Korg Kronos future replacement

[Liviou2004]

Do you remember the story of Captain Nemo in his Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne ?

Do you remember Nemo scuttled his ship and sank with it ?

Will it be the story of Korg with its Nautilus ? What a strange idea from Korg to name this synth like that !

---------------

Here are some other stupid name ideas I've found for the hypothetical next workstation :

Moby Dick, The Kraken, Abyss, Kaiju.
And finally, the best of the best : Titanic !!

[Liviou2004]

Well, to be serious, Korg should give a look at the synth market : there are some very good new appearing brands.

When Korg is unable to produce aftertouch keyboard at a reasonable price (Prologue) :
ASM with its innovative Hydrasynth provides a polyphonic aftertouch synth at the same price,
MODAL Electronics with ARGON 8X, COBALT 8X (aftertouch 61 keys for about 760 €)
Some other brands like Novation with its high-performance synth The Summit.
The old Roland with its good Jupiter X and of course the Fantom.

Think of these two great analog Arturia synths : Matrixbrute and the new Polybrute.

Examples are numerous.

I don't know if there are components shortages but it seems that it doesn't prevent other brands from creating, producing and providing good instruments.

Perhaps, we'll like or don't like them, but all the examples I gave above are new creations. As we often said here, Nautilus is not a creation. It's a Kronos with a new makeup in a new box.
In order to allow Korg to say "We did a new synth !" they've just added some new samples !! Big deal !! I guess it hasn't been a so hard job to add these samples.

[nitecrawler]

My interpretation of the status as I gaze into my tea leaves and burn the sage is that Korg is floating out the Nautilus to blunt the change over from the Kronos when they bring out the shiny new workstation in 2 or 3 years. This interim keyboard, Nautilus, will serve to deflect the outrage that will come from the Kronos fanbase when it is dropped. This occurred a ways back with the Oasys drop. That left a bad taste in the Oasys camp that still survives to the present day. I was one of that camp and took a journey to the PA side of Korg. My last keyboard the PA3Xle is now over five years old and has served me very well. The Nautilus will serve me as well in the future as the new workstation of the future of Korg will NOT be inexpensive in my opinion. Anyway, that is how I read the tea leaves.

[Musicwithharry]

Well, to be serious, Korg should give a look at the synth market : there are some very good new appearing brands.

When Korg is unable to produce aftertouch keyboard at a reasonable price (Prologue) :
ASM with its innovative Hydrasynth provides a polyphonic aftertouch synth at the same price,
MODAL Electronics with ARGON 8X, COBALT 8X (aftertouch 61 keys for about 760 €)
Some other brands like Novation with its high-performance synth The Summit.
The old Roland with its good Jupiter X and of course the Fantom.

Think of these two great analog Arturia synths : Matrixbrute and the new Polybrute.

Examples are numerous.

I don't know if there are components shortages but it seems that it doesn't prevent other brands from creating, producing and providing good instruments.

Perhaps, we'll like or don't like them, but all the examples I gave above are new creations. As we often said here, Nautilus is not a creation. It's a Kronos with a new makeup in a new box.
In order to allow Korg to say "We did a new synth !" they've just added some new samples !! Big deal !! I guess it hasn't been a so hard job to add these samples.

To be fair the AMS Hydrasynth and Argon X are wavetable synths. This tech has been available since the 80's. I have wavetable synthesis in my Ensoniq VFX synths from the late 80's...

The Cobalt is a VA synth.

The Summit appears to be a hybrid synth.

The Polybrute is a 6-voice analog synth.

The Maxibrute is a mono/duo synth.

If memory serves, the AMS and Modal synths are 8-voice, the Summit is 16-voice...

Many people would consider these boutique synths and yes, they have neat features. These are different than the Kronos, which still has 9 synth engines and lots of libraries.

I do not think that Korg were trying to break new ground with the Nautilus. I believe they FINALLY made a true mid-range synth. I never considered the Krome a true mid-range synth because even the Kross has features that the Krome does not have.

