Montage by Yamaha

[marc1]

I am not aware of hardware sequencers that match or exceed desktop software in terms of simplicity, usabilily and supported features

No one here on this board claimed that hardware sequencers ever should replace a dedicated DAW. In fact many users would be very content with simple improvements (such as better editing capabilities like in the M3, which is probably never going to happen).

If you think replacing HDD with a SSD is a significant new development of the OASYS/Kronos OS, I really don't have the desire to argue any further.

Where did I say that it's a "significant new development of the Oasys/Kronos OS? You should read more carefully (and again and again you presume me to say things which I don't!
I simply included it on a list of overall improvements (well a SSD has no moving parts and is therefore better suited for transport than a HDD-a feature many live musicians appreciate, I'm sure). And guess what the Kronos is the only synth that utilizes a SSD (offering even the capability to add a second SSD).
This in combination with sample streaming makes a huge difference in comparison to other synths (even the Oasys for that matter).

I don't need Ray Kurzweil to expain me the meaning of "the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years".

It's more than a simple equation or forecast, it's an all encompassing metaphor!

Their user base is 3 billion users, while Yamaha's user base is 300 thousand users

Right, and I'm sure Yamaha is planning its business accordingly ( and still makes profits!)

the development costs for a new chip are the same.

which is business as usual

"Monolithic 3D IC" is not realy "3-dimensional", rather multi-layer (2 to 4 layers)

What's in a name? I'm certainly not arguing semantics with you here. I only refer to the terminology that the industry utilizes.

it's still in development.

Nope, they're doing it already since 4 years. Have a look here: http://www2.technologyreview.com/articl ... ansistors/

Oh and by the way, in parallel they're already working on carbon nanotubes, as you can see here:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/5286 ... ming-soon/

But I'm sure you already knew that!!

"The opening up of the system for user sample streaming" probably took more effort to type than the actual change in the OS source code that enabled it.

It might have been simple to implement. Nevertheless, it's a huge feature which currently no other synth offers and its for sure welcomed by many musicians (and imho really part of technological progress).

In other words, you don't have any clue on the supposed vast technological improvements in tone generation that could be unlocked by Moore's law.

Oh, the Kronos is already a fine product and the best example of what Moore's law is all about, because in the end digital synthesis is all about computation (therefore hardware performance matters). I could envision a Kronos successor with simply more of everything (more engines, 64bit OS, better physical modeling algorithms, improved sample playback engine (HD-2 anyone?)... actually there's a whole thread dedicated to that very topic.
If that's ever going to happen or if the Kronos has been the last of its kind, we'll see.

Thank you very much for this uninteresting discussion.

Finally, something we can agree on.

[BobTheDog]

It's all very well quoting people but who the hell are they?

[burningbusch]

No denying the new piano engines on Kronos and other enhancements seen as significant to workflow - but- not one sample in HD1 has changed in a decade, and not one line of code has changed in CX-3... the GUI or the File system.

so the point is - the underlying technology and sonic character of Kronos, pianos aside, is 10-12 year old technology.

there literally are no people in Korg developing any new synth engines, sample sets or sequencer enhancements for Kronos - that developmental work is a decade over - lock, stock and barrel.

Not One Sample?

When the Kronos was released the following were included (these are over and above all the included OASYS samples plus EXs3 was also included):

- EXs4 Vintage Keyboards
- EXs5 ROM Expansion 2
- EXs8 Rock Ambience Drums
- EXs9 Jazz Ambience Drums

This is in addition to the two 4GB Pianos (which can be loaded into HD-1 if you so choose)

With the release of the Kronos 2 Korg added:

EXs17 – SGX-2 Berlin D Piano (8.6 GB)
EXs18 – KORG EXs Collections (900MB)
EXs19 - Private Collection

The above sample libraries are all included with the purchase of the instrument. This is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20GBs of samples.

The CX-3 engine saw a pretty massive update to the engine and all important Leslie FX in OS update 2.1. The sonic difference is night and day.

