new Korg survey on workstations

[jerrythek]

Please look here:

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... p?p=233888

[Daz]

Bump

[Kevin Nolan]

This is an excellent and extremely detailed survey. Certainly it plainly indicates:

- Korg are thinking long and hard about the concept of the workstation and how to drive it forward; which bodes well for the future of synthesizer hardware (currently under huge pressures)

- Korg values the thoughts of their existing users; which is reassuring but also indicates that they are not only driven by tough market forces.

- From the details of the survey, they have been following keenly the issues raised here (and no doubt on other workstation forums).

This survey also _suggests_ (to me):

- That major OS changes (particularly in the sequencer) will not occur for OASYS; but may become part of a new workstation.

- The timing of this survey, after about three years of OASYS, suggests a major re-focus / stock take by Korg away from OASYS in particular and to the next generation of workstation, whatever that may be. In reference to the other thread which asks if OASYS is discontinued; I'd suggest that term is inappropriate for OASYS. Dan indicated some months ago that another manufacturing batch had occurred. That was probably among the last, suggesting that while current supplies last, OASYS hardware is available. In the meantime, I'd imagine at least one more 'major' release for OASYS - perhaps this summer or next January, with bug fixes, new EX's of some sort…

- It seems that the value of Karma is under consideration. While not denying its power, the question as to how it is used seems more open. I could envisage Karma not being central to future workstations, or seeing simplified versions of it applied to more specific genres.

All conjecture I know; but there's no doubt that with the passage of time, how quiet Dan and Stephen have been of late, the release of this survey and the natural proliferation of rumours about OASYS II and the end of OASYS that we are all in the twilight of the OASYS development cycle.

To me that is not bad. Whatever comes next and however development ends for OASYS, it will then become by default 'the finished article' and I believe will remain reputable for many years to come.

Care to respond??

Kevin.

[elvisjohndowson]

Stephen's a really smart, innovative guy! I have no doubt that he spends every single waking moment, coming up with new ways to improve the Karma architecture and probably has a roadmap for future incarnations/evolutions for Karma!!

Without doubt, it is the Karma engine that gives Korg an edge over the competition. I'm sure if Karma was incorporated into a Roland or Yamaha workstation, the distinction between the OASYS and a Roland/Yamaha will probably blur and boil down to just the sounds.

[EJ2]

Stephen's a really smart, innovative guy! I have no doubt that he spends every single waking moment, coming up with new ways to improve the Karma architecture and probably has a roadmap for future incarnations/evolutions for Karma!!

Without doubt, it is the Karma engine that gives Korg an edge over the competition. I'm sure if Karma was incorporated into a Roland or Yamaha workstation, the distinction between the OASYS and a Roland/Yamaha will probably blur and boil down to just the sounds.

That's my take as well. To be sure, Stephen's KARMA technology will eventually find it's way to other sources, be it through KARMA Universal or other means. However, I can't imagine "dumbing down" the next Korg workstation by reverting to simple arpeggiators when the clear winner by far in this sense is KARMA.

Not everyone uses an onboard sequencer or digital audio recording, preferring a computer run DAW. Not everyone relies on combinations (or performances or whatever the manufacturer calls these). Instead, they choose to work with programs (patches etc.) to build up their progressions or compositions. Again, not everyone is into sampling or working with samples/soundfonts. Be that as it may, this should not be the justification for leaving these features off a major music workstation. That's the whole concept behind a "workstation". You try to provide the user with as many tools as is reasonably and economically possible within one integrated unit.

Sorry, Kevin. I hope you are wrong. I'll take my KARMA any way it comes.

[Vadim]

great survey.
I love surveys.
(and I love KORG Trinity)

but, sometimes when i was clicking next, i git an error, when i clicked back the page forms were blank,
I hope there was no info lost..
Jerry can you check if everything was received?

[Kevin Nolan]

Hi EJ2 -

I'm with you all the way. I didn't intend to sound down beat (excuse the pun!!) about Karma - I think its phenomenal and intend to use it extensively in a project now in the planning for 2009. But I thought it very interesting that they survey specifically brought it up and was pondering why.

you know me by now - i intend to write one line posts and end up writing essays! Probably reading more into the survey that is actually there.

Best regards,
Kevin.

[RobertPlatinum]

This is an excellent and extremely detailed survey. Certainly it plainly indicates:

- Korg are thinking long and hard about the concept of the workstation and how to drive it forward; which bodes well for the future of synthesizer hardware (currently under huge pressures)

- Korg values the thoughts of their existing users; which is reassuring but also indicates that they are not only driven by tough market forces.