If Korg were to make the Nautilus their new flagship, then I think that it proves that we've been spoiled by the Kronos, in many ways. It has SO MANY features, and most of these features are not really enjoyed by any other brand. Take KARMA, for example. You will not find this on any other synth natively. You have to get the software for it for Yamaha Motif instruments. Kronos has it already built in and it is powerful and I bet 95% of users have never really gotten into programming it in depth.

How many other synths have vector synthesis?

Kronos has been a solid product since its inception and while many user feel that they've not updated it enough, it is still a solid product.

Korg have released a lot of newer gear as well and I bet that some form of them would appear in the new 'Kronos' if they do one.

Korg would have to really go back to the drawing board to make a new workstation, in my opinion. It would be hard to follow the Kronos with something brand new. It would have to be something really special and maybe they are just taking their time in getting one together. I could totally see something that includes everything the Kronos already has (because it has proven to work well), add some module stuff (like the OPsix and Modwave) and maybe a few other tricks up their sleeve. I know that an FM engine is already in the Kronos, but the OPsix looks/sounds cool and mabye offers something different in that sense. I would LOVEW to see full peripheral support from a synth manufacturer. Being able to hook up am eternal keyboard/mouse/monitor and being able to add RAM/ HDD/SSD at will would completely blur the lines between a hardware workstation and a PC-based system. THAT would be cool...

How many of us have fully utilized our current synths? Granted, I do not have a Kronos. I have many different Kross synths and I am STILL exploring what these babies can do. I have a lot of synths and exploring their true potential is something that will take time. Even my old Ensoniq VFX synths are not fully utilized fully, and I learn things about them every time I turn them on... The same can be said for all of my synths, except the slab pianos, because they are just pianos.

Grace,
Harry

[Kevbo]

I'll be honest, I don't think there will ever be another flagship from Korg. I mean, look at all the VSTs out there now, and they are amazing!

At this point, I'm leaning toward picking up an NI Komplete S88 and Komplete 13 Ultimate Collectors Edition. Granted, I am in it for the sounds, as I can do what I need on my PC and DAW.

However, for the giggin musician, though you can still go this route with a laptop, I too would be weary of that. I'd rather an all-in-one for gigging.

I think Roland, at this point, was handed the torch and will keep moving forward with their workstations. For what it is, the new Fantom does seem pretty bad ass. I think it could only get better with future upgrades.

[GregC]

The way I see it, Korg keyboard owners are roughly divided into 3 camps:

1) New owners, 1-2 years, enthusiastic, expanding their skills, getting great value, going thru a delightful extended honeymoon. with their Kronos, or Krome, etc.

Might say they are thrilled to be here, as they are very satisfied with their Korg keyboard purchase.

2) Legacy Korg keyboard owner. Have owned or still own significant Korg keyboards since late 80's and possess a current Korg keyboard product[s] , hardware , software, etc. Basically, super thrilled with Korg, emotionally satisfied, with many years or decades of Korg keyboard memories.

This camp doesn't worry much about missing or buggy support software , such as drivers, librarians, editors, inadequate documentation, inexpensive $900 synths that lack proper key beds, cost cutting gimmicks, unfulfilled Korg product promises, etc. etc.

They soldier on with their Korg products and over come whatever might be lacking with the keyboard, software product, etc. Might consider this group/camp to be the " True Blue " Korg customer. Korg can practically do no wrong from their experience. every year that Korg presents new keyboard products, they are mostly enthusiastic and often early adopters.

3) Scrutinizing/demanding Korg keyboard customer. This cautious keyboard musician who expects long term value of the high end expensive product and 100% support from Korg.
This camp thinks long term, and doesn't 'flip ' their keyboard purchase[s] every year. The phrase 'just do it and see what happens ' does not apply. They do not follow the herd. They have a bigger picture view. The expensive keyboard [ Fantom, Kronos, Montage/MODX] has to fit their specific music production requirements. There is no 'try as you go '.
Their keyboard/music production skills improve every year. Thus, after 5 years [pick a #] when their demands exceed the features of the expensive Korg keyboard, this musician/customer is demanding of Korg to step it up.

