I started play keyboards (badly I might add) when I was 18. I am now in my 50's and have rekindled my love of noodling around on keyboard. With age has come financial security and the ability to buy a number of new and legacy keyboards.
My personal studio contains both modern and vintage or classic equipment. In my view all the equipment has its place in the rack or on a stand.
Remember the comments on equipment and on manufacturers are my views.
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Hi Can someone help me? I have Mac M3 Por and MacOS Sonoma 14.5. I am struggling to find a new roland driver to work for my QUAD CAPTURE interrface. I bought a new cable. It picks up that I have plugged in a a quad capture but thats it. Any ideas anyone please?
Hi @ConradAllStar Unfortunately Roland stopped issuing updates for this interface as of MAC OS 10.15 which of course was Catalona. Which would imply that the drivers for this interface were 32-bit. Later versions of the MAC OS do not support 32-bit drivers and this is of course the cause of your issue. Jon
The Roland D-70 has the advantage of 76 keys and a very good sound, but that's the end of the list. The build quality seems to be really good until something goes wrong. The Roland engineers who designed this keyboard cut corners where they shouldn't have. It would have been nice if Roland had made a rack version of the D-70 (D-770?), but unfortunately they didn't.
Hi @kiskadar69 The Roland D-70 was originally intended to be a 76-key version of the Roland U-20 (called the U-50). And not in the D-Series line as the Synthesis is generated via a PCM sample and does not use the LA algorithm as the rest of the D-series did. I am not sure which of these statements is fact or fiction with the Roland D-70: 1) It was rebranded as the Roland D-70 from the Roland U-50 to try and steel market from the Korg M1 which was release at the end of 1988 and became the default digital keyboard in the mainstream. 2) It was rushed through development to get it into the market space quicker to try and compete with the Korg M1. 3) The operating system hacked late in the development cycle to provide some effects to try and convince the public that it had some D-series characteristics. What I can tell you from my Roland D-70 is: 1) The MIDI implementation was actually not bad to the point where I have used it multiple times as a MIDI controller for my MIDI setup. 2) The 76-key bed was actually a really nice upgrade to the key bed included with the other D-series synths. I have found it enjoyable to play, to the point that I use to use it to play my Roland D-50 as I found it more responsive to my playing style. 3) It was more minimalist than the other D-series synths with few graphic on the case. I find it more pleasing to look at as an instrument. Yes the key bed suffered from red glue, and the keys have a habit of jumping out of position if banged, but personally I like this keyboard. Jon
At 3:42 in your internal bank are no stock sounds, somebody filled that bank with "new" sounds. Altogether this unit looks like in perfect condition, including back-light. The transport disc was a thingy made from cardboard though. The main failure of that drive was deterioration of the rubber band inside, just from age, they get gooey even when not used, easy to be replaced. Yep, change the drive.
Hi @oupahens9219 Thanks for your feedback. Re your point on the disk drive. Yes agreed you can replace the drive belt and they are relatively easy to get on the internet. But after having undertaken this route a number of times on these belt driven drives in the past. I just now have a policy of putting a new direct drive floppy into the unit. Invariably these provide fewer problems going forward. But there is nothing stopping someone just replacing the belt. This is equally as good an option. Jon
I was in higher education maybe 15 years ago. One time I was grading tests when a young grad student dropped by sporting metallic grey hair. Judging from the lack of specials editions that do not show up on ebay or Reverb people are buying these things and keeping them.
Hi @raul0ca That is a really interesting point, I agree that people do not appear to part with the special editions. More than likely they will buy the standard edition and either buy the special edition for home / studio use or trade on the standard edition in favour of the special edition. But another reason why these special editions are rare is that they normally have a specific configuration and are manufactured in small numbers. So in the grand scheme of things there are fewer of them to go around. Jon
I think gray color is fine, certainly better than silver, in my opinion. Arturia went ahead and gave us a magnolia colored Polybrute 12, why not give Korg some color option? Korg Inc. is a business after all, and they figured out there could be customers opting for 1995-2005 era silver/gray colored instruments. I'd myself stick to the more classic dark colors, speaking of which, the Nautilus AT in black is now the same price in U.S. as the gray one. As far as keyboard players' place in a band on stage, I think due to the image popularized by auto-accompaniment home keyboards and sequencers, the audiences completely don't care or believe that keyboard players are capable of playing anything. Similarly as after the proliferation of Photoshop, people no longer believe in what they see if photos, and don't care if it's real or not. So, the remaining pop musicians that are still being taken seriously are guitar, bass, and drum players. You can't fake playing those with auto-accompaniments or arpeggiators.
