My current workstation is a Roland FA-07. I love its sequencer, which is far better than any other WS sequencers I’ve used.

There are three things that matter when you sell houses: Location, location and location.

Equally there are three things that matter with respect to workstations: Workflow, workflow and workflow. Neither Korg nor Yahama take the user much out of the menu-ridden nineties with Kronos and Montage. The new Fantom, however, this is a workflow unseen in any workstation till this date, imo. My MPC One bites its heels, but still, the Fantom workflow sweeps the table.

Yeah it’s just that the Kronos is getting long in the tooth. Being essentially OASYS v2 (and v3, and v4), it’s basically been kicking around since 2005. Not that that’s necessarily a disqualifier, it’s just design philosophies were different back then, and people want a new thingamabob. As for the UI, the Kronos has a lineage that goes even farther back, all the way to the Trinity in fact. Nonetheless, some of the third party patches are phenomenal. Purgatory Creek’s EP soundset for example.

The Kronos control panel is capable of a serious amount of tweakage, probably more than the Montage and Fantom combined. But unlike the Montage knobs and the Fantom right-hand side control panel, it must necessarily be less than adequately labeled since it can control so many different parameters for each engine/preset. You can navigate to a screen that shows you exactly what each knob/slider controls (and allows you to customize the controls) but ironically that almost defeats the purpose of having the control panel lol.

How hard would it be to put a vst host, which would let you load any vst instrument, audio or midi effect, in a workstation? Why hasn’t it been done yet?
That would surely make a killer workstation...

Welcome to 2005!

Lol. Not quite what I had in mind. I would prefer a year 202x workstation model, but with the added option of loading vsts (similar to the nine sound engines in the Kronos but with infinite flexibility).

Was this the one that had a Timbaland edition?

Yes haha the 37 key white edition if I recall.

Abdomination

It's actually a fantastic machine, full of potential. It's basically an Oasys II, but without the 10.4" tiltable screen. A full-90% or more of the Kronos' problems would've been adequately addressed if only Korg installed a VGA-out connector onto its bog-standard Intel Atom motherboard.

That whole left side of the Kronos was a mystery to me for awhile. But now that I get it, I see how brilliant it is. It's really pretty intuitive, and doesn't need looking at the screen for most of it:

Ext -- ignore, unless you actually use it, in which case you're advanced enough to use it

Audio
-- just like a mixer with volume, mutes, and solos
-- sliders from left to right in stereo pairs: Audio IN, USB, SPDIF.... easy!
-- buttons are mutes and solos, very handy

Timbre/Track
-- in Combi/Sequencer, sliders are volumes for each track; simple, intuitive
-- in Program, slider 1 is Engine 1 volume, slider 2 Engine 2; very handy

Note that knobs 7 and 8 are alway Master FX send 1 and 2 amounts.

RT/KARMA
-- 4 knobs are cutoff, res, env amt, release = easy
-- KARMA slider 3 (gate time) and 5 (note range) are the main ones

Tone Adjust will need looking at the screen to see what does what... unless it's an Organ sound, in which case the sliders are drawbars.

Pretty intuitive once you get it.

I've watched a few videos now of the Fantom. I can see its appeal.

The Kronos reverbs I'd put above the Integra, but equal or slightly below the MODX. But for just about everything else, the Kronos FX are tops, diverse, configurable, and programmable. Not getting that sense from the Fantom.

Seems to me the likely audience for the Kronos would be cover band or serious sound designer types. The Fantom seems to be aimed more at groovebox or EDM types. Is this a fair assessment?

I had a slight surge of GAS reading this thread, but the more I watch Fantom viceos, the more it goes away. As an old school musician who practices a lot, it seems to me the Fantom is deeper than the Montage. But both are still quite shallow compared to a Kronos and deeper song production and sound designing.

Workflow is of course important, but so are a nice set of mature tools. Workflow is something that a practicing player can overcome; your toolset is what it is.

It would seem like a given for manufacturers to build an empty shell hardware workstation that could just host VSTs or other non-Steingberg plug-in types. But that seemingly simple request is surprisingly complex from a software requirements side.

I'm thankful that the iOS environment seems to be a growing audio platform standard. You can hook it up to a Kronos or any other USB class compliant hardware controller and still get the benefit of several different hosts (AUM, DAWs, standalone apps) that will accept several plug-in types.

Not exactly sure where I'd place the Fantom since I've only had mine for a few days. As far as EDM presets and sounds, that award definitely goes to the Montage. It has a pretty generous selection of EDM presets—ones which I would find extremely difficult to program myself, and totally nails dozens of familiar EDM riffs.

I think the Kronos, with its array of excellent third-party EXs libraries can become anything its owner wants it to be—excellent for quick film-scoring, etc. As far as cover bands, this is what ROMplers do best, so I think all three would satisfy that requirement with well.

As for where the Fantom fits into this spectrum, I'm still discovering that . . .

I actually don’t want an empty shell hardware. I’m thinking more a Kronos plus the option of vsts.

Absolutely, but a workstation is all about having as much as possible integrated inside a single unit.

