Sale on Nautilus - Is Something Afoot?

[Morrissey]

It would be helpful to clarify/update the forum policy on discussing retail sales.  I occasionally notice a good deal I think forumites will appreciate, but I post about it in awkward or vague terms to prevent violating what I had understood to be the forum policy.  But a thread like this suggests we are more permissive than I thought (or than we were).

 

IIRC, the concern is we don't want to litter the forum with sales pitches and the like, especially by those who may have conflicts of interest.  I vote we set up a single "Hot Deals" thread, allow the wild west in there, and otherwise keep the forum strict and clean.  We kind of already do this with annual Black Friday threads.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Radagast said:

Sweetwater was one of the first, if not THE first to have the new prices.  I checked.  And if you would take the time to read the responses, you’ll see other retailers discussed.

 

7 hours ago, GRollins said:

And Grey sighs, rolls his eyes, and notches up yet another thread touting Sweetwater, when other retailers get spanked and shown the door...

 

Grey

 

[jeffincltnc]

I also think there is a distinction between a manufacturer putting a pricing decision on products that are largely available (i.e. KorgUSA reducing the price of an item to potentially clear stock or replace with a newer model) vs. a particular retailer like Sweetwater, Guitar Center or Kraft Music participating in the same promotion as everyone else is.

 

There have been similar threads, for instance, about the Nord Stage 3 lineup being reduced in prices in preparation for the Stage 4 coming.   A dealer may work out their own package or discount with a customer, but the general topic is that there is a US based price reduction on a keyboard which is widely looked at among the forum membership.

[Radagast]

1 hour ago, jeffinpghpa said:

I also think there is a distinction between a manufacturer putting a pricing decision on products that are largely available (i.e. KorgUSA reducing the price of an item to potentially clear stock or replace with a newer model) vs. a particular retailer like Sweetwater, Guitar Center or Kraft Music participating in the same promotion as everyone else is.

 

There have been similar threads, for instance, about the Nord Stage 3 lineup being reduced in prices in preparation for the Stage 4 coming.   A dealer may work out their own package or discount with a customer, but the general topic is that there is a US based price reduction on a keyboard which is widely looked at among the forum membership.

Exactly.  
 

For the record, I have no affiliation or relationship to the certain retailer mentioned here, other than being an occasional customer.  I also do occasional business with Guitar Center and Sam Ash.

 

The point of my post was not to promote any retailer, but to point out the predicted price drop, and to ask if it is pointing to something new coming out.

[Radagast]

There.  I asked a moderator to change the title of my thread.  Happy now?

[felis]

Several places also have $500 off on the Kurzweil PC4, and I doubt they're planning to replace it.

 

So I wouldn't read too much into a sales price.

[GRollins]

5 hours ago, Radagast said:

Sweetwater was one of the first, if not THE first to have the new prices.  I checked.  And if you would take the time to read the responses, you’ll see other retailers discussed.

 

So, I'm guessing that you've never gotten reprimanded for posting about prices before, eh?

 

I have.

 

As so often seems to happen in these instances, you've missed my point entirely. I have absolutely zero objection to people posting threads about pricing at retailers. Members here might benefit greatly from such information. My disgruntlement comes from the fact that I have been fussed at on a number of occasions for posting pricing news from other retailers; being told that "there have been cases in the past where people have joined and posted in an effort to boost sales...etc. etc. etc." And yet, people who post prices and such from Sweetwater never get fussed at. Happens all the time. As an example, I once posted about an item at Musician's Friend. Shorty thereafter, I was contacted and told that was a no-no. When I pointed out that there were not one, but two threads running at that very moment about prices at Sweetwater, all I got was a grumbly circular argument that explained nothing. My Musician's Friend thread disappeared. The Sweetwater threads stayed up. After that happened for the third or fourth time, I finally gave up. It's pretty frustrating.

Grey

[Fleer]

1 hour ago, felis said:

Several places also have $500 off on the Kurzweil PC4, and I doubt they're planning to replace it.

 

So I wouldn't read too much into a sales price.

Still, this seems different, as those Kurzweil rebates were quasi omnipresent from launch. 

[felis]

6 hours ago, Fleer said:

Still, this seems different, as those Kurzweil rebates were quasi omnipresent from launch. 

 

I only remember a $500 price increase, from $2000 to $2500 for the PC4, after the launch and until this recent sale.

It's the same price as the PC4-7 now at some places, but I don't know how long the sale is for.

[Fleer]

6 minutes ago, felis said:

 

I only remember a $500 price increase, from $2000 to $2500 for the PC4, after the launch and until this recent sale.