If Korg ignores these requests, they are not surprisingly, critical of Kong's non responsiveness. This demanding musician eventually goes elsewhere to satisfy his/her expanding requirements. Enthusiastic loyalty is not a factor as it was, 7-10 years ago.

Its obvious that Korg has stopped developing their flag ship Kronos. There is no doubt to me or most Kronos owners in camp #3. Its over, plain and simple.

For owners in camp #1 and #2, the non-responsiveness by Korg for 3 years
on Kronos is not a big deal. There is always next year.

And in perfect hind sight ,it might be inevitable, after 7 years
that a company like Korg turns the cash investment off on a expensive flag ship such as Kronos.

Hope you like my attempt to define the " camps ". "Camps" also exist in the Roland Fantom universe and the Yamaha Montage/MODX universe, and the many digital pianos, etc.

[ITguy54]

Well, to be serious, Korg should give a look at the synth market : there are some very good new appearing brands.

When Korg is unable to produce aftertouch keyboard at a reasonable price (Prologue) :
ASM with its innovative Hydrasynth provides a polyphonic aftertouch synth at the same price,
MODAL Electronics with ARGON 8X, COBALT 8X (aftertouch 61 keys for about 760 €)
Some other brands like Novation with its high-performance synth The Summit.
The old Roland with its good Jupiter X and of course the Fantom.

Think of these two great analog Arturia synths : Matrixbrute and the new Polybrute.

Examples are numerous.

I don't know if there are components shortages but it seems that it doesn't prevent other brands from creating, producing and providing good instruments.

Perhaps, we'll like or don't like them, but all the examples I gave above are new creations. As we often said here, Nautilus is not a creation. It's a Kronos with a new makeup in a new box.
In order to allow Korg to say "We did a new synth !" they've just added some new samples !! Big deal !! I guess it hasn't been a so hard job to add these samples.

To be fair the AMS Hydrasynth and Argon X are wavetable synths. This tech has been available since the 80's. I have wavetable synthesis in my Ensoniq VFX synths from the late 80's...

The Cobalt is a VA synth.

The Summit appears to be a hybrid synth.

The Polybrute is a 6-voice analog synth.

The Maxibrute is a mono/duo synth.

If memory serves, the AMS and Modal synths are 8-voice, the Summit is 16-voice...

Many people would consider these boutique synths and yes, they have neat features. These are different than the Kronos, which still has 9 synth engines and lots of libraries.



Grace,
Harry

You miss the point. The subject is not the synth capabilities, it’s the keyboard and lack of aftertouch. When Studiologic can put aftertouch in a $499 keyboard like the Numa Compact 2, it’s hard to reconcile Korg leaving it off the Nautilus. Maybe after the Kronos is dropped, we’ll see the same evolution with the Nautilus: Nautilus X with aftertouch, and Nautilus 2 with 9 sliders for the organ engine.

I'll be honest, I don't think there will ever be another flagship from Korg. I mean, look at all the VSTs out there now, and they are amazing!

At this point, I'm leaning toward picking up an NI Komplete S88 and Komplete 13 Ultimate Collectors Edition. Granted, I am in it for the sounds, as I can do what I need on my PC and DAW.

Maybe that’s the route Korg can take with a Kronos 3. Built in sound engines, but the ability to play any VST.

My interpretation of the status as I gaze into my tea leaves and burn the sage is that Korg is floating out the Nautilus to blunt the change over from the Kronos when they bring out the shiny new workstation in 2 or 3 years. This interim keyboard, Nautilus, will serve to deflect the outrage that will come from the Kronos fanbase when it is dropped. This occurred a ways back with the Oasys drop. That left a bad taste in the Oasys camp that still survives to the present day.

