New Gear Predictions for 2023??

[jeffincltnc]

Welll... I'm a couple days late to the party, but "Happy New Year!" and welcome to 2023.

 

Just wondered if anyone has any predictions to make on what new gear you think we will see this year?

 

Something that might be in the works... the new "it" thing that we will suddenly be GASing for...

 

Because if there's one thing we know, it's that this can't be all the gear that there is....

 

So... I'll throw one out there.  I think there will be a Nord Stage 4 and maybe also a Nord Grand 2.  I don't think these will be bold, game changing things, but I think at least one of these will be on its way before the ball drops for the next New Years Eve.

 

Maybe a Kurzweil 2700 in a smaller semi weighted synth package that would be just a little more movable to gig with....

 

What else?

[HammondDave]

I am jonesing for a pyrotechnic accordion. 

[David Emm]

Forty-seven new things will appear and I'll lightly jones for twelve of them. Of the twelve, I can't afford seven, which aren't practical in any case. I'll already own proven versions of three others, just with less colorful GUIs. Of the remaining two, one will most likely just interfere with my work as my foolishness catches up with my GAS. The last candidate will bug me for a month and then Cherry Audio will make another sale. 

[David Emm]

P.S. The entire industry will enter a phase that more clearly shows the damage to (or recovery of) various things related to the chip shortage. We'll continue to be drawn into the political and supply-chain aspects, wondering if poor Behringer will ever release its Chroma.

[ElmerJFudd]

Well, Roland is in holding pattern on Zenology hardware.  Fantom, Fantom-0, Jupiter and Juno X are fairly recent.  Likely more Cloud models or boutique-like stuff.  
 

Yamaha is overdue to do something with AN-X and CK trademarks.  I hope to see firmware updates continue for YC and CP line.  What will they do with Montage?  Beef it up with firmware? a lot of it has already trickled into MODX.  Will Yamaha ever do their own “Legends” as software or leave everyone else to cannibalize that? 
 

Korg was churning out raspberry pi synths that didn’t seem to sell well?  Then they released those engines as software. What do they do post Kronos?  Nautilus seems to be a stop gap.  
 

 

[drawback]

13 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Yamaha is overdue to do something with AN-X engine and CK trademark.

There was speculation here that CK could stand for "Controller Keyboard." That I'd like to see...

[Mighty Motif Max]

I’m also going to say a Nord Stage 4. Been reading a lot of posts over at the Nord User Forum and that seems the most likely to me, with some sort of a Grand revision being possible as well. But I think a Stage 4 is more likely to happen first given the file definitions for a Stage 4 model being added already.

 

Hopefully it will drop the Stage 3 prices this year. Although some places are keeping the lower price for now (I did see a few weeks back that one could get a brand new Stage 3 88 for approx. $3,600 between the holiday discount and a 15% off coupon). 
 

Also hopefully the Anyma Omega hits the market this fall.

[ElmerJFudd]

2 hours ago, Mighty Motif Max said:

I’m also going to say a Nord Stage 4. Been reading a lot of posts over at the Nord User Forum and that seems the most likely to me, with some sort of a Grand revision being possible as well. But I think a Stage 4 is more likely to happen first given the file definitions for a Stage 4 model being added already.

 

Hopefully it will drop the Stage 3 prices this year. Although some places are keeping the lower price for now (I did see a few weeks back that one could get a brand new Stage 3 88 for approx. $3,600 between the holiday discount and a 15% off coupon). 
 

Also hopefully the Anyma Omega hits the market this fall.

Stage 3s are advertised this week as “$1100 off”, “$299 off”.   I haven’t paid attention to pricing of late because it’s all out of whack with inflation.  But is $4100 a good price for a Stage 3 88?  I don’t even know.  

[nursers]

This could be the year of the true Kronos replacement BUT only if the chip shortage issues resolve, which may be wishful thinking...

 

 

Then there will be the MODX 6/7/8  ++  which will be the same as the MODX + except it will have more GM handclaps

[Delaware Dave]

Since GSI discontinued the Gemini expansion format for the DMC-122 I won't be seeing the DMC-76 single manual semi-weighted board with that module built in.  Still pissed off about it....

[Nathanael_I]

A Nord Grand2 would probably get some meager upgrade to RAM and maybe another piano sample for the Nord Library?  Dunno, unless they put an even better Kawai action in it, or an SSD to hold multi-GB samples, it won't mean much to me.  Maybe the bag could cost less than $1K!

