Korg Kronos Launch Event - NAMM 2011 

10 years later and the Kronos is still amazing.

@leefuji This was a software issue that has already been corrected, and will not be present when KRONOS ships.

What's the percussion instrument being played in the first show piece?

I've been a solid Korg user since my first i2 workstation in 1994, I added the Kronos SE in 2019 and just added the Wavestate in December of 2020. There is so much power and capacity for all the units it will take me a lifetime to explore all the features and functions available.

My gosh! This was the best demo video of a keyboard workstation that I've seen so far! I'm speechless! 54 minutes well spent!

what a true game changer !! God bless the Korg team !! They are simplu delivering what professional turing artists only dreamed about, finally history has been made. R.I.P Roland

@BlackEyedPanther in m50 and m3 arent so big differences so :) but i dont see any differences beetwen kronos and m3 too ? can anybody tell me what is new ?

@leefuji This issue has already been fixed, and will not appear when KRONOS ships.

My kind of baby. Proud owner of Korg for 15 years now.!

I wish Jack Hotop would release some of his own work. His playing here is amazing!

Long time ago, many people like Jordan refused to play keyboards with rhythms (Arranger Keyboards). Today, most demonstrations of this kind of workstations are performed exactly as an Arranger Keyboard, like Yamahas PSRs and Tyros, Roland E Series, Korg PA Series, etc. Why these guys do not helped to develop this technology before? We would have keyboards with more competitive prices today. Better late than never. Muitas Emoções!

Wow, awesome presentation. This has a lot of everything to offer. Nice piano sounds for sure. The FM and Poly Six are awesome to incorporate into one unit. I'm really into the vintage synths , but this seems to bring the vintage sound/synthesis structures up to date in an awesome new way. It seems to meet almost everyone's wishes & it looks great too. I love the synthesis real time editing features and the waveform graphics. Wow, I'm very impressed. Sweet synth! Great work Korg! :) TSF

agree Eldar and Haynes are incredible, sounds like they're playing "Chronicle"

@ leefuji, It was his velocity that was light. Therefore, he did not trigger the other effects and sounds with the lick. When he resumed playing with more force, the whole mix came back in. I like this new toy!!!

KORG IS THE BEST....IM THROUGH LOOKING FOR A WORKSTATION....I FOUND IT......

@Epica3 I too have ES6 but sold last few Months back. I thought of buying one of the XF series. What's your opinion?

Does it autoload Akai/self-created samples? or do you have to do it manually..

Btw, if anyone's interested, Eldar's song is called Daily Living, off the 2009 Virtue album. Great piece of art.

@rhodes1986 maybe it is call maschine but i dont know...

woooooooooooot !!! aaawesome duo in the beginning and, awesome Kronos ! KORG, you roxx

@UtdMan4eva Can you for instance,tweek the sustain and/or tone on the M3?

@maltcus Well i dont know... but i think this one will but much more expensive too :-/

I've been with Korg since 1990. Aside from labbing with a (fantastic) K2600 for a while, there isn't another brand of board I would use. I have one ms-10 and the rest are workstations. This is the latest, and best tool out here. I encourage anyone on the fence about a solid studio or performance board to try the Kronos out.

Daaaaaamn, I favorited this just for the performance. Awesome workstation.

@Wokker2 anyone know what midi controller david haynes was using?

I don't get why people bash things so frequently on RU-vid. Many people put a lot of time into developing this keyboard. Whether I will buy one or not I don't know. I love Korg keyboards. been using and buying them for over 25 years. If it's not for you, that's cool but regardless, show some respect for the developers and sound designers who put their hearts into this machine.

Awesome demo! It's the demo OASYS never got when the 2 Legacy expansions, Mod-7 and Str-1 were released for it... The Kronos seems to be the workstation the M3 should have been in the first place.

@ McHale72, Who did you pre-order from? @ leefuji, If you are correct, I hope Korg clears up any glitches before it ships. We don't need another Audiya type fiasco in the synth universe.

This keyboard is indeed a huge step. Just for the fact that you can leave the RAM for a 30gb SSD to have the best quality in sounds this is a must-have. Musicians deserve it! Now I have a question: How easy is it for a blind person to opperate it, when certain functions are accessed via touch? Or, am I missing something? Thanks in advance for the input. Peace, Edu Camargo.

@AlanKey86 an Akai MPC or similar drum machine. Unless there's a specific drum sound you're asking about in which case, I have no idea.