It's the same price as the PC4-7 now at some places, but I don't know how long the sale is for.

Indeed. So it’s back at its original price of $2000. Same in Europe. 

[felis]

Thread derail - sorry 'bout that. 

 

About Nautilus.  Korg is getting very close to making a board I'd consider getting. 

Sad to say they're the only one of the big 3 so far.

[jeffincltnc]

I think I'm going with the 73 instead of the 61.  I may regret it on really tight stages or the extra size of carrying it, but it's probably more flexible in the end.

 

The second part of the original thread was if something new is coming out.  I don't think the mythical Kronos 3 or Kronos category replacement, grandson of OASYS or whatever you envision it to be with a next generation platform and surface controls is going to be it.

 

What I more likely expect from Korg when they clear out some US inventory that is slow moving is they seem to repackage the product with a new paint colors on the metal chassis and some cosmetic changes (i.e. sunburst edition, titanium edition, all the colors and reverse keys packages on the SV1, etc.)

 

Updating the SSD to a larger capacity is pretty minimal effort, and they update the soundset of the boot to include one or more Korg sound libraries that you have to currently buy separately on the Korg store.  Then the price goes back up to what it was before the sale.

 

So I predict a Nautilus EX or Special Edition type of product that is otherwise the same product and they will go through a couple rounds of this to extend its lifecyle.

 

I know we look at that as a cop-out for not innovating, but some of those editions they've done with colors for the Kronos, SV1, etc. do look great on stage if design aesthetics matter.

[Fleer]

It’s just that Nautilus takes so long to start up. Three minutes? WTF. 

[ProfD]

22 minutes ago, Fleer said:

It’s just that Nautilus takes so long to start up. Three minutes? WTF. 

It does seem unnecessary for a KB to take so long to boot up nowadays. 

 

Korg must be heavily invested in that slow processor considering they've dragged it across products. 🤣😎

[AnotherScott]

It's way too soon to be phasing out Nautilus for a replacement. One possible reason for the price reduction is that they appear to have run out of Krome EX. so currently they have nothing of thistype between the Kross and Nautilus, which is a big gap in what might be the most lucrative piece of the market for this type of board... they've got the low and high range competitors, but nothing in the middle which might be where the strongest sales are. They may be willing to give up Nautilus profit margins for a while, to not so entirely concede so much of the meat of the market to the competitors. My theory is that a midrange Krome EX replacement is in the works but isn't ready yet, so they'll have the Nautilus compete there the best they can, and once the new midrange board comes out, Nautilus price will go back up.

 

ETA: I suppose they also could leave the Nautilus at the new price, and instead come out with some new higher end model above it, but I think to best compete in that mid range, they would want to compete not just on price, but also on weight. But still, in the mean time if you could deal with the weight, for $100 more, at least on total sound and functionality (i.e. discounting the control surface/interface), Nautilus is a really compelling alternative to a Fantom-06/07, for example.

 

2 hours ago, jeffinpghpa said:

I think I'm going with the 73 instead of the 61.  I may regret it on really tight stages or the extra size of carrying it, but it's probably more flexible in the end.

 

Yeah. Even the 61 is too big and heavy for me, but if I were going to consider it, at that point, I'd probably go up a little more to the 73. Same height and depth, and at 32.2 lbs, it's only 3.5 lbs heavier than the 61. Though you do have to draw the line somewhere...

 

61 is pretty constraining if you're going to do splits. What I've done in the past (on 61s that don't provide the ability to instantly shift the octave of just your RH sound, for example, which is most of them) is create side-by-side patches with octave transpositions. So if I'm doing bass and strings, I'll have a pair of adjacent patches, "bass + hi strings" and "bass + lo strings" so I can essentially shift the octaves available for my strings sound with a single button press. But it's still definitely a compromise.

 

2 hours ago, jeffinpghpa said:

I know we look at that as a cop-out for not innovating, but some of those editions they've done with colors for the Kronos, SV1, etc. do look great on stage if design aesthetics matter.

 

The alternate aesthetics have often resulted in control surfaces that were easier to read/manipulate as well.

 

And I don't blame any of the companies for trying to get as much mileage out of each design as they can. And if people don't find them appealing, they won't buy them. ;-)

 

39 minutes ago, ProfD said:

It does seem unnecessary for a KB to take so long to boot up nowadays. 