If Set List mode isn't an update to the GUI, or more specifically how people use the instrument, I don't know what is. In addition, 3.0 increased Set List mode functionality (please note the 4 X 4 matrix in Live Set mode on the Montage is a direct ripoff of this, though it lacks functionality like comments). When you consider disk streaming of samples found ONLY on the Kronos and how HUGE this is in the world of hardware samplers, it's pretty hard to ignore this enhancement to the file system and OS.

As far as future updates to the OS, synth engines and/or sample sets, that is unknown. Also unknown, by anyone outside of Korg is how many people might or might not be working on future developments. The last update was less than a month ago.

Busch.

[SanderXpander]

Wasn't the MS20EX patch panel also expanded compared to the Oasys? And I find it a little dismissive to label EP1 as "some work done on pianos". That's an entirely new engine right there.

[Kevin Nolan]

@burningbusch - apart from those -

not one sample







but actually -they are expansion packs.

and I can assure you - there is absolutely nobody, not one person, exercising one neurone, within Korg, in affecting the central OS, effects, or any of the synth engines. That was all shut down a decade ago. That is not going to change, ever. Everything added to Kronos was easy addons - the core 'system' has not changed in a decade.

And - I would put real money on Kronos never receiving anything more than superficial updates from here on in. Korg do things a certain way and you can tell when they have moved on. The have moved on from Kronos. There will not be a Kronos 3, or a significant update to Kronos2. I'd put real money on that. I'd be extremely confident they have already long since moved on, and are working on altogether different products at this stage. Rejoice in the wonder that is Kronos and Kronos2 - because I strongly suspect there are the end of the era of the workstation for Korg.

[burningbusch]

and I can assure you - there is absolutely nobody, not one person, exercising one neurone, within Korg, in affecting the central OS, effects, or any of the synth engines. That was all shut down a decade ago. That is not going to change, ever. Everything added to Kronos was easy addons - the core 'system' has not changed in a decade.

Sorry Kevin, but no you can't assure me that. In fact, all three aspects you mention HAVE been updated in the Kronos and I pointed those out in my posts. To say all of what has been added to the Kronos since inception and over the last five years have been "easy addons" is close to incomprehensible. Changing the OS to support multiprocessors and the disk streaming of samples isn't changing the core system??? What? Based on your posts I can only assume you have a very superficial knowledge of the Kronos, yet make broad claims as to what it is and isn't. But at the same time the additions to the Montage, and for some completely unknown reason to me the Reface CS, are significant.

We get it, you love Yamaha. Nothing wrong with that. I've owned maybe 15-20 Yamaha keyboards and pianos over the years, big deal. Some good, some not so good. I've got nothing against Yamaha and will likely buy some of their products in the future.

Busch.

[Derek Cook]

I'm with Busch on this one.

Kevin, why do you believe there will now be no more Kronos development? What evidence do you have?

In one and a half years of Kronos ownership, I have had more updates (free) for one instrument than anything Yamaha have ever done across all of the synths I own. This is probably made easier due to the "software only" approach taken by Korg as opposed to Yamaha's mix of microprocessors, DSPs or Custom ICs.

Over that time of ownership there have been bug fixes and feature updates. That is development to me (as somebody who works in systems engineering and who is also a software developer).

SGX-2 in OS 3.0 is an example of an engine that has been updated since I purchased my Kronos. Sympathetic string resonance adds a new dimension to the piano sounds.

I would suggest that the way Korg has gone with a software based approach, built upon a COTS computing platform, still gives Korg a very flexible platform for many years to come.

With all of the R&D investment in this approach, I cannot see why Korg would abandon it. There may come a time when you may see a future Kronos type instrument with more computing horsepower and more features, and my Kronos might not be able to run them as it will not have the horse power, and at that point my Kronos is frozen. Maybe that is why OASYS is frozen now?