Hi @dvamateur Interesting to see that the Korg Nautilus AT Grey in your region has normalised in price to the standard Korg Nautilus AT. I had a look at the portals this morning and in fact in many cases the price differential in the UK seems to have increased to about £500 between models. I accept you view on the status of the keyboard player, but I am afraid that we have to agree to differ. Withough the keyboard player most bands are just flat an unable to be spontaneous. And that last part is the key to playing live. Because like it or not playing live is where the money will be in my opinion. Jon
I've literally been waiting years for a Kronos VST! Just please give it full functionality so that I can import the hundreds of sounds and songs I've already programmed, unlike the Triton VST. I'm not sure why they would have gimped it like that.
Hi @carlinlemon5884 I do wonder with the creation of the software driven Montage that has been released by Yamaha whether Korg will release such a VST. However I thing this might be orientated to the Korg Nautilus and not the KORG KRONOS as many would wish. Jon
Hi @AnthonyGoodchild-b7y I am willing to share my version of the SYSEX file used in this video. However this comes with a catch, a donation toward the running of the channel: themusictechguyuk.me/support Ensure you leave me your contact details in the notes where to send the file. Do not post your contact details in the comments. Jon
That looks like a wonderfully, beautiful and pleasant new workplace. I hope that many more good and informative videos will be produced from this new setting. The longer SMR productions are also particularly appreciated. Is this a more modular setup or will more keyboards placed in a stationary setting over time?
Hi @hanspalenlader3355 I am really enjoying working from this new space in the few weeks I have been using it. In response to your questions: - Absolutely, I have been filming in her this afternoon, but as with all new spaces there are those teething problems, like how to get the microphone suspended out of shot lol - More equipment will permanently be here and useable, but I still own more equipment than I can fit in here. So there will be a degree of rotation. But with the modular wiring and MIDI it should be easier to bring them in set them up and use them. Also I will have this area where the camera was positioned to allow me to change camera angles so I can talk directly to camera as well as have over head shots. Thanks for the support especially the SMR format. Jon
I followed your instructions and changed the battery and set the date to present time. When I turn on the OASYS it no longer shows any message but I have no sound output any longer through speakers or headphone. I checked the GLOBAL>MIDI Setup and the local control is On. Would you help me how to fix it.
Hi @2010starship I must admit that your question has confused me. The reason for this is that the settings for the Korg OASYS are written to disk and not held in volatile RAM that needed a battery to power the memory chips when there is no mains power like the synths that came before it. The OASYS is essentially a personal computer and the battery in this keyboard maintains the computer settings (e.g. BIOS, Hard drive, time and battery etc. ). It has as far as I am aware no influence on the sound, MIDI or Sequencer settings which as I said above are written to disk when you save them. When you had the synth open to replace the battery did you accidentally touch any of the connectors between the computer mother board and the DSP board. The fact that you are not getting any sound through either the outputs or the headphones suggests the signal is not getting through to the sound generation which would be the on the DSP board. Give that you have looked at the LOCAL setting and confirmed that this is correctly set. The other thing I would look at is the mixer for the patch and ensure that the mixer is actually passing a a signal? Jon
As you correctly noticed when I replaced the battery I accidentally unplugged two of the connectors between the computer mother board and the DSP board. They are connected now and everything works fine again. Thank you for your precise direction. Much obliged.
First time here, YT served this one up out of the blue :) Looking around my first thought is "this guy must work in IT" with all the tidy racks and well managed cables 😁 . . studio looks great, look forward to checking out some of your work! 🤘😎
@@TheMusicTechGuyUK Hi Jon, so I was going to replace the joystick, but there's not a good one to buy right this moment on ebay. I'm wondering if I can just disconnect the ribbon/plugs in the meantime just to disconnect it altogether... because since my current one is kind of smashed in, it's always a little activated when I play. I want to get rid of it altogether and I'll have to wait to replace it until a piece is available. LMK if you think I can just disconnect it as a quick solve in the meantime. Thanks!
