are highly risk adverse, cost controlling and are fearful of new product failure as careers are on the line. As a result, new products are suspiciously ' me too ' and are slightly incremental from a prior product.

Obviously Apple is an exception to this. But Apple has a legacy of taking
chances.

Keep in mind, the synth market, W/s market is a small niche in the scheme of things. And there is little growth ( if any) at the high end of the synth, w/s marketplace. Thus these large co's aren't keen about throwing a lot of $$ at a small niche market. This is why, IMO, Yamaha has not done anything striking since the 80's or 90's.

if you take a step back, what we have on the forums is the same few hundred people making most of the posts, year after year.

If there are going to be innovative, exciting products, its co's like Korg ( medium sized) or Dave Smith, etc, that are more likely to capture the imagination.

Let hope that Kronos is a hit ( I have ordered one) since the community
needs it.

[Bertotti]

After listening to a lot of demos I hear things like the reinvigorated (enter engine of your choice). I am under the impression that some of the existing engines being incorporated into the Kronos have been tweaked some and are not identical to the Oasys. Am I wrong? Is it just marketing wording?

[synthguy]

I still like Roland very much, but unfortunately it's because of the Roland which once was. Kurzweil can afford to repackage VAST for 20 years because... well, it sounds so good and is so darn powerful. I suppose the argument for Roland and Yamaha doing much the same thing is because people keep buying it. Though in Fantom's defense, I will have to say that Roland is doing more with the platform with the ARX engine boards, while Yamaha has abandoned the idea of synth expansion boards.

While I'm not familiar with the Fantom G, I do own a Fantom X7, and while I like it, the synth engine needs work. It just doesn't have the proper dynamic range of a Motif, or any Kurzweil or KORG synth. Getting proper, playable 0 to full volume is something I just can't accomplish on the Fantom, but seems to be doable on the other synths. I also find the filters on the Fantom X to be rather thin, brittle sounding things, much more useful for shaping acoustic samples than for making classic synth patches. They aren't useless though, as you can obviously get some lovely sounds with them, but they don't behave the way filters on other instruments do. But having said that, the Fantom works well with a VA partner, or a true analog or two, to handle the pure vintage synth parts.

So in that regard, I'm not sure Roland really needs to create an all-in-wonder workstation. As I posted in another thread, a Fantom as it is, with well designed envelopes that behave more acoustically, would be fine. The synth part could be a new Jupiter, or what I'd like to see, is a new JD synth reborn with hefty VA qualities. A JD-2000 with well modeled oscillators and filters - and some PCM waves like the original JD, and nice effects as well as a well endowed control panel, would be a monster, and would sure have my interest. Much more than the V-Synth, and would be a more useful pair of instruments than a single wonderstation, having two separate keyboards.

While a $2K-plus rompler workstation with a $2K-or so synthesizer does add up to more than a KRONOS, if you add a waterfall key or other second controller to it, you're in the same price range. And Roland should do something like this, because the KRONOS is making everything look pretty small in comparison. I think two slightly cheaper, great sounding instruments can remain viable in a market with KRONOS in it. I suspect Yamaha has this strategy as well.

[aron]

> They're like NASA after it abandoned the Apollo programme - squandering a rich legacy and letting all of their engineers retire

I think the engineers are still there. The CP-1 used some of Yamaha's engineers that worked on the VL1 platform. I think Yamaha got gun shy after the VL1 - which was a success to mostly everyone that owns one, but a financial loss for the company.

In a way I think Yamaha also suffers a little from the "trickle down a little much" into low, low performing low cost technology, like the plug in boards which were ok, but nothing spectacular. Also as people have said PSR line and other low cost keyboards. Kind of like Seiko. Hard to convince people that Seiko makes great $2K watches, when all they see is a lot of $100 ones.

I had no idea the Nord Electro was so popular. I never liked their LED display.

[rrricky rrrecordo]

Many good thoughtful points, a good read there, gents.

