Yamaha rant. They are always so close.....so close.....

[Stokely]

The perfect keyboard for me doesn't exist, the closest thing may be the Nord Stage but the price has kept me from being an owner.   Edit: and just talking live gear, if you said "live and studio" well then finding a perfect single solution gets even tougher!

I definitely like Yamaha, I have a guitar and have owned several keyboards.  It's certainly frustrating knowing they have the "might" to do anything they want to--compared to smaller companies--but they simply don't (mostly).  Nice to see they finally got a decent b3 organ after I first wished for one in my Motif classic!   Yamaha could have made this decades ago or bought up anyone else that managed it if they really wanted to   

Problem for these companies and the players is that everyone's idea of a perfect board is different, especially when you figure in price!

Thinking back to gigging in the late 80s/early 90s with a Roland JX-10 and Proteus, I thought that was a tremendous rig.  Other than analog sounds, it would get absolutely outclassed several times over by my Modx, which is hardly a "flagship" product.  Even with analog sounds I wonder, as I've been able to coax some very credible bread and butter sounds from the Modx (and bought Analog Xperience, that helped!)  And not to mention it contains a DX7 and then some, which many would have sold their JX-10 for back in the mid 80s!

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, Radagast said:

I cannot even come close to agreeing.  If manufacturers are hitting the bullseye, then there is never a need for an update of any kind, software or otherwise.  And there would never be a need for new keyboards. 

The Kronos hit the bulleye for many musicians. Every iteration and offspring of the Kronos sold well too. Same goes for the other KB manufacturers.

 

The Ford Model T hit the bullseye as a form of vehicular transportation. That didn't stop manufacturers from making new vehicles with refinements.

 

As others have mentioned, the bullseye is subjective. YMMV is the caveat.😎

[dalpozlead]

VERY unfortunatelly I had to sell my Montage... I coudn't stand the fact that each patch sounded like a "record after mastering"... the post-production vibe killed it for me....

[drawback]

2 hours ago, Radagast said:

The Kronos proves my point.  If Korg hit the bullseye, why did they come out with the Kronos X later, and then the Kronos 2 after that?

As far as I know, the later versions simply increased RAM and drive space, as well as ventilation.

[aronnelson]

50 minutes ago, drawback said:

As far as I know, the later versions simply increased RAM and drive space, as well as ventilation.

 

There is nothing like the Kronos that I have used. So powerful and fast. It's depressing that there's nothing to replace it from Korg.

[stoken6]

Kronos strikes me as near to bullseye as anyone has ever got. You see - it's not all about sounds. You can always, always, do "more" and/or "better" sounds. 

 

It's about design, and versatility. Kronos has a quality keybed, a full complement of controllers (aftertouch, 9 faders...), strong MIDI capabilities (on 5-pin connectors), and a powerful set of engines that can can create an enormous range of tones. It can work well as a single board rig, it succeeds as a controller and a slave, and it can easily integrate with a software rig. 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[AnotherScott]

Kronos missed the bulls-eye for me by quite a bit, I hardly ever gigged with it. Again, all particular to my own needs, of course. You already pointed out a lot of the great things about it, and I'll add Set List mode, which is still probably the best implementation of touchscreen patch selection. But the action in the 73 and 88 really didn't work for me (even though I'm okay with the RH3 action on the SV1/SV2), there was no 7x-key non-hammer, and if I were willing to stick with a 61, I'd want a better implementation for fast octave switching (preferably not just for the whole board but also for just the sound on one side of a split). I found the black controls butted up against each other on the black background awkward to use. Changing the sound of one part while you're playing another is not really facilitated (e.g. playing LH bass, and wanting to select a different RH sound to put with that sound, one that you don't already have available as a quickly selectable set list combi with that bass sound). Some aspects of the interface are clumsy. (Ever try sample management?) Of course I could also complain about the boot time and relatively heavy weight, but I suppose those were unavoidable for the design at hand. So I won't, even though I just did. 😉 

 

 

[aronnelson]

I have my app switching sounds so fast and yes, set list mode is so easy to use. I have 8 sounds ready to go on a single combi with mute buttons that preserve polyphony along with the 8 sliders to mix the sounds in and out. For me, the Kronos has been incredible. Any time I use another keyboard, it seems so limited or hard to use and slow.

