Korg reveils the new Kronos
Here it is: the new Korg Kronos (it will be available in about 5 weeks). Some call it the Kronos 2.
In a nutshell, what’s new about the Kronos 2:
- A new SGX-2 piano engine with a 9GB Berlin grand piano
- A multicolor touchscreen with touch-drag / swipe capabilities
- 21GB waveform samples built in
- Room for 62GB downloadable Kronos libraries
- Set-list mode now adds a 9 band EQ; adjust your sound for each venue / gig
- Nice colors in setlist mode and a comment pad (with scalable text)
- Search function for finding sound based on title
- The 16-track audio recorder simultaneously records up to four tracks at a sampling rate of 48 kHz
- And don’t forget the wooden sidepanels 😉
Is it worth the upgrade if you have a Korg Kronos (X)?
Good question; it depends -from the information I have now at this moment- on your needs. The most interesting part to me of the new Kronos is the new piano and (the room for lots of) extra sounds. However, there hasn’t been an upgrade of the Karma version. It’s still the same Karma version als the initial Kronos. It’s great to see there’s still innovation taking place at Korg R&D. That’s a great thing. It keeps them ahead of the game (where are you Roland and Yamaha?)
So, looking at the specs; take this for example:
I read this on the Korg website: “Approx. 2GB *4 *4: The memory available for Sampling Mode will change based on the use of Expansion PCM libraries and User Sample Banks. Approx. 760 MB is available when shipped from the factory (When loading the file named “PRELOAD.KSC”).”
I assume that the *4 refers to note number 4 rather than 4 times 2GB. I guess it’s the same setup as the original Kronos. You can add 1GB to the existing 2GB (of which 1GB is used by the system). This means that the current operating system is (still) 32bit.
To buy or not to buy
Would I buy it? Probably not, however I’ll know it when I see / touch and hear it 😉
What would you do? Let me know!