I was one of the few that predicted OASYS owners were going to get screwed in a few years. It was easy to see there would be less expensive alternatives that could do similar things. It’s sad to see OASYS owners asking so much for their instrument on eBay. They try to justify it by saying it can do things the Kronos can’t. Then I wonder why they are trying to sell their OASYS for about the price of a Kronos? If they were outraged when the Kronos came out, their heads must be exploding thinking about the Nautilus, which should drive down the real value of their OASYS.

[GregC]

[quote="ITg

[/quote]



I was one of the few that predicted OASYS owners were going to get screwed in a few years. It was easy to see there would be less expensive alternatives that could do similar things. It’s sad to see OASYS owners asking so much for their instrument on eBay. They try to justify it by saying it can do things the Kronos can’t. .[/quote]

when anyone buys an expensive keyboard or MI product from a company , I think the customer is also buying in to the ' vision ' of the manufacturer/co.

which is why I think its a good idea to study the MI company. I notice many sort of follow the herd, as in '' my fav keyboard musician has it, my friends have it, etc, so it must be great .

I don't see a Montage, Fantom, or even a Nautilus purchase to be an emotional decision.

Its expensive to swap out these keyboards every few years.

[danmusician]

The fact that Korg is releasing the Nautilus which is a scaled back workstation does not indicate to me that they see the WS as viable. Quite the opposite. They continue to milk the technology that already exists. (I don't blame them for that.)

We may get new(er) workstations which are scaled back, but I suspect that the days of flagship, try-to-do-everything workstations are behind us. Again, I will happily be proven wrong if and when Korg brings out something that replaces the Kronos.

[Docflick]

The fact that Korg is releasing the Nautilus which is a scaled back workstation does not indicate to me that they see the WS as viable. Quite the opposite. They continue to milk the technology that already exists. (I don't blame them for that.)

We may get new(er) workstations which are scaled back, but I suspect that the days of flagship, try-to-do-everything workstations are behind us. Again, I will happily be proven wrong if and when Korg brings out something that replaces the Kronos.

I think this is right on point. Evidence from Yamaha and Roland's recent "flagship" releases seem to support this position — neither the Montage nor the new Fantom, great as each might be (and I have owned both) are true "replacements" for their fully-featured Motif and previous Fantom workstations. Even with OS updates / functionality improvements, they still do not have the capabilities of their predecessors.

Now Korg might decide to do its own thing and surprise us all by releasing a new "Kronos Extreme" or whatever they will call it in 2022. A workstation beyond our wildest dreams and aspirations. I seriously doubt it, however. Like you, I see the Nautilus as simply the final iteration of Korg milking its fifteen+ year-old technology.

[19naia]

I am looking at what Roland Fantom is doing and it has me encouraged that Korg is going to be forced to step up if it has the ability to compete anymore.

Roland has started adding legacy synths to Fantom as updates, and i am still waiting to see how many synth engines they can cram in there.
Roland already set up Fantom with great polyphony, so combining various synth engines will be no quick collapse.

Korg will have to bring a workstation with a processor that can keep up with updates, polyphony and memory capacity.

Not to forget that processors just took a major leap this year with Apple bringing the M series chips that pack Pro power into their lowest category of devices.
Intel has moved now to match the Apple M series chips.
That means the obsolete i5 and i7 calibre motherboards, logic boards or whatever, will become the type of scavenger fodder companies like Korg could use to once again set the Pro workstation bar for a full decade or beyond.
And this time it would be a leap that lets software updates go farther than ever.

And it is obvious Korg has been very busy developing software versions of everything it can from its legacy collection.
So the Roland business, of putting updates of its best legacy synths into Fantom, can only be matched by Korg with the same.
Korg already has a very good head-start with making software versions of its legacy collection. All Korg has to do now is make the right hardware workstation with the right control surface for integrating everything and then an operating system to put it all to work.
Kronos already does all that, so korg will just have to do a few major hardware enhancements, operating system enhancements and then decide if it wants to rename the workstation like Roland has not been interested in doing with Fantom.