Yamaha bundles Cubase with their Motif XS and XF, and Roland pushes Cakewalk, so maybe their longer-term strategies will remain focused on further integrating their "tried, tested and true" hardware with more inovative software solutions into the future. This is no bad thing and has great potential - if the end user likes working with the software that the hardware is "optimized' for.

I've been a Logic user since it was Notator on the Atari platform, and I've grown comfortable working with it. Logic does not integrate as tightly with my XS as Cubase does, but it still makes a pretty good compact work environment for me. Cubase makes a pretty good compact coaster. The dogs like chasing the Cakewalk disk

Kronos seems to be packing a lot of great stuff under the hood, and having it all in one place is great. It will be the ideal workstation for many happy new owners. I haven't heard much about the sequencer thus far, but I did have an M3 along with the XS and wound up trading it away, partly because the sequencer didn't seem to fit my workflow. The sequencer in the XS immediately took me back to the good ol' Notator days with its similar layout, simple pattern/song recording and realtime "play effects". I still use it to hammer out ideas on the fly, but any important stuff gets done in Logic, or GarageBand if I'm working on a project with kids. I hope that Kronos' sequencer has been finessed and tweaked to take advantage of the hi-res screen (and made a bit more user friendly)... I think the chances are pretty good.

It would be interesting to see a future Yamaha or Roland design with the software (Cubase or Cakewalk) embedded into the hardware in some way, not necessarily Neko-like but still flexible and able to run third-party plugs. Pipe dreams perhaps... but no harm in enjoying a pipe now and then

[ozy]

well...

8 days before the "kronos teaser" was released,

all this whole forum community was expecting from korg was...

... new patches for the M3 and maybe a fix for some Oasys bugs!

4 days into the teaser frenzy, half the forum expected a new Kaosspad.

Our track record as forecaster of the music industry is... LOUSY!

The collective wisdom of korgforums has a 20/20 hindsight, but its foresight needs a very, very patient and well trained labrador to help her get from the tv room to the freezer.

We are probably good musicians and good synth programmers,

but...

"those who know don't talk", and "those who talk don't know".

If the Kronos experience teaches something, is that Yamaha could release a 64-voices physically modeled brass synth with analogue filters, cp-1 pianos, and an embedded 48 tracks digital mixer at the Messe,

and we would not know until we get a frigging teaser on youtube.

So, arguments and counter-arguments are worth reading for fun, and do no harm.

And saying: "there can't be a nything new from Yammi or Rolly, because..." is...

... reckless to say the least

[SpIdErWeB]

"those who know don't talk", and "those who talk don't know".

Lol, that's not always true...

[Randelph]

Wow, this has been a fun read!

Many thoughts but wondering what the economics of workstation boards are.

? I imagine that the manufacturer profit margins are different for a $3,000- $3,800 board as compared to a $1,500 board or an $800 board. Korg has been turning out inexpensive boards of late a lot faster than pricier stuff- I guess this is a reflection of the soft market.

? What kind of volume are we talking about with workstations. I've heard numbers like 250,000 M1's sold (or was that the DX7?). Any numbers on units sold for the M3 / Motif series / Fantom series / PC3 / Nord Stage? The only other number I've heard is 3,000 Oayses w/s sold.

? What are dealers making on a $3,000- $3,800 workstation?

? I would love to have an insiders understanding of the making of the Kronos from the Oayses: the man hours to implement the new software features, the tooling costs for the new case, how much it costs to get a production run like that going

? With all the new technology and presumably new software coding (like using Linux as a free base OS and using object oriented programming?), how well are small innovative companies going to compete with larger, more experienced and better funded companies in the w/s market?

[jimknopf]

Yes, it was certainly funny to read this thread.

