Flagship upgrades

[ChrisDuncan]

Hi, kronoSphere. No, I'm not sure. Just a guess.

When the OASYS came out, there was nothing close to it. Yamaha and Roland were clearly inspired by it and Kronos. Now, the shiny UI designs of the Montage M and Fantom have surpassed the recent Korgs. I can't see Korg sitting idle for 5 more years.

I still think the Nautilus does more than the Yamaha and Roland, at half the price. But, the look of those two. Wow.

Over coffee this morning I was looking at the history of Yamaha and Korg synths from the Motif / Oasys era onward. The typical progression is to announce a new line and then in subsequent years it's Gizmo X followed by Gizmo XABC, then Gizmo Extreme!, etc.

That got me thinking. I wonder if Korg has chosen an interesting and unexpected battle strategy. Remember, Samurai mentality still runs through the veins of the Japanese (Yamaha's logo is a "mon," the symbol of the daimyo / clan in ancient times, cleverly made out of three tuning forks).

The standard approach is to release your new flagship line with full horsepower, and then release a "flagship lite" at a lower cost. Then, over the years, they iterate on the flagship to give it more power, e.g. Kronos X, Kronos 2, etc.

While it's running on newer / more powerful hardware, Nautilus can be considered "flagship lite" in terms of both features and the competitive price. You know the Nautilus line will see iterative improvements. What if they released the flagship lite first, something to compete with the Fantom-0 and ModX, to guage reaction, and then follow up with a full scale flagship release with a price comparable to Yamaha and Roland flagships, but with whatever new full on horsepower Korg comes up with to one up them?

Never forget that despite coming together for MIDI, these guys are competitors in the global marketplace, and business is war. Competitors would expect Korg to release their next flagship offering and them make their moves accordingly. If this was a fake out to get competitors to react to a lesser offering (much like a feint in fighting), it would indeed be an unexpected battle strategy, and the kind of thinking I would certainly expect from Samurai.

All of this is pure speculation, of course. This is what happens when I engage my brain before I've had sufficient coffee in the morning.

[BlackForest]

I think so, too. Just look at the new PA5x. There's so much stuff on it, am sure there's a new flagship in the making. With round robin etc.
Most car manufacturers have a flagship, S-class, 7 series etc. just to be/stay top positioned and underline their claim to be part of the top class.
The money making comes from the smaller models.

[HardSync]

As we're speculating and having a little bit of fun, let's all imagine a new Korg workstation that runs on a Raspberry Pi instead of an Intel chipset and custom boards, etc. How much can Korg R&D squeeze out of a $40 Raspberry Pi? There's even a 7" Raspberry Pi color touchscreen.

This isn't a serious post. Please don't take it as one.

But this is a serious marketing article about Korg using Raspberry Pi boards for their latest synths and it contains a bit of Korg workstation history and issues: https://www.raspberrypi.com/success-sto ... thesizers/

Nothing mentioned about samurai culture though... sorry, Chris. ;)

[ChrisDuncan]

The money making comes from the smaller models.

And that may well be a part of what Korg is thinking. More people can afford a Nautilus than a Montage M.

[ChrisDuncan]

Nothing mentioned about samurai culture though... sorry, Chris.

It's possible that Korg was thinking like a Samurai, but it's equally possible that I'm just crazy.

The smart money's on crazy.

[ITguy54]

And then there's Korg. However, instead of offering new and improved hardware and signficant new features over the Kronos, like Yamaha did with the M, they went the opposite direction. They released the Nautilus, which was a downgrade (poly aftertouch notwithstanding) and basically serves as the direct competitor to the ModX, i.e. "flagship lite." And I think for that line of keyboards it's probably a great instrument. An upgrade from the Kronos, however, it is not.

I bought the M, and I bought the Fantom, but I didn't buy the Nautilus. I don't care that much about poly aftertouch and I already have a Kronos, which is essentially the big brother.

The Nautilus does NOT have poly aftertouch. Neither does the Kronos.

[ChrisDuncan]

The Nautilus does NOT have poly aftertouch. Neither does the Kronos.

Ah, right, my bad.

I remembered aftertouch being a thing when it was first released and now realize that it was the lack of it, remedied by the AT model if memory serves.

[voip]

And then there's Korg. However, instead of offering new and improved hardware and signficant new features over the Kronos, like Yamaha did with the M, they went the opposite direction. They released the Nautilus, which was a downgrade (poly aftertouch notwithstanding) and basically serves as the direct competitor to the ModX, i.e. "flagship lite." And I think for that line of keyboards it's probably a great instrument. An upgrade from the Kronos, however, it is not.