I tried with MainStage but it cannot switch sounds as fast as the Kronos - probably not much can. 

[Radagast]

The Kronos brings up a gripe about Korg.  I don’t think it’s debatable that the Kronos is the successor to the OASYS.  The OASYS concept shown at NAMM, a long time ago, was REALLY an open architecture system.  Physical modeling, FM, VA, additive synthesis etc. that could be expanded with other software instruments.  The PM ended up in the Z1.  The original OASYS concept would have been a bull’s eye.  The closest Korg has come to an open architecture system is the digital oscillator on the Prologue.

[ProfD]

4 hours ago, Radagast said:

The closest Korg has come to an open architecture system is the digital oscillator on the Prologue.

Most musicians are not going to use the Korg SDK (software development kit) to create custom oscillators for the Korg Prologue and  Minilogue XD.

 

However, those same musicians would find it easier to use the Kronos sampling feature for oscillator sound design instead of SDK.😎

[RABid]

22 hours ago, Radagast said:

The Kronos proves my point.  If Korg hit the bullseye, why did they come out with the Kronos X later, and then the Kronos 2 after that?

Why do computers come out with faster chips and more memory? Why do televisions come out with bigger screens and higher pixel density? Progress. Advancements in electronics. If Korg realizes that advancements in electronics allows them to put a faster processor and more memory in the keyboard, why wouldn't they? 

[Outkaster]

24 minutes ago, RABid said:

Why do computers come out with faster chips and more memory? Why do televisions come out with bigger screens and higher pixel density? Progress. Advancements in electronics. If Korg realizes that advancements in electronics allows them to put a faster processor and more memory in the keyboard, why wouldn't they? 

This

[ProfD]

2 hours ago, RABid said:

If Korg realizes that advancements in electronics allows them to put a faster processor and more memory in the keyboard, why wouldn't they? 

There is no demand for them to do so. 

 

Korg KBs sell very well with sounds, features and functionalities from the 1990s and a Y2K GUI.🤣

 

IMO, as long as incremental improvements are just enough for product(s) to sell well in the marketplace, there is no incentive to put more money into a faster processor, more memory and an updated GUI.😎

[Floyd Tatum]

On 4/12/2023 at 5:04 PM, LarsHarner2 said:

3) Played a gig last night on the CK-61 and got phone numbers from 3 soccer moms. (One who had a really nice car). I don't think they cared if it was a sampled organ.

 

I hope you're kidding.

 

[Radagast]

On 4/19/2023 at 12:16 PM, RABid said:

Why do computers come out with faster chips and more memory? Why do televisions come out with bigger screens and higher pixel density? Progress. Advancements in electronics. If Korg realizes that advancements in electronics allows them to put a faster processor and more memory in the keyboard, why wouldn't they? 

Exactly.  Ideally it would be to get closer to a bull’s eye.

[ElmerJFudd]

[Adan]

On 4/13/2023 at 2:04 AM, LarsHarner2 said:

 

3) Played a gig last night on the CK-61 and got phone numbers from 3 soccer moms. (One who had a really nice car). I don't think they cared if it was a sampled organ.

They find your practicality irresistible.  

[Jose EB5AGV]

4 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

 

That is definitely a light weight rig!

[CyberGene]

For me and the type of music I play live the perfect keyboard is a mix between Nord Stage, Yamaha YC and Numa X Piano.

 

I like the direct interface of the YC with drawbar sliders and LED-s, encoder LED rings for many other functions. I also think the Yamaha sounds are the best: pianos, electric pianos, strings, pads, FM-sounds. But it would be great if it had a synth engine like the Nord Stage. And while it has a really good external 4-zone control, the flexibility and ease of use of the external MIDI zones on the Numa X is better.  

[HammondDave]

6 hours ago, Adan said:

They find your practicality irresistible.  

Better beware of their “soccer dads”

[Theo Verelst]

From a marketing point of view, communicating the added value of your instrument could be about cost (mass produced notebook, nuc, pc), things like the rigidity of the cooling system, the virtual memory constant response speed and general cache state management of you sw, options that can be freely chosen, sound quality in various dimensions, etc.

 

T