Korg Forums

Hi,

I have had an 88-key 0asys for over 5 years. For a while now, I've been just a click away from buying the K. I've been dithering. I'm really concerned about the sound quality. I know this is a very subjective matter. I've read about the K's early keybed issues. I'm concerned about the number of piano samples in the K-are they really necessary at the expense of perhaps introducing additional orchestral instruments (my particular choice!). I have assumed that the Kronos 2 is fairly solid now.

(1) Why did you as an O user decide for musical reasons to cross over to the K (something 'different' is not necessarily 'better' and sometimes 'progress' in not necessarily 'better' either: actually 'better' can mean anything to anybody!)

(2) Having crossed over, what to you have been the benefits over the O of this to you--musically?

(3) What (apart from the external features of the O--which I find irresistable every time I sit in front of it) do you wish had been transfered over to the K?

My particular concern (in fact to be honest it's the only concern) is the sonic quality of the K. For the sake of argument, assume I have good quality speakers. As an O user in the past, how has the K shaped up in this area. If I could find a music store here in the West Midlands of the UK that's got a K to demo, I'd be over jamming it but so far I've not succeeded.

There we are....... This is aimed at O users now K users.

Thanks for getting this far!!

Patrick

Disclaimer: I have never owned an Oasys and only played it a few times. But I was here when the K was released and there was a lot of discussion on the difference in sound quality from a technical aspect, including input from Dan from Korg and sound examples from several users.

Some conclusions:
The Kronos, for identical sounds, uses the same uncompressed samples in HD1.
The Kronos uses the same DAC chips as the Oasys. (confirmed by Dan)
Kronos presets, even where they have the same names as their Oasys counterparts, may have been slightly tweaked/updated for the Kronos, which explains the initial (small) differences some people heard on first comparison. (confirmed by Dan)

The Kronos software architecture has been updated to accommodate for the dual core Atom chip as opposed to the single core Pentium in the Oasys. This has no effect on the actual result of the calculations done however, meaning the same preset won't sound different just because of that. (my recollection from the discussion, I think Dan confirmed this)

I'll leave the rest of the commenting about the different engines/soundsets to actual Oasys users. The Oasys control surface is wonderful of course

I traded my Oasys to get a Kronos only months after it was released. These are my answers to your questions Methusala:

1. For me it was very important to have the seamless switching between combi's/programs and the extra piano Exi's, as I use MANY combi's per song in live situations and HATE it when you have unwanted pauses. A non-musical reason was that Korg stopped supporting the OASYS, no new OS-updates were expected.

2. Especially the electric piano's are better. The acoustic ones on the Kronos somehow don't appeal to me that much. I still play often with the Stereo Concertpiano which I think was also available on the Oasys. Unforeseen benefit was the possibility to make sample userbanks. This is not posisble in the Oasys. Really great, although I still struggle with sample management and I am terribly afraid that if one day my Kronos fails, my homemade userbank backups will not be transferrable. (I spent many hours trying to understand the manual and other tips, but i can't figure it out, I find Korg support on this simply not good enough for pro's);

3. I wish they had put the pads on board (I now have this ugly nanopad on the Kronos hood).

Concerning the sound quality: never heard any difference.

I must say that when I unpacked the Kronos, I felt a certain disappointment because of the building quality as compared to the Oasys. The dial button feels cheap, the monitor is really smaller (however you forget that pretty quickly). I also miss a few inputs (I use them for example to use the Kronos FX for other keyboards, such as the Moog Voyager, which has no FX on board). Now the limit to the amount of external boards is a disadvantage of the Kronos compared to the Oasys.

Honestly: I don't regret my decision but I do miss the "top of the world" feeling the Oasys gave me.

Thanks.

I perhaps should have said that I don't use the O in live situations: nor would I the K. I don't gig. I just sit there. Record, tweak, get thoroughly absorbed in what I'm doing, etc etc. Put everything in to Cubase as my external DAW. Layer or suppliment with VSTs; but it's all Oasys based at the end of the day. I realise that different approaches apply depending on whether you gig or not--seemless switching must be a God send.

Very interested to hear from you all so quickly.

Parick

O yeah, forgot to say: I also traded my Oasys because it's so heavy compared to the Kronos

I had my Oasys for 10 years since 2005. When I saw the first Kronos I just laughed because I felt it was so low-quality compared to the Oasys.

When the Kronos 2 came out I went to my Music dealer and tried it out and I must say Korg finally did a good job on the Oasys 2, that is what I would call it.

+
Sound quality, new sample libraries, zone buttons, set list.

-
No pads (what !!!), small screen

Believe me I really hesitated to get rid of my Oasys because still after 10 years the sound quality is amazing. None of the competitors are even close. But now I have had my Kronos 2 for a year and am really happy about the build quality and the sound quality is amazing. I have transferred all my Oasys sounds without issues and bought a couple of additional sample libraries as well.

MW,

Just a quick reply. Out of curiosity,what method did you use to trasnsfer the Oasys sounds across?

Patrick

methusala wrote:Just a quick reply. Out of curiosity,what method did you use to trasnsfer the Oasys sounds across?

USB stick or drive. Here is an example of that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJf5ik-YvfM


Kronos can load OASYS PCG (and other) files. One reason I got the Kronos was so that my personal samples, along with KARO String and Orchestral libraries would always be there at load up.

The SSD virtual memory allows the unit to play from many libraries, at the same time. No more worring about whether or not you should have EXs3 loaded, along with EXs1 and 2. With the Kronos, you can have EXs1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...., plus your other sample libraries, all at the same time.

I still use my OASYS extensively, because I love that big tilt screen and rubber pads. I run an S/P DIF cable from it into the Kronos.