Hi @thatsawesomecarine You could try this. However I do not think that this will work. These older keyboard scan the inputs for changes. If this input is not found then I am not sure whether the firmware has redundancy in place to deal with a missing input. Jon
Hi @softwaregear24 The Korg Kronos is an evolution of the Korg OASYS in the same way that the Korg Nautilus is an evolution of the Korg Kronos. The engines that were developed for the OASYS were ported to the KRONOS with additional sound engines developed specifically for the KRONOS. You cannot port the sound engines from the Kronos back to the OASYS, although I dare say some smart Linux programmer could alter the code to allow this to work At the end of the day the tooling and build of the OASYS was too expensive. While more functional, the Kronos is a cheaper build. Jon
@TheMusicTechGuyUK ok, thank you. I love the built quality of the oasys. I wish Korg would keep it going. I like the screen on the oasys and led knobs and faders if korg has this on the nautilus. What do you think
Hi @softwaregear24 I am with you, I think that the interface on the Korg OASYS is better than the machines that followed. And iff we look at the Roland Fantom, a number of these great ideas have transitioned between vendors. May be Korg do need to look about for the next iteration of their instruments. Jon
Thank you for all of your informative videos. I just got an mx-1 and vt-3. I’ll be watching more of your content as I build and connect my Roland AIRA equipment.
Hi @ricardodionisio5487 Always happy to help out for a small donation to the running of the channel. Use this to send your donation and include your mail address in the comments and I'll send the file through. www.paypal.com/paypalme/jdean1970?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB Jon
Would this work with just one midi cable from say a sequencer and just play the midi file containing the sysex (Roland D70 factory set), or does it require handshaking, in which case I'd need to involve the pc and midiox?
Well that's been quite a process, however I am pleased to say that I've successfully restored the factory sounds. Tried from Atari sequencer- nothing, tried from PC (win10), midiox and midibome, slowed sysex tx right down nothing but errors, was suspecting issues with mainboard, was considering eeprom upgrade (it's on 1.1) ended up back on Atari, this time from a D70 editor, sent the default patches etc from there and it worked perfectly, possible my sysex file is bad? Quite enjoying playing the synth😄
Hi @dav1dbone Great to hear that you sorted out the restore. Many have told me that the SYEX file that is floating around on the internet is corrupted and will not load. I have my own file which I created some time back from the restore ROM. Jon
Hi @DrTune I don't normally allow bad language. But you are right there is not a lot in this box. But as a device in a MIDI based studio this type of device was almost indispensable. Jon
Hello mate , great video I loved the sounds of the Korg T series and owned a T1 at the end of the 80’s. Fast forward and I just bought a T3, in excellent condition BUT for the life of me I cannot get any sound from any of the 4 analog outputs !! The headphone jack is ok but nothing from the outputs . I remember being able to assign the sounds to any of the 4 outputs but I cannot remember how I did it . On the Editi combi page I thought I had it . Pan assign at the bottom via the ‘panpot’ icon … alas not a peep ! Any ideas very gratefully excepted Many thank Chris Hewson ❤
Hi @chrishewson5669 I answered this question via the website, but I am reproducing it here for others to see. I saw your message. Do you get any sound off the phones output? Basically unless someone has turned all the audio down on every patch I'd expect you to get some audio. Have you tried a factory reset. This will reset the keyboard and all the core audio settings? If you haven't got the factory disk I sell them for £6 plus postage to where ever you are in the world. Others sell these also. If neither of these two routes work then you have a problem either with the audio generation or amplification. This could be as simple as dry joints. These boards are 30 years old now. And when I fixed mine I re-flowed numerous joints that showed signs of dry joints. Hope this gives you some pointers. Jon
The C-64 was far more popular than the TRS-80, Tandy Computers and Apple in the USA. I lived in a small town of 3,500 people and I new a lot of people that had the C-64. When I'd moved to Phoenix Arizona, I had a dedicated C-64 store 10 blocks away from where I'd lived.
Hi @Gamevet In the UK you were either a ZX Spectrum or a C64 gamer. But in Europe the C64 ruled supreme. My German pen pal had one of these as did all his mates and he use to bring the latest games across to play on mine. Jon
@@TheMusicTechGuyUK Europe is a bit different. Most of the home computer users over there played their games from cassettes. We all had floppy drives, after a short struggle with the tape drive. There were a lot of RPGs made for those floppies.
Hi @Gamevet For what ever reason, which I suspect was price the floppy didn't really become a thing this side of the water for quite a few years. But it was a thing by the time the next generation of computers like the Amiga and ATARI ST arrived on the scene. Jon
@@TheMusicTechGuyUK Yeah. Cassette tapes weren't going to handle all of the data required to run 16-bit games. The cassette took off over there, because it was very cheap. A C64 floppy drive would set you back @$250 during that computer's prime over here.