- From the details of the survey, they have been following keenly the issues raised here (and no doubt on other workstation forums).

This survey also _suggests_ (to me):

- That major OS changes (particularly in the sequencer) will not occur for OASYS; but may become part of a new workstation.

- The timing of this survey, after about three years of OASYS, suggests a major re-focus / stock take by Korg away from OASYS in particular and to the next generation of workstation, whatever that may be. In reference to the other thread which asks if OASYS is discontinued; I'd suggest that term is inappropriate for OASYS. Dan indicated some months ago that another manufacturing batch had occurred. That was probably among the last, suggesting that while current supplies last, OASYS hardware is available. In the meantime, I'd imagine at least one more 'major' release for OASYS - perhaps this summer or next January, with bug fixes, new EX's of some sort…

- It seems that the value of Karma is under consideration. While not denying its power, the question as to how it is used seems more open. I could envisage Karma not being central to future workstations, or seeing simplified versions of it applied to more specific genres.

All conjecture I know; but there's no doubt that with the passage of time, how quiet Dan and Stephen have been of late, the release of this survey and the natural proliferation of rumours about OASYS II and the end of OASYS that we are all in the twilight of the OASYS development cycle.

To me that is not bad. Whatever comes next and however development ends for OASYS, it will then become by default 'the finished article' and I believe will remain reputable for many years to come.

Care to respond??

Kevin.

Wonderful Observation. I actually came to that same conclusion about the Oasys being in the declining phase of its product cycle in another post. Even with the decline of the Oasys there still can be updates in terms of EXi's and EXs's even after they release the next generation of workstations. So, I do not believe all is lost either way.

Oh yea Karma is wonderful! Couldn't Imagine life without it. How about Karma updates for the Oasys? Now that would be cool.

[jerrythek]

great survey.
I love surveys.
(and I love KORG Trinity)

but, sometimes when i was clicking next, i git an error, when i clicked back the page forms were blank,
I hope there was no info lost..
Jerry can you check if everything was received?

Hey Vadim:

I see your record, but you did miss all the Page 2 questions about Sounds. And you skipped listing what workstations you own on the first question. Everything else is there.

There's 5 total categories of questions.

Regards,

Jerry

[Sina172]

...

[medusaland]

Hi Jerry,

I fill out your questions...
Hope this gives a good roadmap for the future products

Take care,

Kurt

[ldascanio]

Hi Jerry.

Done!!!!

Rgds.

[Daz]

This survey also _suggests_ (to me):

- That major OS changes (particularly in the sequencer) will not occur for OASYS; but may become part of a new workstation.

It seemed that way to me too pretty much. I am guessing that when they ask whether we want to be able to edit Programs in multi-timbral modes and have improved sequencing arrangements that they haven't started on this stuff, but are instead weighing up the merits of doing these things versus other things next. It's great to see the feedback we have offered hitting home, but unfortunate to see that things we were asking for since the days of the Triton didn't make it into our $8K workstation and probably won't do so in the near future, if at all. This realization in context of various (albeit unsubstantiated) stories of discontinuation of the product or the arrival of a new one, don't leave me feeling 100% confident of the future. I was feeling better about things before the survey came up to be honest, because I was in the bliss of complete ignorance.

IMO asking existing customers if they want to be able to edit sounds on their Korg Workstations is going to return a very skewed result. I suspect a tiny group of people will say yes and therefore Korg will be disinclined to add it. Why ? The problem is that Korg have never let people do this on their products in the last 20 years, so those people that feel it is important already bought other products from all the other manufacturers that rank this as an essential function of a synthesizer. Excepting loons like myself and other friends here, that were drawn in by the superior quality of the Oasys and hoped that Korg would see sense and raise the synthesizer of our dreams above the level of functionality offered by GM tone modules of yesteryear It's almost sacrilege that such brilliance as AL-1, MOD-7 and STR-1 should be homed in this daft environment.

Daz.

[Daz]

Woops ... had a little more to say on this :

This survey also _suggests_ (to me):

- That major OS changes (particularly in the sequencer) will not occur for OASYS; but may become part of a new workstation.

As I say I wondered about that and none of the wording suggested to me that I was taking the time to offer feedback that would be folded into what I own now.

In contrast, Athan Billias (Yamaha's Dan/Jerry for the Motif XS) wrote the following when introducing their recent survey :

Well, it's time. The XS has been in the market long enough that we want to get your feedback on what you like and what you think could be improved on the XS.

As we did with the Motif and the ES , the first step is to ask you to particpate in a survey which will give us statistics on how people use the XS , what features they like and what feature they feel need to be improved.

