Much Appreciated

Arrived and I set it up. I will report back after spending a little time with it.

Cool. Inquiring minds.......

Great Hideki! Thanks for your feedback, that seems like an impressive board.

Ok... that's just bragging about it!

HOW IS IT? Is the question we want answered! Give us some of the juicy details and impressions!

Seriously, congrats... seems like a fantastic piece of equipment from the little info I was able to pick up on the internet, and SSD sampled piano is a nice approach with some great sounding demos. Looking for your insight.

Congrats again,
Rafa.

Congrats indeed!

Where is the Access Virus though?

James
x

Another hour or so and I think I can give an informed initial impression. I had to go out so I'm just getting at it now.

Please compare the Korg APs to your Kawai. It won't be as good but... Let us know what kind of speakers those are as well please and Thanks!

I don't like the X stand for a double tier because both the GT and Virus are deep and have extensive controls in the back. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do there. In the interim, I have the Virus in another room hooked up to my iPad. The Virus sounds so good I just like sitting around and messing with it.

Put it on top of the Shigeru?

James
x

Just some initial impressions. I'll give a more complete review after I get some more time with the Kronos because there are so many things to cover. I just focused on the pianos and EPs for the last hour and briefly went over the program groups and combis.

The Kronos sounds fantastic. The German grand has a beautiful tone and nice detail. I turned down the damper noise a little because I felt the default setting was a little loud. My fingers are a bit out of whack from playing too much synth lately and not practicing classical for a year, but I took a shot at 1st movement of the English Suite and 3rd movement of Moonlight Sonata. I felt the German grand had an appropriate sound for those pieces, despite some fumbling on my part. In a Sentimental Mood also sounded very rich, with the German grand taking nicely to the some of the simple lyrical portions of the song. I'm sure some of our local Dave's could really give the song justice on the Kronos.

The Japanese grand has a distinct bright sound to it. I can see it working really well in a live or ensemble setting. I played the theme from Local Hero and The Piano, and To Zanarkand. The Japanese grand definitely has a nice sound for those types of songs.

The pianos sound very natural for a DP and there are many parameters for tweaking to get the sound you might want. There are a number of variations on the German and Japanese grands that give you an idea of the types of piano sounds you can get with the piano engine. I felt the touchscreen interface made tweaking the pianos very simple. If you have big fingers or poor eyesight you may not appreciate the font size, but I was very comfortable working with the screen.

I did check the decay and noticed there was no looping that I could hear... Dewster.

The EPs are also very impressive. I think an EP enthusiast will love the EPs and the ability to tweak them. As much as I loved the EPs on the CP1, there seems to be more potential with the Kronos EPs. They have a great authentic sound and lots of good noise. The organs are also great, but to be honest, I play very little organ.

From a sound quality perspective, I think the pianos, EPs and organ are all recording quality and extremely fun to play. The rest of the sounds on the Kronos are equally impressive, with the synth sounds really offering endless possibilities.

My initial reservations for the piano focused crowd:

The action is completely playable and responsive, but it is a little noisy and does not have the refined build quality of the Yamaha, Roland or Kawai actions. I think if they made changes from the SV1, they were more in the line of adding aftertouch because it feels like the same action. Taking into consideration the graded weighting, I still felt there wasn't the consistency from key to key that I got out of my CP1.

The build quality is just fine, but the materials are less than what I would have expected in some small areas. At home it will be no issue, but I don't know if it would survive the rigors of constant gigging if you are rough with your gear. The end caps are made of black shiny plastic that will definitely scratch easily and some of controls are slightly delicate.

There is slight fan noise that is audible when you aren't playing. I have a silent PC. It is louder than that but quieter than your standard PC or gaming console. You won't hear it when you are playing but if things like that irritate you when you aren't playing, you might consider the noise a small issue. I'm fairly sensitive to fan noise and it doesn't bother me.

There is a ton of stuff that you won't need if you just want a DP. I love it but if you just want a DP it will seem like a distraction. The resources spent on making it an incredible workstation will be wasted on someone wanting a DP and are probably better spent in areas like the action for that person.

As great as the Kronos sounds, I would say it isn't the board for someone who primarily wants a piano. There are other, more focused boards, better suited for that. A gigging musician needs to consider whether a tank like build is required because I imagine the Kronos has a mediocre crash impact rating.

I will give more detailed review later, but that is what I can offer for now. Ask questions and I will answer the best I can.

I would have my son be a human stand first.

Mackie HR824 MKIIs.

Not a fair comparison. When it comes to playing piano, the experience of playing a great acoustic is the real thing, and a DP is just a replica. That isn't to say DPs can't be used for great music and sound fantastic. It is just that when you have them side by side the complexity and acoustics of a great piano are overwhelming.