Hi @Gamevet The prime market for the 8-bit micro's in the UK and Germany, (I can't comment on the European countries,) were kids like me lol. Who basically bought games on cassette with their pocket money or money they earn from a part time job!. Peripherals were expensive and therefore only acquired through the process of birthdays or Christmas. The next generation of computer's came with the floppy drive in the case and therefore your cost after acquisition was the cost of the media. I seem to recall it was £10 for 10 disks. Funny enough I have invested in an MSX computer and found that the peripherals for this platform cost the same to acquire on the secondary sales portals as they were when new 35 years ago. Jon
Hi @waheex I will be the first to admit that I am not an electronics engineer. But I have been giving your comment some thought and undertaken a little research as well. My understanding is that swapping volatile RAM for Non-volatile RAM is, in many cases not a straight swap, there has to be some adjustments to the electronics to make the latter compatible with the former installation. Given this I suspect this is why most synth owner have not upgraded legacy synths as you have suggested. As I said I am not an engineer so open to someone putting me straight on the comment I have made above. Jon
Hi @keyss2005 Sorry for the delay in responding. I have been thinking about your comment and have to be honest I haven't moved sounds from my Korg T1 to the KORG KRONOS. My initial thoughts on this were to try and use PGC tools which I know can read SYSEX files from the Korg T1. But having a look at the program functions I realised that you can only copy files between compatible workstations e.g. between the M and T series. But not from the T Series to the Korg Kronos. So unless someone can put me right I think that the only way to do this would be to sample the T1 directly into the Kronos and create the patch that way. Jon
Did you finally manage to solve the problem with the screen? I have the same issue on my mkII( display just shows crazy characters, not even letters sometimes but if I take out the battery and put it back in, then everything is fine. After the drum machine has been left without power for several days, the problem returns( there is a feeling that some capacitor is discharging
Hi @maximustot8441 I have to be honest it is one of those projects that was put on the back burner while other things took priority. In the meantime I have bought a working screen for the Roland R-8. And your probably aware getting hold of screens for this instrument is near impossible, so I was lucky to find it on one of the portals. It is my intention to test the screen and logic chip over the summer 2024, so that I can put this drum machine back into operation at some point. Jon
Are we taking about the M6, M7 or M8x? Assuming your $5k mention, it's the M8x. Having owned a Kronos 88 and moved on years ago, I can assure that the M8x GEX keybed is SO much better than the Kronos 88. The weighted keyboard with poly aftertouch puts the Kronos to shame. No mention of the AN-X engine in the Montage M? Over? Not sure what is being represented here. I've owned a few bits of kit and made my current choices. Your mileage may vary... Using: Yamaha: Montage M8x| Spectrasonics: Omnisphere, Keyscape | uhe: Diva, Hive2, Zebra2| Roland: Cloud Pro | Arturia: V Collection| NI: Komplete 14 | VPS: Avenger | Cherry: GX80 | G-Force: OB-E | Korg: Triton, MS-20 Sold/Traded: Yamaha: Motif XS8, Motif ES8, Motif8, KX-88, TX7 | ASM: Hydrasynth Deluxe| Roland: RD-2000, D50, MKS-20| Korg: Kronos 88, T3, MS-20 | Oberheim: OB8, OBXa, Modular 8 Voice | Rhodes: Dyno-My-Piano| Crumar: T2
Hi @trstack Videos that say one platform is better than another always invoke debate from the community. I have no doubt that the Montage M8X GEX keyboard is exceptional, as a number of Tuber's that watch the channel have stated this. But your choice of keyboard is down to preference. I note from your response that you have used a number of keyboards over the years so have experience of using different keybeds to form your judgement against. I agree that the KORG KRONOS keyboard is not the best out there, but when combined with the other features at the point of purchase it was the best all round contender at the time. If buying now I think I would struggle to buy Korg again. Jon
Korg should make a new flagship in the vein of M3 (Karma + 8 Chord Pads) 32 Voice of Synth Engine (eg 8 Microkorg Channels + 16 Knobs + 16 Step Arpeggio), Crossfade Modulation (like Yamaha Montage Superknob), Realtime Phrase Sequencer (Like classic Roland sequencer assign phrases to keys, with aftertouch), Step + Realtime Sequencer, Performance Combi Mode that combines Karma and Pattern Sections, Dual Kaosspad display, 64 MIDI Channel sequencer That would be amazing!
Hi @miekwavesoundlab Well I guess we are coming to mid term on the Korg Nautilus. Launched in November 2020 and available from January 2021 we are now 3.5 years into its run, with the first major upgrade the AT being implemented last year. My personal opinion is that we will not see a new model until Nautilus hits 5 years old. But they should be finalising functionality for the new model about now. So hopefully they look at the latest Roland Fantom and Yamaha Montage and the VST style keyboards like the Native Instruments Kontrol keyboard. And come up with another King of Workstations. Jon