TOTALLY OUTSTANDING !! KORG SHOWS WHO IS THE KING !

the final rudess demo is from Explorations?

@KorgUSAVideos When does is start shipping in uk?

Finally u learned from apple how to show a marvelous product excellent job guys I'm saving money for this beast

The "playing samples directly from disk drive"-concept reminds me of the Tascam GigaSampler. Some speculations are running around in my mind right now: "German" grand piano = Bösendorfer 290 Imperial? "Japanese" grand piano = Yamaha Premium CFX? Does anyone have further information about which pianos were sampled here?

@chaveznieves I watched the whole thing as it's very exciting to see this next step in synthesizer development, but it was a blast to see both Jack and Jordan performing; they're both deep, sweet, generous souls. Tim Burton should just ask Jordan to score his entire next movie, after that last piece. :) All in all, a nice ray of hope in a darkening world. Thanks, guys, for this.

what is that instrument the drummer is playing ,please give exact details ,would like to purchase one ,they both sounded great as far as the Kronos ,Hey its a KORG ,AMAZING ,thank you Mr .Formidoni

@Caasi02 not correct at all , the sounds were being cutoff , there is a difference between him triggering less mixed sounds because he's applying less force vs. having the sounds actually cutoff and you can hear it clearly ! I've used keyboards that had 4-8 polyphony max back in the days and I can tell what it sounds like when a keyboard is cutting off , it's still a nice new KORG toy though don't get me wrong ;-)

@MarctheDarc --- ahh I gotcha. Thanks for that info Marc! I really appreciate it. I'll keep my eyes open on those things now.

I suggest you buy one of those. Right now, i am using XS7. Sory for late reply...

Also... the machine is VERY COMPLEX! It took four of us to figure out the rotary speaker. Never did find out how to change percussion on the organ and none of us could find the strumming effect on the ribbon for the guitar. We spent 30 minutes looking for the drawbars for the organs only to find out that they aren't on all organs, not even the ones labeled "drawbar organ 1". huh? I'll get the manual and try again I guess. Because the video looks really good.

@KorgUSAVideos That's good news. How about the cymbals cutting off when David Haynes is playing? Is that voice stealing or is he purposely choking them? Some of them, like at 9:45, sounds like he could be doing it on purpose. But the one at 8:54 sounds rather weird.

@krlos125 Oh, yes, that's smart. Why don't you buy also the other 12390123 instruments JR plays?

Love the new videos !!! God Bless Namm 2011

@KorgUSAVideos glad to hear this. thanks for the update :-)

I know you guys are here for Rudess, but don't skip the performance by Eldar at 5:00. Amazing pianist

@ed13adema You mean the fact that you can change out all the samples in seconds isn't open enough for you? What else do you want? A workstation that composes for you? Creates new sounds for you? Maybe you want it to brush your teeth too?

Does it import Wavestation sysex? That would be VERY cool...

The most amazing thing is........it still sounds like KORG.

Eldar's piece from @4:55 - @12:55 - was brilliant!

What's that word at 1:20? Rambler? Never heard of it... What is it?

@FireLinkAnime There was a bad batch of RH3 keys on the 73 and 88's and a software error that has been patched in the latest update. and the keybed problem is being looked into thoroughly. Not sure of any other problems.

@AlanKey86 The guy uses Korg padKontrol with drum sounds from Kronos (padKontrol is just a midi controller).

Are those cutoffs in the drum performance intentional? It's nice overall. I'm not a Korg-hater (or for that matter any manufacturer). I just don't see anything other than the implementation of the SSD (yay:) and the ability to use this as a plug-in (a very natural evolution). I still haven't heard any new sound directions like the original Wavestation. I know a lot of people will undoubtedly go crazy over this. I for one, just don't see it. Thank Korg for the SSD implementation though.

Gotta Have it!!

How about pricing!? Does any body knows for fact about it? And when it's gonna be available?! PLZ no guessing.. if you don't know. Thanks.

@MarctheDarc -- oh wow, that's odd. I never had a problem with the OSX USB drivers. Maybe it's something on your end? I haven't had any problems using any of the USB-connective devices. That's very odd indeed.

I may be a tad behind the times, but this seems be capable of replacing all six of the keyboards in my arsenal. However, the flavors of each synth run through a separate effectes modual provides a much more distinct color to each track that no workstation can muster. But for one keybord that does it all...this seems to edge out all of the competition in my view. For the one-man-band-dj gig...Korg has a VERY powerful tool here.