The move from OASYS to Kronos might simply be a case of market forces. I think the OASYS was always meant to be a flagship "wow" instrument; something smaller less expensive was always bound to follow. The Kronos was in my budget range, the OASYS never was.

If my Kronos was never updated again, then I still have an amazing instrument.

I take your point about Korg not having implemented an OASYS feature list put together by the community. That is disappointing, but Korg probably are still looking at the bottom line and the cost of implementation and whether or not they would recover the development outlay. I wonder how many OASYS units were sold compared to Kronos?

[billysynth1]

Workstations are boring.
It's time to release a revolution.

We need a ModularStation...Hybrid. That's the future.

Combine a modular Moog panel to the left of the keyboard and the workstation to the right, with touch view screen and general work station controller and buttons. .

It's time to experiment and go hybrid. These current synthesizers and work stations are all one dimensional...same old same old and boring.

We are not exited by it. It's so boring all that's left is for everyone to argue lol.

Mate....go in the direction of some super nano power hybrid keyboard technology.

And buddy, don't give me this bullshiitt about costs. It's all China bro.

Bloody baby boomers...

billy

[JPROBERTLA]

After reading this thread for a while, I have decided to chime in because I don't see the point in all the "one-upmanship" regarding the Kronos and the Montage. They are not the same thing, other than both being synth keyboards. As a long time Korg and Yamaha user, it does't matter at this point what Korg has in mind for the Kronos going forward because they have already exceeded all ongoing support/improvement expectaions as compared to any other synth manufacturer. It also doesn't matter what Yamaha has in mind for the Montage because it s not even available yet, so not enough people can buy or not buy it, which in reality will determine Yamaha's onging support/improvement decision.

At 5 years old the Kronos is still the #1 hardware synth workstation. My guess is Korg will keep it that way while developing a replacement for as long as they can. Based on 50 years of playing these keyboards, I would bet that the Montage sounds great and is a good synth. But its not a workstation. For some this doesn't make a difference because they use DAWs for sequencing. But for others, like me, it is a very important difference. I use sequences 100% of the time when performing and have no plans on carrying a PC and all that includes to do the same thing (live) that the Kronos sequencer can do.

For those who have some unknown source of information and think that workstations are done, I think you are wrong. Roland, Yamaha and Kurzweil have made workstation for years and still do on a limited basis. I also believe that, based on the worldwide success of the Kronos, they would be more than happy to get a piece of this market if they could; they obviously can't so they design and build good synths that are not "flagship" workstations and really don't compete with the Kronos. As I see it, right now, they all have a lot of catching up to do. It will be interesting to see if they can. If Korg introduces a new keyboard that is as advanced (compared to everything else) as the Kronos was 5 years ago, than none of this will really even matter.

[Kevin Nolan]

I could be wrong of course, but my opinion is that there hasn't been any serious development through Kronos. I realise that read a bit curious when lists of exquisite improvements have been made.

The point I'm making is that the core capabilities of Kronos haven't changed since OASYS.


The 'OASYS days' on this forum were quite intriguing. Upon buying the OASYS in December 2005 I joined this forum, and for about 3 years it was an absolutely amazing community - massive developments in OASYS, some of us were invited by Korg to be beta testers (I was a beta tester for two OS revisions as well as MS20EX, PolysixEX and MOD-7.).


But around 2008 everything changed - very rapidly. Development on OASYS slowed and eventually stopped. There was increasing discontent on the forum - and it became clear once the M3 received a sequencer update superior to the OASYS, that OASYS development had ceased completely.


By the way - if you check back over those days, you'll see I was a staunch supporter of Korg in this - I feel no grievance and did not have the same expectations for improvements that many others had. In my opinion, still, once I forked out the money to Korg for an OASYS, I was agreeing to accept they current product - not some future instrument others aspired OASYS to be come (I see open architecture as the means by which OASYS was so flexible and efficient out of the box; while others saw it as meaning 3rd part development for years to come).