Korg will want to set the bar for a long time to come, as is the flagship legacy Korg has now. So taking its time and working up business with what it has now for worthwhile sales, then roll out the next flagship.
Also the delay gives customers time to familiarize with all the little software synth options Korg has, which will help them be more interested in a flagship synth that collects them all.
Perhaps even the next generation workstation will allow people to load and unload synth engines like plugins. Bringing in what they want and leaving out what they don’t want, in an atmosphere where Korg has quite a number of software synths to offer.
I’m not sure how practical that will be for a workstation OS, but the possibilities are out there, and Roland sure is giving some good competition.

[19naia]

My personal situation right now is no Kronos, and i miss it.
It’s in storage in Kentucky, not selling and unable to ship it.
So i got a used iMac 27inch/5k 3.3ghz, 16gb ram with Logic, then Omnisphere and Triton software.
All with a Casio 88, whatever the latest stage piano rig for $475.00 is.
That is what i got and what i paid.
Something to keep my fingers in shape while i languish in survival mode during the Pandemic.

Aside from the iMac breaking down on me and costing a preliminary estimate of over $700 to fix, i am not flowing with the DAW atmosphere.
It doesn’t work for me like the workstation atmosphere does. So my creativity is stumped by all the distraction in the depth of the computer, where it is much more than a music making machine.
Digging through files for music stuff and stumbling over files for photos and then which drive has what, after the install decided for itself which drive it wants.
Add to that- that i still have to learn the computer environment amid my regular day to day projects away from music and the computer.

So i didn’t even turn the computer or Casio on for well over a month, then went to turn the computer on and it was dead.
They said a sticky coffee smelling substance was inside and tracking from intake at the fan......and i don’t even drink coffee. Must be powdered coffee from the package i was making to send as a gift of Hawaii coffee to someone.
Now costing me $700 in repairs for a $40 package and shipping event that involved coffee that i don’t even drink.

So all that moaning is about why i prefer to have a flagship Korg and preferably a new improved evolution to set the bar for another decade to come.

My hope is still the flagship Workstation and then computer based synths like spectrasonics offerings for adding spice to my workstation experience.
Workstation keeps me in that atmosphere with no mixup about which disk space has what, nor issues navigating a system that can take me somewhere that has nothing to do with making music, and then suck me deep into that distraction and deeper than i can handle.

Also my hopes that computer based synths would offer me synth sounds to match or exceed what i am missing from kronos, those hopes were lost even with Omnisphere. Omnisphere is its own genre of sound that does not compare to Kronos sounds. Makes a good compliment to Kronos sounds, but is terrible at replacing most Kronos sounds.
And the flagship workstations are only going to get phatter with wider selection of all the best synths put into software form.

Only way Korg is going to ditch the flagship heritage, is if their business is unable to support continued development of big deals like that.
How is Korg anyway? As far as business goes. Debt? Profitable?

[Track 7]

@19naia, you are not alone in your frustration with computers. Every couple of years I think about going back to a DAW and end up sticking with my Kronos. The Nautilus for me is looking like a tempting second workstation, though if we knew Korg had a new flagship coming soon, I'd wait for it. Probably for now I'll just stay the course and see what happens.

@Liviou2004, I too thought of Captain Nemo when I heard about the Nautilus. I know the story well, and the ending you refer to portrays a defect in Nemo's tortured psyche, the grief and fury of losing his family. His Nautilus, on the other hand, is a marvel of high technology for the times (1860s) with amazing capabilities. It even has a room on board with Nemo's pipe organ, which he plays passionately on only the black keys. Lots of depth to that story, and I suppose lots of depth in the new Korg machine too.

@GregC, nice analysis of the Korg user camps. I guess I'm somewhere between 2 and 3.