1st reaction to Italian F Grand

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 7:53 pm

IMO it is the best piano that the Kronos has to offer. First we know people will always hear things different and have different opinions.

I played the Kronos pianos last night for mostly piano and it got lost in the mix a little for me. I use mostly the German Grand in a rock and blues setting last night.

Hard to tell just using the demo but I liked the piano and I have thought pianos were the weak link just my opinion. Still on the fence about paying that price>

Thoughts from anyone else would be appreciated!

Have a wonderful day!

Benny

Galf2 · Post by **Galf2** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 8:52 pm

Yes, Italian Grand is an excellent piano. I will definitely buy it when Korg adds additional free user banks to the Kronos, otherwise I have no place to push the PCG file, there is no free space in banks.

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:16 pm

I will delete the Berlin Grand I guess if I buy.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:41 pm

benny ray wrote:IMO it is the best piano that the Kronos has to offer. First we know people will always hear things different and have different opinions.

I played the Kronos pianos last night for mostly piano and it got lost in the mix a little for me. I use mostly the German Grand in a rock and blues setting last night.

Hard to tell just using the demo but I liked the piano and I have thought pianos were the weak link just my opinion. Still on the fence about paying that price>

Thoughts from anyone else would be appreciated!

Have a wonderful day!

Benny

Good topic, Benny.

I am on the fence with the Italian. The 10 second delay is a hindrance for me.

As soon as I get into it- gone. I will have to work around it more.

I always look forward to Korg programming. In this case, its good but not enough of it. I was hoping for more adventurous programming , splits /layers.

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:54 pm

Yea by the time I am hitting a good it goes silent but no doubt the best piano to date from Korg IMO!

It seems to cut like much more than the other pianos from what I can tell from just the demo.

I really want the IP but I have the 88 key and wanting a 73 key because age is becoming a factor in moving keyboards.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:55 pm

Galf2 wrote:Yes, Italian Grand is an excellent piano. I will definitely buy it when Korg adds additional free user banks to the Kronos, otherwise I have no place to push the PCG file, there is no free space in banks.

that is a problem in terms of convenience. And keeping custom combis mapped correctly.

Kid Nepro has an excellent doc on bank mgmt.

In addition, and this might be unthinkable for some, but I am over writing factory programs- esp the pop song stuff. At this stage, I am not interested in about half of the cover songs. And I can always re-load them from the factory PCG

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:05 pm

benny ray wrote:Yea by the time I am hitting a good it goes silent but no doubt the best piano to date from Korg IMO!

It seems to cut like much more than the other pianos from what I can tell from just the demo.

I really want the IP but I have the 88 key and wanting a 73 key because age is becoming a factor in moving keyboards.

You are right, the IG has a sharpness to it , in a good way. I esp like the lower and upper register. Its the middle section I have to get sold on- it would help if I could record it but the decay, etc etc etc

I am also tossing around a more mobile Kronos keyboard. Contemplating some 1 man band stuff and the schlep factor is a big challenge. I don't know if I can find or hire 2 or 3 enthusiastic roadies.

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:21 pm

Yea the bass notes sound really clean and the most even piano to date from Korg. BTW I was looking at my preload and the EX 12 are still there which is the Austrian Grand guess I should delete that and that would leave almost enough room for IG. At the time way back I just deleted that bank because I wasn't buying an AG. I think I am right on deleting the EX12 Austrian Grand and it shows on preload list of samples?

The file management can be confusing at times I know.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 10:43 pm

benny ray wrote:Yea the bass notes sound really clean and the most even piano to date from Korg. BTW I was looking at my preload and the EX 12 are still there which is the Austrian Grand guess I should delete that and that would leave almost enough room for IG. At the time way back I just deleted that bank because I wasn't buying an AG. I think I am right on deleting the EX12 Austrian Grand and it shows on preload list of samples?

The file management can be confusing at times I know.

I would not delete Austrian grand samples- I also see them in the EXi SGX2 piano list. I never noticed them before.

Its possible Korg is using the Austrian samples in the IG. This sounds weird , of course and likely I am incorrect.

Lets wait for the masters of SGX2 to weigh in

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:31 pm

If my memory serves me correct they were loaded as samples to purchase the Austrian Grand. But at the time I just overwrote the AG with other patches and never deleted the EXS. Sounds right but not really sure either.

Would free up 6 GB for loading something new hopefully!

Yes that what caught my attention is that are were loaded from the factory for purchase and I have no AG so I see no reason that you cannot delete the EX12 AG from Preload list of EXS and would free up more space. Will wait for somone that has done this before I do anything.

Synthee · Post by **Synthee** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:33 pm

I checked now, and I can see both Austrian and Italian F Piano in SGX-2, though I never installed either of them.
No sounds on them of course.

But I agree that the Italian F sounds great on the soundcloud demo.

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Sun Mar 10, 2019 11:50 pm

I play the Italian grand since some days, and it sounds so balanced and sits so well in the mix, that it has become my go to piano in no time. I have some excellent software pianos on my PC, but I don't really need to load them into Kontakt (or Keyscape) any longer, if I just want to play some piano, write a piano part or record piano into a mix. In rare cases the Italian will be replaced later, but to me it just sounds and feels very musical, has variations covering a lot of ground and different styles, and simply works well in a very musical way to me.

To make room for it and some other keyboard stuff, I kicked off all Pianos except the Italian (which replaces my German Grand) and the Berlin, which has a somewhat more edgy character. With these two, I get all my grand piano needs covered quite well.

And yes, I also got rid of both the Kronos rock drums and the jazz drums libraries to free up space, because the Ricky Lawson Drums are all I need for some drumming on board. Despite quite a packed Kronos memory, I had no problems integrating the Italian this way, and even got a bit more RAM room left for new stuff now than before. Concentrating on essentials - opposed to keeping all options available, just in case - always is the better choice for real music making IMHO. There's just too much out there nowadays, and you can eternally search and tweak sounds and samples, before even getting to any real playing and recording.

For the Kronos: just use the Italian Grand, and you are just playing, instead of wasting too much time with searching and tweaking, as far as I can tell after the first days of use.

benny ray · Post by **benny ray** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 12:13 am

Thanks for the info so you just deleted the EX17s for BG from preload folder and done?

matro · Post by **matro** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 1:23 am

Synthee wrote:I checked now, and I can see both Austrian and Italian F Piano in SGX-2, though I never installed either of them.
No sounds on them of course.

But I agree that the Italian F sounds great on the soundcloud demo.

Heard somewhere that the 3.1.3 update added the Italien F "awareness" to the Kronos. You need to download and install it though to get the sound...

Sam CA · Post by **Sam CA** » Mon Mar 11, 2019 1:42 am

Is this the new piano that comes with the Kronos SE?

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1st reaction to Italian F Grand

1st reaction to Italian F Grand

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