Just checked out the new Kronos 2015

Hi everybody,

Yesterday I went to Musicstore Koeln (Germany) to get a keyboard stand (an Ultimate Apex ax48 pro s if you want to know). And when I was there browing around there it was:

The new Kronos 2015 🙂

I was curious if the interface was any faster and perhaps I’ll find new interesting features that aren’t mentioned on websites. So I played around with it.

The first thing I tried was the Berlin Grand piano, and boy it sounded great. I quickly looked if there were any new features to it and I saw the following screen (see below). I haven’t seen it before. It could be a new update to the OS:

 

 

It’s a screen about the string resonance. You can change the value of the intensity of the resonance. And you will see which strings will resonate when you’re playing. Very cool and it sounds very realistic and subtle.

The next thing I noticed is that there were very cool new programs (sounds). And those were very focused on real, existing songs, take this for example below

 

 

Program 089: Take on me lead, yes indeed it’s the sound that exactly sounds like the real sound. Knowing that it’s not common for Korg workstations to have that kind of programs, made me think that these programs were demo sounds of a sales representative. So I asked a guy of the store if this was true. He said he didn’t know, but I was free to make a backup to take it home. So I did 🙂 and tried those beautiful programs at home.  Mind you, I have the first Kronos, let’s call it the classic Kronos.

The first thing that I had to do was to update my Kronos Operating System to the latest version (3.0.2) at this moment. You can download it at Korg.com. And then I loaded the pcg file and indeed the programs worked like a charm! (except the Berlin Grand Sounds, because I haven’t bought the BGS expansion pack.. yet… or I could just buy the 2015 Kronos after a while, who knows…time will tell hehe)

So.. are these sounds from factory or custom made? Well, I can tell you, these sounds are from factory on the Kronos 2015 and you can load them into your classic Kronos and Kronos X.

I just looked up the patch list of the Kronos 2015 (check it here), and you can see that “089 Take on me lead” is there. So this is very good news.

Some additional info:

• I asked the guy in the store when the Kronos will be available and it’ll arrive in May 2015 (for Germany, I’m from the Netherlands BTW)
• Availability will be about the same for the Netherlands (please don’t ask me for other countries, I don’t know. You could ask your local distributor)
• Yes, the string resonance screen is also available on the older Kronos workstations (classic and X)