 

I don't primarily use their pianos, but use it to play software instruments that are far more capable than the Nord Library.  The big deal with the Nord Grand is that it plays controllably down into the 20s and all the way up to 127.  It is much more expressive than a Fatar action, which have poor pianissimo control in my experience.  The good Yamaha triple-sensor actions match the Kawai.  

 

Now if they put the Kawai action into the Stage?  I'd pay attention.  But that would not be a very Nord thing to do.

[eric]

It seems like a Nord Stage 4 could be in the works, as a Stage 3EX may be a little bit late to the game. As a long time Nord fan (and user of NS2 and NS3) I would certainly welcome a new addition. A couple of points I've made on the Nord Forum and some of the FB groups is that my hunch is anything like a NS4 announcement would set up a waiting period of probably 6 months or longer from announcement to availability for purchase. If history repeats, there would also be a "hardening" period, during which time various bugs are worked out and the OS gets more stable. I recall this being about 6-12 months on the NS3. So if we want to place our bets on a new NS4, we can also gamble that it might be 2024 or even 2025 between shipping and stabilization. If announced at April NAMM, perhaps shipping by Q3-Q4 2023, then debugging after this time.

 

With the NS3, I waited a bit until it appeared that the main OS bugs were stable before I upgraded my gig rig from NS2 to NS3, easily about a year's wait. In the meantime, I was still able to make great music and play all of my gigs on the NS2 (and I still could). The same thing will very likely hold true with a NS4. It's fun to speculate and wonder about it! I also wonder what more they could pack into a NS4? Perhaps a third panel or a synth that has more sections/depth? Even better organ emulations?

 

Or might Nord go in another direction and consider a simpler instrument, perhaps a Nord Stage LE or Electro Plus that could house all of the technology with fewer user controls that could be assignable. Sort of like the Moog Little Phatty. Rather than a physical knob for each thing, give each section several knobs that can be assigned to common features. I could see that being a pretty cool board and production costs could be reduced if they had fewer physical controllers. I just don't know where it would fit in the lineup, given the proximity/overlap already seen in the Electro and Stage.

[D. Gauss]

Yamaha p-125 came out in 2018...  'bout time for a new one.

[ElmerJFudd]

6 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

Yamaha p-125 came out in 2018...  'bout time for a new one.

Given that you can now get some pretty good sounding samples on a Casio CT minus a weighted action the P125 could use a sample lib refresh. 

[Stokely]

The current Nord "sale" price is close to the old normal price.  Considering I was only going to get one on sale from *that*, they are out of sight for me.

Not a problem as I went with an Sk Pro and decided to stick with two keyboards moving forward instead of one single one for almost every gig.

I have a Modx and have given some thought to upgrading to a Kronos, Fantom, or Montage, 61 keys.   I pine for the nicer build and additional controls, don't mind the extra weight.   I have pros and cons for all of these.  If Yamaha were to do something with the Montage I'd definitely be interested.   Whatever I use for that "slot" (main, bottom keyboard) needs to have bread and butter as well as a good synth capability...it no longer needs organ so that makes things simpler!

As an aside, that white Montage is a real looker IMO.  I have a white keyboard stand so it would be a match!  I wish more manufacturers would offer options like that (I'm nowhere near handy enough to try it myself.)

[Delaware Dave]

An SKPro73  with an improvement in all non-organ sounds (acoustic piano especially), two sets of drawbars, and a polyphonic synth addition.

[felis]

I have a wish list, but no predictions.

[stoken6]

I would love Casio to refresh the PX5S. Keep the 5-pin MIDI and add 9-drawbar organ modelling from the XW-P1. And get on the 73-key bandwagon.

 

But I'm not holding my breath.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Docbop]

I think Nord has to do something a lot of grumbling in the forums how long it's been since update/upgrades.  Also the usual grumbles about Nord keybeds.   So they could satisfy that with updates to existing lines with keybed changes, more RAM alway need more RAM, some electronic tweaks (USB have with both MIDI and audio)  and have some new model names to satisfy everyone.  LOL, everyone will never be satisfied some will also find something to gripe about. 

 

With economy going sour could see more going on with software, firmware, than hardware.  Even saw yesterday Apple has reduced its orders to it manufactures for first part of 2023.    So could be reduction in number of products from companies and just minor changes  to products.   

 

The two keyboards I was interested in last year were Nord Piano 5 and Yamaha CP or YC, but didn't buy either.    After passing on a Nord Piano 5 I kept researching on them and it became less attractive to me.   The Yamaha's  were really hard to decide on which one, maybe in 2023 Yamaha maybe add features from one to the other so they can say "now the (CP/YC) has <fill in the blank" for Marketeer to hype. 