We actually have a planning meeting with Japanese engineering staff on Friday so if you fill it out by then, we will be able start discussions with your input in hand.

It's a different world admittedly, but not that different.

Daz.

[Kevin Nolan]

Hi Daz,

Sorry - you've triggered one of my essays here -

I accept your points but I don't feel so downbeat as perhaps you feeling at the moment?

Already OASYS has achieved many wondrous things:

- Incredible instrument, which if never receiving another update will require years to fully exploit
- Unprecedented updates already which no other synth has ever seen (I think)
- The open architecture at least spurring on Karo and EJ2 in particular. While not fully supported by Korg, they have still done exceptional OASYS specific work.
- OASYS created, IMO, a quite unique forum. Rarely has there been such a positive forum, with such interaction between users and creators.
- OASYS drove forward the M3 - a powerful workstation perhaps living in the shadow of OASYS but competes with the best from other manufacturers
- OASYS has given Roland a kick up the behind to produce Fanthom G
- OASYs has inspired debate, and hence thinking, about hardware and the value of instruments.
- Its not over yet!! Surely there's lots more to come...

Personally, buying OASYS has been literally a life changing experience:
- Greater excitement in composing electronic music that ever before
- Still, to this day, every session at OASYS feels the same as when you buy a new synthesizer. I've never experienced that before.
- The instrument alone got me onto a major UK TV job
- The instrument alone got me onto an Ireland national TV documentary about music technology
- Beta tester for OASYS (and that program IS unprecedented in synthesis)

The biggest debate for me is Karma. I don't want to say that because I believe it is among the greatest innovations in synthesis technology since Voltage Control. Stephen Kay is clearly up there with Bob Moog and similar illustrious innovators. Korg have invested a lot in this, and they should treat it with a lot of tender love and care. Move forward on this investment, don't abandon it.

But as mentioned before, I worry about its complexity and the amount go knowledge needed to use it effectively. I hope Korg realise what power they have at their disposal, that, with a little more maturing, could deliver even more effective realtime control. But it needs to be tamed IMO - I don't mean dumbed down. Rather the opposite.

For example, currently the 128 variations of a pattern are accessed via one of the contrl surface faders (by default), which is tricky to use/harness. Instead, by default provide an easy graphical front end that shows the patterns, allows you to select the variations, and them and place them in a sequencer track (a bit like STYLUS RMS, for example).

And, rather than having hundreds of parameters changing under the hood, provide a smaller set of variables, perhaps selectable/controlled in a more obvious and visible way; and where note data seamlessly goes to the sequencer to midi ports, to DAW tracks for the major DAWs etc. OR - configure one aspect of Karma as a killer arpeggiator, or package all of KARMA's drum patterns as a killer drum machine.... IMO, Karma needs graphical packaging in these ways to exploit it fully and effectively.

So I suspect, for these sorts of reasons, users are not screaming from the tree tops about Karma in the way perhaps originally hoped, and so within Korg the jury is still out for Karma as it currently stands. But I believe/hope Stephen Kay should turn Karma into Karma V 3.0 killer software only tool, a kind of MIDI Ableton Live.

Interestingly there was a hardware sequencer called ZYKLUS some yeas back, and a very interesting SOS forum thread on it about two years ago where Stephen Kay chimed in. ZYKLUS was, at its most basic, 12 polyphonic sequencers where each sequence could be played in realtime from a MIDI keyboard. That thread was looking for Karma or other software to provide amazing software MIDI sequencing as with ZYKLUS. But as with such functionality whcih never materialised in software, the debate is not only about Karma but also abut the future of MIDI as we know it, and perhaps why Ableton-Live has not provided the sorts of MIDI capabilities that it does with Audio. For me, for Karma to achive wide appeal, it needs to be packaged to make it instantly understandable yet effective in the extreme within the working formats of musicians today.

But whatever the future for OASYS, to me it has been and continues to be an outright winner; and I look forward to many years of using it and will do my level best to support Korg and Karma Labs next earnest endeavours - out of richly deserved loyalty firstly but also because there are surely to be some very exciting instruments and software to come from those camps in the future, even if not within the OASYS itself.

In my opinion this is what Korg need to do - bring out a new KICK ASS Triton to go better than Fanthom G but in the same price bracket. That'll win over the thousands of gigging musicians and bands and take care of Korgs profit and loss sheet. Then, simply continue with OASYS development however is feasable - software, OASYS II hardware, whatever. Dont look to OASYS for commercial success - look to Triton for that cause its already got the user base and reputation; and let OASYS do what it does best - breadth within an environment of innovation.

Kevin