TJ Cornish

You may have taken my post as criticism/pushback - I'm sorry if that's the case - it's not my intent, and not your job to defend the software world; I was just curious if you had some first-hand experience with limitations of hardware synths. I have PTSD from working with a hipster - there are things I associate with the "cool" factor rather than any musical advantage, e.g. using a Shure SM7 studio microphone live, or as mentioned above, taking a $4000 Nord directly into Mainstage because it's red, and that's what the big churches use, even though a $600 midi controller would do the same thing. In my personal experience these things are often done to compensate for talent deficiency, and represent really poor stewardship of church funds. Thanks for your replies - they are appreciated!

I ran Mainstage on a 2016 15" top-spec 16GB RAM Macbook Pro with all samples stored on the system SSD (in 2016 when I was attempting Mainstage work), so it would have been hard to have had a more powerful Mac for Mainstage. I played around with aliases. There was some limitation I'm forgetting now - maybe controller values didn't change when switching patches so after a patch change I had to run all my sliders up and down to catch the values and get where I needed to go. I don't remember, but aliases weren't a magic bullet. I actually really like a Wurly patch on the Kronos. The only thing I use Keyscape for is the piano. The Kronos pianos all are either gutless in the low mids and/or have weird honks in the midrange. The Keyscape piano is super well behaved and sits way better in the mix. It just sounds so much richer. I wasn't in love with the PC3 KB3 mode/Leslie sim. I think the Kronos is better than the PC3 was - at least to the level of tweaking I did on the PC3 at the time, but obviously haven't heard the Forte to know what they've done to it. I have a Hammond XK-5 so for gigs where it's worth dragging two boards I'm sorted, but I do occasionally do some organ on the Kronos. One thing my Oasys had which the Forte also has but the Kronos doesn't are the LED ladders on the faders to show you what value they are at. You can see this on the Kronos screen in Combi mode, but you can't see it in Set List mode unless you hit the control page, which you then have to switch back from to select the next song. My kingdom for motorized faders!!

Thank you all for the information. Some of this is what I was afraid to hear - it's still a PC3 on steroids. I may try to find a used one, otherwise it probably would be wise for me to wait for the Fivete. Aellison62 - I'm interested to hear what you think requires a software setup. I tried very hard to like Mainstage a few years ago, but was unsuccessful. Between obscene RAM usage when changing patches in a show (patches load new copies of the plug-ins unless you add them globally which creates other problems), lousy multiple MIDI channel capabilities, and DIY legos that are hard to reuse, poor patch management, and crashing, I found it a mess. I know Mainstage and Ableton are popular (along with using a Nord as a $4000 MIDI controller), but I apparently haven't discovered the magic. The Kronos isn't perfect either - the rigid bank structure is a bit of a pain, but the all-in-one appliance model of the Kronos or any other pro keyboard makes in my experience a more reliable and predictable system. My church work sounds very similar to yours. There are a couple songs where I have had a little trouble recreating a sound on the Kronos, but that's the extreme minority; if anything I think a lot of worship music synth sounds are pretty basic and well within the capability of he Kronos. I would love to know what I'm missing. Right now I use Omnisphere as the host for Keyscape as it works like a simple multitimbral sound module - exactly what I want with the Kronos doing all of the splits/layers, etc. I used to use Mainstage, but the setup to be able to receive on different MIDI channels and get everything routed where it needed to go was onerous and unreliable even on a pretty highly-spec'd machine. I haven't looked seriously at Mainstage in about 3 years, so maybe it's better now. I hope I don't come across as defensive - that's not my intention in the least; I just clearly don't understand the appeal of the software world even after I have given it what I think is a pretty fair go. I would sincerely love your perspective. TJ

I've had a long-time on and off relationship with Kurzweil - I've owned a K2600, PC2 and PC2R, and a PC3X. For most of the last 15 years I have been playing Korg - first the Oasys, and now Kronos. I am very familiar with the Korg workflow and love the flexibility, but I don't like the piano sound. Right now I'm using a bunch of external junk and running an audio interface and Keyscape. It sounds great, but it's a pain to lug that junk. I've listened to some Forte demos and think the pianos are very nice - Kurzweil has always been pretty good at those. What has caused me to sell my Kurz gear twice now in the past is the absolute PITA that multimbral setup has been. I'm curious if that is improved in the Forte. My Kronos workflow is the following: - I dig through the patch library, find what I like, tweak to taste, and note down. - Go to Combi (aka setup) mode, call up my template combi that has some global effects (reverb/delay) and a click track routed to an aux output - Use the Copy from Program function to pull in my patches to the combi setup. This automatically brings over the effects from the program (within the EFX slot capability of the board) - Save the combi - In set list mode, make an object for the combi - Arrange the set list objects into a show file for one button recall of setups. How much of this is similar on the Forte? I recall from my PC3X that there is a similar "copy from program to combi" function, but as the PC3X had only like 8 fx blocks, it rarely was enough for even a 4-layer combi. Is there a "set list" mode? Is there an easy way to get a click track? I'm frustrated that Korg hasn't released anything material since 2013 or so. I realize the Forte platform is 5 years old, too, so some of this is probably GAS, but I'm also looking for a board for my church to use and I'm struggling to recommend a Kronos due to how long it's been around (new paint jobs don't count as product development). I'm a fairly technical user, but VAST has defeated me in the past, while I've had no trouble getting what I want out of the Kronos including analog synth patch creation from scratch, so that makes me a little afraid that I'm in for a third round of less-than-complete satisfaction from team Kurz, and makes me concerned that the other players at my church will not get any farther into the thing than a simple piano/pad setup. Thanks for any input on the above ramblings. TJ