For me, all fine and dandy. But - what shocked me completely was the launch of Kronos. Here was, in essence, OASYS-2, and there was not one mention of OASYS in all of the promotional blurb. It was, and still is to this day within Korg (form what I can sense) that OASYS simply did not exist.

They had all sorts of lineage links from Korg's past to the present day in their promotion - and absolutely nothing about OASYS.

So it was clear to me that there was something curious going on about what OASYS meant to Korg as a company. It's as if they wanted to blot out OASYS.

To add to it - all of th eOASYS features in Kronos 1 - including the sequencer - were exactly the same as in OASYS. Even the programs and combi's are the same. So this told me that there was absolutely no development going on in Korg on the OASYS components to the Kronos. From day one that has been the case, and it has barely changed.

Rather - Korg added on components where it was easy - particularly around pianos - and I interpret that to mean that Kronos is a means for Korg to recoup the R&D costs of the relative failure (commercially) of OASYS - and not a lot more.

If Korg really saw Kronos as a workstation beyond OASYS, there is no doubt that the M3's sequencer should have been in it. Meanwhile many other core enhancements - a list a mile long developed over the OASYS forum days - should have been considered. But absolutely none of them were. It was evident that there was not one iota of OASYS technology development happening in Kronos, from its first days - and apart from a few tweaks here and there, it's still the same.

Don't get me wrong - Kronos is magnificent. Its the best workstation there is. It's amazing and everyone owning one should relish in owning a musical technological wonder of our time, largely down to the amazing job of Dan Phillips and Korg R&D in the USA. And the add-ons have been absolutely beyond reproach - I'd die for the pianos in Kronos if I coudl put them in my OASYS - so there's huge admiration for what they have and continue to do.


But undelying current developments is this curious 'recoil' by Korg form OASYS and its core technologies that remain 'dormant' in Kronos to this day - I assure you - there is no development going to happen in there - there will be no more synth engines in Kronos - coupled to the fact that for about 5 years now the only enhancements to Kronos, as good as they are, are all on the outside, the periphery of the instrument - SSD instead of HDs, etc, etc.


So there may well be extra packs, but, for about 8 years now, all of the core technologies of Kronos have remained essentially static, abd even by about 2008- 2009 it was clear to all OASYS owners than Korg had abandoned all such development.


So, as said, Kronos has this dual-path development - core OASYS technology that Korg struggle even to acknowledge it's lineage (i.e. the OS, All Synth Engines, Effects, Sequencer, Filesystem, Karma,...) and then the amazing new features they are only too happy to promote - pianos, playlists, SSDs and so on. It may be that Korg saw the features I list as dormant as a special project for OASYS with a defined timeframe and resource base, and, being as good as they are, that they do not need changing. But that's not the way many see it. In all the features I've mentioned there have been hundreds of calls for improvement, from a slight lack lustre sound from AL-1 lacking in bass punch, to an improved sequencer and so on - and indeed those wish lists have been repeated over and over on the Kronos forum, but they have fallen on deaf ears, and in my opinion will continue to. Korg have long since moved on.

So for those historical reasons, I see Kronos as half dormant, and half alive. Had Korg not disowned it's lineage of OASYS when releasing Kronos, and for example improved the sequencer, I'd see it differently.

I'm sure there are many details I've recounted here that have another side to them I'm oblivious to and not privy to - but that's the way I see it

[SanderXpander]

Time will tell. I would say that Kronos at least has been and is very successful. Since they are now two entirely separate models into Intel CPU/Linux based architecture it seems to me a total waste if they'd give up now. If my Kronos died tomorrow I would buy a new one right away.

I hear what you're saying with the "unchanging concept" of the Kronos and I think you're right in the sense that they don't seem to be going the "open architecture" route of the Oasys anymore. But I also think you're underestimating the amount of updates, upgrades and tweaks we've received. String resonance, user sample streaming and the new leslie sim are actual engine upgrades and were a direct result of user feedback. Maybe, as a Yamaha guy, you can show me an example of Yamaha delivering similar upgrades to a current model based on their user base, but I can't think of any.