 

Korg must be heavily invested in that slow processor considering they've dragged it across products. 🤣😎

 

Although it's not 100% of it, a chunk of it is that it's a PC motherboard booting a Linux OS. That's the magic of how Nautilus does some of what it does (like streaming from SSD), but it also contributes to that side effect. As does the pre-load for those streaming samples. But "cold booting" a PC is never one of the quicker operations...

 

 

[ProfD]

3 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Although it's not 100% of it, a chunk of it is that it's a PC motherboard booting a Linux OS. That's the magic of how Nautilus does some of what it does (like streaming from SSD), but it also contributes to that side effect. As does the pre-load for those streaming samples. But "cold booting" a PC is never one of the quicker operations...

 

Sure. We get it. Still should be faster with today's technology.

 

The Nautilus boot up time reminds me of loading sounds into an old school sampler.🤣

 

Of course, the Nautilus has GBs worth of data when it's done loading but yeah...hurry up already. 😁😎

[Fleer]

My MacBook Pro with 64GB of RAM and 4TB SSD boots up from off to full blast in 5 seconds. 

[sherry]

If you want to speed up the starting time, for live use only load the samples you use for live use.  I do this with the Kronos.  I only load the German Grand.  Decreases the start-up time considerably.

[felis]

 

[Radagast]

On 3/18/2023 at 11:40 AM, AnotherScott said:

It's way too soon to be phasing out Nautilus for a replacement.

 

 

 

 

How long after the original Kronos came out, did Korg replace it with the Kronos X?  Considering that the Kronos was still in production when the Nautilus came out, it actually makes sense for Korg to come out with a Nautilus X or 2 now. Competitors are coming out with boards with plenty of sliders and knobs.  The Nautilus needs AT and at least 9 sliders to use with the drawbar organ engine.

[AnotherScott]

13 minutes ago, Radagast said:

How long after the original Kronos came out, did Korg replace it with the Kronos X?  

 

A year and a half. Though I think that's unusually short for a model revision (and, related, the changes were minimal).

 

13 minutes ago, Radagast said:

The Nautilus needs AT and at least 9 sliders to use with the drawbar organ engine.

 

Sounds like a Kronos. ;-)

[Paul Woodward]

4 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

 

A year and a half. Though I think that's unusually short for a model revision (and, related, the changes were minimal).

 

 

Sounds like a Kronos. 😉

With Kronos discontinued, what is Korgs flagship board with aftertouch?

[AnotherScott]

12 minutes ago, Paul Woodward said:

With Kronos discontinued, what is Korgs flagship board with aftertouch?

 

You'd have to go to their arranger division... I believe PA5x and PA1000 are their only boards w/AT.

[Radagast]

5 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

 

 

 

 

Sounds like a Kronos. 😉

 Not exactly.  The Kronos had more than 9 sliders.  Even so, like I said, the Kronos is gone so there’s no reason to hold back on giving the Nautilus those two features.

[mobi]

40 minutes ago, Paul Woodward said:

With Kronos discontinued, what is Korgs flagship board with aftertouch?

 

Just wait till NAMM....

[jeffincltnc]

32 minutes ago, mobi said:

 

Just wait till NAMM....

Korg is neither exhibiting nor presenting at NAMM.  They have a meeting room for private meetings with distributors but are not showing product on the floor.

[Radagast]

1 hour ago, mobi said:

 

Just wait till NAMM....

Or more likely, a month later at Superbooth.

[konaboy]

17 hours ago, felis said:

 

too bad this is US only.  Gear in europe and rest of world often costs substantially more than US. this is just annoying for customers excluded from the deal, making them even less likely to make a purchase.

[Radagast]

4 hours ago, konaboy said:

too bad this is US only.  Gear in europe and rest of world often costs substantially more than US. this is just annoying for customers excluded from the deal, making them even less likely to make a purchase.

I live in the U.S. but I agree.  What’s up with that?  

[jeffincltnc]

35 minutes ago, Radagast said:

I live in the U.S. but I agree.  What’s up with that?  

 

Korg USA is a different company than Korg, Inc. in Japan.  Korg USA is a distribution and support company for Korg products in the US, and some other products for US/Canada.  Not to get into the semantics, but Korg USA is not a subsidiary of Korg corporation in Japan.

[zephonic]

7 hours ago, konaboy said:

too bad this is US only.  Gear in europe and rest of world often costs substantially more than US. this is just annoying for customers excluded from the deal, making them even less likely to make a purchase.

 

Trust me, I spend a lot of time on both sides of the pond, and life in the US is considerably more expensive all around.

 

Cheaper cars, gas and electronics; that’s it. Everything else is way more expensive out here.