I bought the M, and I bought the Fantom, but I didn't buy the Nautilus. I don't care that much about poly aftertouch and I already have a Kronos, which is essentially the big brother.

The Nautilus does NOT have poly aftertouch. Neither does the Kronos.

The sound engines of both boards respond to poly aftertouch, via MIDI In, even though their keybeds don't generate poly aftertouch data.

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[ITguy54]

And then there's Korg. However, instead of offering new and improved hardware and signficant new features over the Kronos, like Yamaha did with the M, they went the opposite direction. They released the Nautilus, which was a downgrade (poly aftertouch notwithstanding) and basically serves as the direct competitor to the ModX, i.e. "flagship lite." And I think for that line of keyboards it's probably a great instrument. An upgrade from the Kronos, however, it is not.

I bought the M, and I bought the Fantom, but I didn't buy the Nautilus. I don't care that much about poly aftertouch and I already have a Kronos, which is essentially the big brother.

The Nautilus does NOT have poly aftertouch. Neither does the Kronos.

The sound engines of both boards respond to poly aftertouch, via MIDI In, even though their keybeds don't generate poly aftertouch data.

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I know that. But the keyboards of both instruments have channel aftertouch.

[ChrisDuncan]

The sound engines of both boards respond to poly aftertouch, via MIDI In, even though their keybeds don't generate poly aftertouch data.

When you say "both boards," do you mean the Nautilus and Nautilus AT, or the Nautilus and Kronos?

Poly aftertouch isn't something that's called for in most of what I do, but it would be interesting if the Kronos had it. My recollection was that it was just channel aftertouch, but I could certainly be wrong about that.

[voip]

The Nautilus (AT and non-AT) and Kronos, both respond to incoming channel aftertouch, and poly aftertouch MIDI data. It's in the specifications, somewhere.

PS - the MIDI implementation, on the penultimate page of the Operations Guide, mentions this. Poly aftertouch is also transmitted, but only if it has been laid down as sequencer data.

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[ChrisDuncan]

Cool, and good to know. Thanks!

[HardSync]

The Nautilus (AT and non-AT) and Kronos, both respond to incoming channel aftertouch, and poly aftertouch MIDI data. It's in the specifications, somewhere.

PS - the MIDI implementation, on the penultimate page of the Operations Guide, mentions this. Poly aftertouch is also transmitted, but only if it has been laid down as sequencer data.

.

i was just going to point out where to find it, but saw you amended your post. I would have added something close to: "It's in that truly mysterious and terribly frightening thing that perhaps 10% of users look at or search inside of it for answers."

Before the ubiquity of the Internet and long before such things as YouTube instruction vids, that thing was the most valuable scary thing. And even crazier, when I needed help on how MIDI stuff worked in general, I went to an actual library for books on it because the people working in music stores couldn't help me and none of my friends played keyboards. Now though... instant info 24/7 on the interwebz. And still, who has time these days for searching for answers when you make a forum post with the same topic that 200 people or more have made before you? Right?

I tease of course. Mostly...

Anyway, those charts were actual gold back before the war... erm, I mean Internet. The Parameter Guide also has info on what is transmitted and received, but not that chart. We used to get the full MIDI spec in manuals once upon a time too. But then it all got too complicated, and now Korg typically releases a separate guide for that, but only on certain products.

Btw, I have tried manually inserting PAFT data into hardware sequencers. I cannot recommend it.

[ChrisDuncan]

I would have added something close to: "It's in that truly mysterious and terribly frightening thing that perhaps 10% of users look at or search inside of it for answers."

Yeah, if it was something I was actually interested in I'd do the RTFM thing (although these days I guess it's WTFV), but it was mostly just intellectual curiosity in the course of conversation.

The MIDI implementation chart is invaluable when you want to know what, precisely, does a gizmo do. it's usually my go to after spending time asking why something isn't transmitted / received, etc. and even sometimes if I'm smart enough to check before going down the rabbit hole in the first place. Although I do love rabbits.

[voip]

The Kronos MIDI Implementation is also downloadable separately, from the Korg support website, as a .zip archive, containing 16 separate files, dealing with just about every aspect of the Kronos that can be controlled via MIDI. Essential bedtime reading, methinks ;-) Only joking about the bedtime reading.

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