@PitchBlackGuitarMan And here we have the most creative criticism on the internet. Well done sir

I would like to hear the Latin sounds of accordions and trumpets. Thanks!

Id trade in my Triton Studio for this if I could afford it, but I wonder if its worth it any more with some of the great VSTs you can get these days. I do like the idea of having everything onboard a dedicated piece of hardware rather than a computer though, and it looks and sounds great.

@r4x2 monotron has MS-20 filter, and ms-20 has external input, so i think you can chain them up, to use ms-20 engine to filter ^^

That final song's Revolving Door from Feeding the Wheel? Something there sounds really similar.

Eldar's piece was brilliant! 4:55 - 12:55.

"If you need anymore than 16,000 slots, then your playing the most complicated Gig known to man" xD - I love there insane over the topness, but its all worth it....well we'll never need that many but yh :D Great Overview of the keyboard and i'm only halfway through! Wouldn't buy one personally atm, because I don't gig and have plenty of Refills, VSTi's and Samples for my own compositions, but what a power house it is and would definitely use if given one!

does anyone know what the price is going to be? does anyone know the release date?

Amazing sound! Korg is the best, for sure!

im really glad he played something from Explorations.

Jack is fucking hilarious to watch, the enthusiasm is awesome!

Just bought the demo model at Sweetwater's Gear Fest '11.... wish I had the skills to justify such an amazing product

alguien sabe el precio aprox en que llegara a mexico???

What is the name of combination at 48:11?

Eldar and Rudess are so fucking AMAZING.

That old guy loves his job so much

@chrishooper68 is that why their OSX USB-drivers havent worked for well over 2 months, they've known there was a problem for over 3 months, and no where in that time have they fixed it? And none of their USB-connective devices work properly. Not a single update for over 9 months (since they last launched a new piece of gear with USB - that's windows and OSX alike mind you). Plenty of devices havent had a single update to their systemsoftware, or editor software despite it's sorely needed.

I'm a church musician slash future would be producer and although this keyboard seems fantastic I can't see myself using all the features. I will demo one at my local Guitar Center for the touch of the keyboard. What I've seen so far intrigues me as I'm looking to upgrade from my 12 year old Ensoniq KT-76 which still works fine just the touch of the keys have stiffened.

@PaulGT3 I guess it depends on what you're playing as well. If you are into jazz fusion or progressive rock then you usually have more than one keyboard. And huge numbers of sounds (like 10 different sample libraries) are often not needed. But if you're let's say a techno guy who touches 3 keys in a whole song then I'd say the computer is a much cheaper way of getting the sounds you want.

Did they stopped OASYS production with this new one??

Rodess improv skills haunt me in wonderful ways.

I'm kind of on the fence between the Motif XF and Korg Kronos but after watching this, I'll probably get the Korg Kronos as it just sounds so much better.

@rhodes1986 he explains that the kronos has a great drum sounds so im guessing that the controller is telling the kronos to generate the drums

@McHale72, I have already found it and pre ordered. Thanks anyway

I HAVE GOT TO GET ME ONE OF THESE!!!...

Please fix the post and pre midi bug!

What product is the drummer using?

Well done you guys!

Im buying this piano in a few weeks.

Jack Hotop just became my hero!

@chaveznieves, I am one of those people who actually skipped the Jordan Rudess part ;) I prefer Jack Hotop far above Mr. Rudess. All respect for his skills, but his thing isn't my thing. Great to see that Mr. Hotop was there ;)

Amazing !!!

Watch all the OASYS' that get put on Ebay now.

@maltcus I decided that i am gonna probably buy korg m50 :)

@Bruce88keys how much is it?

Did anyone get towels,warm water and something to cut the cord?

Will be using the 'Karma for Motif' with my XF8 and a 61-key Kronos. That should cover the bases.

@PaulGT3 No problem mate, and good luck!

where is stephen kay :(???

i wasnt feeling the oasys because of its size. the kronos comes in the 61 key version with the synth action i prefer. this is one bad ass board. want.

@PaulGT3 I find that hardware synthesizers sounds better than VSTs. This, including the large amount of things can go wrong when using a computer puts me off :P

@Bruce88keys Actually it's the same price or cheaper than the motif xf with max flash installed.