To summarize, I think if they're working on a new flagship, it'll probably not be "open architecture". But I would definitely expect the real Kronos "successor" (obviously Kronos 2 isn't really a new model) to boast real new features and perhaps engines.

[jimknopf]

For those who have some unknown source of information and think that workstations are done, I think you are wrong. Roland, Yamaha and Kurzweil have made workstation for years and still do on a limited basis. I also believe that, based on the worldwide success of the Kronos, they would be more than happy to get a piece of this market if they could; they obviously can't so they design and build good synths that are not "flagship" workstations and really don't compete with the Kronos. As I see it, right now, they all have a lot of catching up to do.

Couldn't agree more.

Whoever wants, will buy the Montage for what it is, and that's completely fine. It's essentially an additional soundsource with some very nice features.

But it's neither a performance synth covering all bread and butter sounds in a convincing way (missing engines, weak Leslie etc.), nor a full blown workstation (miserable sequencing and sampling abilities).

The five years developing Kronos is miles ahead of the Oasys in everyday use, due to lots of really substantial (and not just cosmetic) updates, while keeping a basic OS/UI structure which still works like a charm. And the Kronos development, from version 1 to 3.04, is even more ahead of any synth development we have seen from Yamaha in more than a decade, including the Montage.

[Shambler]

The only feature on the Montage I'm envious of is the

'Connect MONTAGE to your computer with a single USB cable and capture every nuance of your creativity into your DAW. MONTAGE’s powerful USB driver can send 16 and receive 3 channels of STEREO 24 bit/44.1 kHz digital audio '

This would be a welcome and technically possible? upgrade to the Kronos.

[fcoulter]

I hear what you're saying with the "unchanging concept" of the Kronos and I think you're right in the sense that they don't seem to be going the "open architecture" route of the Oasys anymore.

I'm new to the Korg OASYS/Kronos history, so I may be completely off base. But, I'm wondering what you meant by the "open architecture" of the OASYS. Theoretically, was the OASYS supposed to allow third party developers to create new synth software (not "merely" patches and samples) for the keyboard? If so, I can understand Korg dropping that quickly.

Korg is in the business of selling keyboards to the masses, not selling keyboards to the cutting edge technophillic keyboardists. Comparing the computer market to the keyboard market, Korg (and the other keyboard makers) is more like Apple than even Microsoft. They control the hardware. They control the software.

I'm not at all convinced that creating an open source keyboard makes sense financially for any major manufacturer. Among other things, the support costs would be huge. Imagine someone writing a new synth engine for the Kronos with a memory leak. Or one that doesn't fully exit. Somehow Korg would have to deal with all of the "my keyboard is slowing down/stopped" calls on software that they didn't write and aren't responsible for. This is not a good way to maintain market share.

Remember, if you're reading this forum, you're already far different than the typical Korg buyer. Don't look at your capabilities when troubleshooting an instrument. Think of the church organist who was told to "update" their sound.

Yes, an open source keyboard would be cool. But I sure as heck wouldn't expect it from a major keyboard company. People have different expectations from a boutique, perhaps you're looking for a boutique keyboard company. (Of course, you'll pay through the nose for the experience.)

[Tschury]

I hear what you're saying with the "unchanging concept" of the Kronos and I think you're right in the sense that they don't seem to be going the "open architecture" route of the Oasys anymore.

I'm new to the Korg OASYS/Kronos history, so I may be completely off base. But, I'm wondering what you meant by the "open architecture" of the OASYS. Theoretically, was the OASYS supposed to allow third party developers to create new synth software (not "merely" patches and samples) for the keyboard? ....

No. Only Korg propietary developments.

"...Future expansion options will include new synthesis engines, new effects, more sample libraries and various operating system enhancements...." (Quote KORG OASYS promotion 2005)

http://web.archive.org/web/200707011525 ... _forum.swf



OASYS: Open Architecture SYnthesis Studio






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