Especially the part about so far not existing things:

- a Yamaha workstation which might make a significant step beyond the advanced ROMpler concept AND even allow transpose beyond two octaves

- a Roland workstation which might make a significant step beyond the advanced ROMpler concept AND even get an OS anywhere beyond totally halfbaked and conceptually totally weird status

- a Kurzweil synth that does not sound like an early 90s workstation with poor looped small samples AND an OS which is not only powerful and flexible, but also a bit more easy to handle (even allowing something which would be worth calling VA synth programming), with an interface worth calling a modern display.

Have I forgotten more?

Just by the way: the Roland product for Musikmesse is NO challenge for the Kronos, just in case that anyone here was silly enough to expect something really breathtaking from the present Roland management. It will be a synth, but as far as I heard nothing remotely Kronos-like. Concerning the big claim to revive old legends (Roland US site), I'm really curious to see that become reality. I liked a lot of former Roland gear, and think they owed much to great staff members up to Eric Persing. But I regard the Fantom G, which I still have, certainly not as something I would call a fully developed workstation.

So my proposition is to begin speculating again, soon as we at least have a faint shadow of a hint of ANYTHING concrete.

[Hedegaard]

Let's just say I know it from very good source... (however don't get too excited, remember Roland used the Juno's name for the Juno-G, and it wasn't really a "new Juno"). That's really all I can say...

Please, link or it didn't happen man.

[ScoobyDoo555]

FWIW, I've been told the same thing by a Roland rep in the UK.....

Could be BS though

[GregC]

Wow, this has been a fun read!

Many thoughts but wondering what the economics of workstation boards are.

? I imagine that the manufacturer profit margins are different for a $3,000- $3,800 board as compared to a $1,500 board or an $800 board. Korg has been turning out inexpensive boards of late a lot faster than pricier stuff- I guess this is a reflection of the soft market.

? What kind of volume are we talking about with workstations. I've heard numbers like 250,000 M1's sold (or was that the DX7?). Any numbers on units sold for the M3 / Motif series / Fantom series / PC3 / Nord Stage? The only other number I've heard is 3,000 Oayses w/s sold.

? What are dealers making on a $3,000- $3,800 workstation?

? I would love to have an insiders understanding of the making of the Kronos from the Oayses: the man hours to implement the new software features, the tooling costs for the new case, how much it costs to get a production run like that going

? With all the new technology and presumably new software coding (like using Linux as a free base OS and using object oriented programming?), how well are small innovative companies going to compete with larger, more experienced and better funded companies in the w/s market?

you will find some market data on musicplayer.

As far as the inside finance/profit data, you won't find that since co's like Korg & Roland are privately owned. Since Y is a huge corp, their w/s sales
are like a grain of sand compared to their total sales.

I don't believe the w/s market is growing over the past 10 years which is a real concern for us enthusiasts/musicians. Since the total sales pie is not increasing, that sort of explains why the rate of improvement we demand,
year after year, is not there. At best, the ' big 3' try to steal sales or market share from each other.

I am happy Korg made the move to Kronos. I think they need a hit as we all need an exciting w/s at a reasonable cost. There is no doubt in my mind,
that the US price is very fair for what Kronos offers. again, I am in the US, hopefully, there will be no flareup regarding International economics, etc, etc.

[SpIdErWeB]

Let's just say I know it from very good source... (however don't get too excited, remember Roland used the Juno's name for the Juno-G, and it wasn't really a "new Juno"). That's really all I can say...

Please, link or it didn't happen man.

LOL, believe me or not, I don't care, I have nothing to prove...

Wait until April 6th and you'll see by yourself who was right...

[Citizen Klaus]

Let's just say I know it from very good source... (however don't get too excited, remember Roland used the Juno's name for the Juno-G, and it wasn't really a "new Juno"). That's really all I can say...

Please, link or it didn't happen man.

LOL, believe me or not, I don't care, I have nothing to prove...

Wait until April 6th and you'll see by yourself who was right...

I'm still rooting for a V-Synth GTO, personally. AP Synthesis applied to any sample or oscillator... It'd be a great companion board for a Kronos.