spottingjonah wrote:Vlad,
No offense intended. I’m a huge Korg fan. My old X3 was the best keyboard I ever owned as far as inspiration and how much use I got out of it. I’ve owned an N264, a Triton, a Triton Studio, and now a Kronos. The Korg workflow is what I am most use to and prefer. Love the sounds and the flexibility.
Maybe Gimmick was a poor choice of words (Didn’t think that would stand out to anyone), but IMHO (and I can’t stress that enough – it is just my silly opinion) what I mean is two things –
1) The use of pictures for instruments a la V-Drums or SN Acoustic. I know what a piano looks like (oooh, look, the lid goes up and down), and I don’t need to look at choir singers for a vocal pad. Enough with the instrument photos. It’s a professional instrument, not a grade school music book.
2) The different Synth engines is a bit much. I get the concept, but the marketing makes it sound like so much more than what it really is – 9 plug ins. They’re nice, don’t get me wrong, but I’d prefer a single programming workflow with all of the available synth engine options verses having multiple workflows that you have to learn. I’m not a “programmer” so I’m sure I’m missing something here, but from my perspective it seems a bit overblown. Like a bit of a gimmick (again, maybe a bad choice of words). I just wish they had spent more time on the build quality and less on the GUI features (Wow, look, it’s like a real patch cord!!), but that’s just me.
Now, I’m sure there are many of you just waiting to pounce on how wrong I am. Fair enough. Just be mindful – I don’t need any help convincing me that my opinion doesn’t matter. I’m fully aware of that. So pounce gently. After all… this isn’t the Korg forum. This is for the up coming Roland workstation that I anxiously wait for :-) In the mean, I continue to really enjoy my Kronos, gimmicks and all.
BTW Vlad, how's that V Synth working out? I'm jealous!!
Hey spottingjonah,
The V is is like that love affair you hope is frozen in time forever. :) I LOVE it and my mind is reeling at the possibilities.
As for the Kronos, no offense taken! I'm not a Korg employee, and in fact, four of my eight instrumen ts are Rolands! (Two Korgs, a Kurzweil, and a Yamaha round it out).
As for the pics, well, look to the Fantom X. ;) Afraid we can't put the blame on Korg solely for that.
Synthesis wise, and this is just my opinion, even if they are "plugins", they are powerful plugins and provide serious synthesis approaches with amazing sound. Now, I am not knocking the Fantom's synthesis capabilities. After all Roland has has years of getting their architecture down from the XV series through all three Fantoms. The architecture is polished, and in fact in terms of sequencing, I prefer the sequencer on my Fantom X. But the synthesizer and sampling components of Kronos really do blow the Fantom out of the water:
Fantom FA-76, Fantom S, Fantom X, Xa: PCM based
Fantom G: ARX which COULD have blown Kronos out of the galaxy as each ARX card was essentially another engine. Roland dropped the ball.
Kronos/OASYS: AL-1 generates waveforms; they are not sampled.
Kronos/OASYS: Physical modeling in STR-1
Kronos: hybrid PCM/modeling for EP-1
Sampling: The only hardware sampler that offers user streaming samples is Kronos, and that along with SGX-1 blows the ceiling of the paradigm of thinking in terms of megabytes. Not to knock Yamaha, but 755 MB of waveforms and flash memory isn't exactly worth the deep dent Yamaha places on one's bank account. Given the choice, I would, for the same price as an XF, take a Fantom G any day of the week.
Sequencing: Fantom X and G all the way. In fact, the Fantom G owners have a KILLER sequencer.
To sum up: I think the Fantom X, G, and Kronos/OASYS are SERIOUSLY powerful workstations. The only reason I didn't buy a G at the time was that it was fraught with glaring omissions of features that were present on the X.
To Mystic: My post was never meant to state that the G is "limited" in synthesis. I'll assume you were answering someone else. I still have an X and I have found it to be a very capable synth in fact and it seems that at least was carried over to the G. That said, even forgetting the synthesis capabilities, or rather TYPES of synthesis on Kronos, TRUE FM for example which even Kurzweil has to fudge, having played the V-Synth, there is no way that the G or the X can match the V in terms of pure synthesis. Yet, Roland might have done well by including a "V-Synth III" on the G instead of ARX. Just my opinion of course.
As I stated, I zeroed in on the "heavy dose of gimmicks" phrase from spottingjonah and I was curious. Now I understand what he meant, and in the end, it's all good. What's important is what works for each of us as musicians. I know guitar players that would touch a Les Paul to save their lives and still others that think Strats are crap; courses for horses as they say.
I would guess that except for one person who wanted this thread to be locked, that many of us share a strong desire to see Roland produce a killer workstation. I have four Rolands for a reason and it isn't because they are cheap, and this coming from a Kronos player. ;)
Best to all and sorry if I didn't communicate effectively.
Vlad