[Tusker]

U-he will make a great new synth and I will buy it. Likely the same story with Cherry Audio and GForce. 👌

[KuruPrionz]

Just now, Tusker said:

U-he will make a great new synth and I will buy it. Likely the same story with Cherry Audio and GForce. 👌

Until chip production shortages are addressed, software will become a primary focus and plugins will continue to improve. 

I'm at the point where somebody could make the best sounding soft synth in the world and if the interface is umpty-bajillion "knobs", I'll take a hard pass unless it's super inexpensive and has great presets. Then it might find a home in my Fishman Triple Play barrage, where I can blend up to 4 synths simultaneously. 

[Stokely]

That new u-he synth hopefully will be Zebra 3   I bought Z2 not long ago primarily because it gave a big discount on Z3 (or made it free, but I decided to not get Dark Zebra.)

I've complained often about 3d/hardware-looking knobs in software.   I have some plugins I actively avoid because they are hard to control with a mouse.

In the meantime I have plenty of software to keep me occupied.   I have stuff bought in earlier sales that I have barely even tried.  I certainly am not lacking any tools to actually write some music, unless the brain is a tool  

[Jose EB5AGV]

4 hours ago, Stokely said:

As an aside, that white Montage is a real looker IMO.  I have a white keyboard stand so it would be a match!  I wish more manufacturers would offer options like that (I'm nowhere near handy enough to try it myself.)

 

I have one myself (a white Montage 6) and is sooooo pretty 🥰!

 

So much that, for concerts, I carry the black one (also a 6) and the beauty queen sits in my studio (I got it barely used, it is pristine, so I would hate to damage it! 😅)

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Stokely said:

That new u-he synth hopefully will be Zebra 3   I bought Z2 not long ago primarily because it gave a big discount on Z3 (or made it free, but I decided to not get Dark Zebra.)

I've complained often about 3d/hardware-looking knobs in software.   I have some plugins I actively avoid because they are hard to control with a mouse.

In the meantime I have plenty of software to keep me occupied.   I have stuff bought in earlier sales that I have barely even tried.  I certainly am not lacking any tools to actually write some music, unless the brain is a tool  

Sliders please!

 

[CyberGene]

The keyboard market is so over-saturated already I don’t see what else can be made that would be of interest to me. There are so many great digital pianos, workstations, analog, digital and hybrid synths and modules. Then, there are also countless virtual instruments and sample libraries. I really don’t need any new instruments, hardware or virtual. I need time to make music now 😕

[Tusker]

28 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

Sliders please!

 

 

Could we have a "separate thread" discussion on this Kuru? Your comments would be invaluable. 💪

[Docbop]

2 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Until chip production shortages are addressed, software will become a primary focus and plugins will continue to improve. 

I'm at the point where somebody could make the best sounding soft synth in the world and if the interface is umpty-bajillion "knobs", I'll take a hard pass unless it's super inexpensive and has great presets. Then it might find a home in my Fishman Triple Play barrage, where I can blend up to 4 synths simultaneously. 

The chip shortage problem seems to be working its way back to previous levels.   Car manufactures are increasing production now that chip availability is better and would imagine other industries are seeing the same thing.   By the time NAMM rolls around we should be see if supply chain issues will be going away for music industry. 

[KuruPrionz]

10 minutes ago, Tusker said:

 

Could we have a "separate thread" discussion on this Kuru? Your comments would be invaluable. 💪

Absolutely! Maybe extend to all plugins? 

[Aperkeys]

My feelings\hopes:

Korg - Maybe should they release a Nautilus EX\2 or even a Kronos successor. This time with 64bit OS for more RAM and better boot time. I don't mind keeping the same Nauti stock set. It's really good for me. 

Nord Stage 4 or Electro 7 with some features from the Nord Piano 5 in the Sample Synth section. 

In the Hammond dept. - I hope for an XK6 with FX loop and better Leslie sim. The can do it really better, although I mostly gig\record my XK5 through a Leslie - A better onboard option for more occasions will be more than welcome.

Yamaha? A Montage with proper VA Engine. It's time.

Last but not least - I hope for a KingKorg 2 and a Sequential Take 6 or even Take 8 with proper multitimbrality  

[EricBarker]

I have a Nord Wish:

Nord Stage (3/4) 61 key waterfall keybed, physical drawbars. That would be my dream machine. I’ve gotten very comfortable playing rock/jazz piano on the Mojo waterfall keybed, but would love to have my synths, organ, and piano in one board with pitchwheel and AT.