Thanks for the early review Hideki!

It will be interesting to see if Korg provides additional downloadable content in the future, especially if future instruments (SV-2?) utilise the same PC-based architecture.





James
x

I'd be very happy to confirm it doesn't have worms if you could provide a stool sample.

After decent keys (not sure if we're there yet), eliminating looping, stretching, etc. and sampling / synthesizing adequate sympathetic resonance, I think 90% of the remaining experience is amps & speakers that are up to the task.

Just tell me what I need to do.

Nice initial impressions H. Pretty much how I'm guessing my feelings will be WHEN I finally get to touch one.

If I take the plunge I'm definitely springing for a hard case. Too much an investment in that puppy !

Yeah that's the dilemma for someone like me. Are all those cool synth, organ, clav drum sounds sounds really worth it ? Without a doubt you would could kill 2 hours initially just messing around...that's what I'm worried about. lol I should be practicing.

In any case, keep the review coming.....

Download the DPBSD MIDI file:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yptdhmp68qpf7md

Select the piano you want to test, turn off reverb (the MIDI file will attempt to do this as well) and record the audio result, setting the level to as hot as you can reasonably get it before clipping (~ -1dB, not an absolute necessity if you can record digitally directly on the DP).

If there is any way you can confirm you are actually recording the voice you think you are, then that would eliminate much potential confusion.

Convert to MP3, stereo, CBR, MP3, 192Kbps, 44100Hz. Or point me to the WAV file and I'll gladly do this for you.

I'll run the results by you first, and won't publicly post them until we are both satisfied.

I predict this board will score rather highly on the Dewsters little tests ...

The keybed feels pretty awful though. Its not one of the great actions that's for sure.

Maybe. I guess we're all anticipating no looping, probably no stretching. But PC samplers are rather notorious for poor pedal / key interaction so I'm anticipating some trouble there, though I would be very happy to be betting wrong.

Designers who take the pure sampling approach get by default a very rich, natural sounding pedal sympathetic resonance, but they never seem to take the time to make the mechanics of it work in a believable manner. Those who make modelers (e.g. Pianoteq) or hybrids (e.g. Roland SN) often do.

I will get to it by tomorrow. A little busy today.

A trenchant observation that cannot be emphasized enough. Software pianos often sound beautiful, but it is dismaying to me how unrealistic the behavior of most sampled software pianos is. For people who need a digital piano to practice in the woodshed on for what ultimately will be a performance on an acoustic piano, the Roland Supernatural (RD-700NX, in my case) and Pianoteq offerings seem to replicate playing an acoustic piano more accurately than any of the other digital options out there that I have tried. (And here's what I've tried: Yamaha N2 (great action, by the way), Garritan Steinway, Steinberg Grand 3, Ivory II, Galaxy Vintage D (beautiful sound -- if only I could play a real piano that beautifully).) I am making this comment here simply because I've grown tired of dumping money into these offerings in order figure out what works well. There is, unfortunately, no software piano showroom where one can go to play these things and compare them against one another, against dps, hybrids and fine acoustics.

One Q. The pianos and EPs on the Kronos have true note off velocity. Audibly, I'm not sure exactly what effect it produces, but if you don't include that info in your midi file, the resulting wav playback will not be taking advantage of that subtle effect. I'm not sure that it matters for your test but I'm wondering if there is a way to write your file so that the Kronos is not being limited in that way?

Good question.

I actually just received a couple of DPBSD files for the Kronos and I can hear the key-up sound very clearly, it's fairly loud. I should add a test for key-up velocity support in the DPBSD, it currently uses note-on vel=0 for note-off (Sonar default).

Are you set on the Kronos files or do you still need them from me?

I've got v1.9 files of the German and Japanese grands. I'm working on v2.1 of the DPBSD MIDI file to test key-up velocity noises and pedal noises.

Preliminary results on the German:

- I don't see any looping or stretching, I can see and hear at least 6 semi-blended layers (advertised as 8?) with the highest velocity layer having a strange thin sound and looking kind of tacked-on.

- Nice long decays, though C1 stops before key-up.

- 46.5 dB dynamic range

- Nice pedal sympathetic resonance, no key sympathetic resonance, fails silent replay, passes quick damping.

- Half pedal support is there, but barely.

- I can really hear the key-up "knock" - it's too loud (though you can probably adjust that and note-off velocity may modulate it).

Thanks a million Dewster for the analysis. What are your feelings say about the Kronos (German) vs say the RD700NX pianos on first impressions?

Would love to hear this too.. the Kronos is tempting me right now