I agree that the Kronos is a fantastic machine, but it’s main shortcoming is not solved by a VGA-out connector.
It’s the obsolete UI that would need to be addressed first.
For instance: the AL-1 engine is very powerful but a pain to program with the current UI. Not to mention the sequencer, effects section and Karma (worst of all).
Too much jumping around menus.
Watch any tutorial video on youtube, and you will see even power-users having trouble navigating and finding settings in the menu system.

Workstations are boring with a lot of menu diving and uninspired workflows. Since the Triton era there is no progress in terms of the workflow, and what you get is always the same boring functions again and again.

Only with the Yamaha Montage was an attempt workstations to become more interesting, but I don’t know if it has a sequencer either, and I don’t care to be honest.

Workstations will start to be popular again when will become more specialized and not generic as they’re right now. The MPC Live, for instance, it is basically a music workstation strictly oriented to electronic music production, and the MPC One and the Akai Force as well. It is not that you can’t produce classic stuff with the aforementioned luxury groove boxes/workstations, because you can, but their orientation is the electronic sample based music production.

And this is why these machines are so popular among the users.

Roland they’re following with the relative new MC 707, and hopefully Korg and Yamaha will follow someday producing more modern and groove style workstations.

As for the classic stuff, workstations should become equally more specialized, for example I would like to see a workstation only for film and video games scoring, seriously.

So, in conclusion, I believe that when manufactures will specialize 100 % the workstations, then these devices will become again popular to the masses.

I think the future workstations will just be dedicated computers, as it is already with new Mpc and Roland Fantom/Mc.
Mpc actually is paving the way.
It's a quad core cpu which runs Linux and a controller, with a tablet on top of it.
Roland has its own chips and OS.
So somehow new workstations will just be a merging of synths, effects, sequencer, samplers, all digital controlled by a OS.

I think there is some truth to this, but I would say that it should probably be rephrased as "Workstations will start to be popular with the GS demographic."

Existing workstations are popular, just not with most of the people on GS, because they have maintained certain design choices from 20-30 years ago, rather than adopting new choices.

And this is precisely why I ended up with a Fantom. If Korg released a new Kronos with the kind of thought and care that went into the new Fantom interface, we’d have a major, major apex workstation on our hands.

I agree the UI is its main sore-spot and would benefit greatly from a modern refresh. However, I could learn to deal with its idiosyncrasies if I could only READ the screen! The fonts are so small, I can barely read it. I bought an iPad magnifier which helps greatly, but I haven't figured out a good way to mount it at the correct angle.

I’m not sure what you mean by ”uninspired workflows”. A workstation doesn’t have a workflow in itself - it should facilitate your workflow. But when the ui is uninspiring or dated it tends to interrupt your workflow, which is true for the Kronos.
Some people seem to get along with the sequencer in Kronos, but for me it’s totally useless.

I agree that a more groove style workstation (combine the best features from the MC707, Kronos and Fantom) would be fantastic. I miss pads and a simple step sequencer on the Kronos. I use an MC707 for that, but it would be awesome to have it all in one, integrated unit.

And on the subject of inspiring workflows, how can you not like workstations when you watch and listen to this demo of a brand new Vangelis soundpack for the Kronos?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OOH5JHitFBw

This is a fantastic work from Korg, it recreates realistically Vangelis orchestrations, but, if someone want to use them for his pro recordings should make a lot of effort in order these arrangements to not sound identical with Vangelis work.

The workflow is boring, most workstation owners they don’t even bother to learn how to use them, and they use them only as preset machines or to mess around with some combis orchestrations and stuff like that. Having a hardware workstation regularly means that you produce complete music with it without the need to open your computer.

https://www.thomann.de/gr/topseller_GF_keys.html

https://www.thomann.de/gr/topseller_...kstations.html

Looks like Kronos going strong 9 years after release.
Also, the list confirms that the 73 keys aren't as popular as 88 or 61.


Flagships
88-key: Fantom #1 , Kronos #3 ,
73-key: Montage7 #1 3, Fantom7 #1 9
61-key: Kronos #4 , Fantom #1 2, Kronos TI #1 4, Montage #1 5


Tier 2
88-key: MODX8 #2 , FA-08 #6 , Kurzweil PC4 #8 , Krome EX #9
73-key: Krome EX #1 8
61-key: FA-06 #7 , Krome EX #1 0 #1 1


Notable absent from Top 20 list:
Montage 8
Kronos 73
FA-07
MODX6, MODX7

https://www.thomann.de/gr/topseller_...kstations.html

Looks like Kronos going strong 9 years after release.
Also, the list confirms that the 73 keys aren't as popular as 88 or 61.
Montage is struggling, its 88 key doesn't even hit the Top 20.


Flagships
88-key: Fantom 1, Kronos 3
73-key: Montage 13, Fantom 19
61-key: Kronos 4, Fantom 12, Kronos TI 14, Montage 15


Tier 2
88-key: MODX 2, FA 6, PC4 8, Krome EX 9
73-key: Krome EX 18
61-key: FA 7, Krome EX Copper 10, Krome EX 11


Notably absent from Top 20 list:
Montage 8
Kronos 73
FA-07
MODX6, MODX7

I see...

Korg Kronos 88, Korg Kross 61, and the Roland FA – 06 are the most popular workstations. The Korg Kross obviously because of its low price, but it is not a bad workstation, I had the Kross 1 and it was really good for the price.

Do you use every function of your DAW? Do you strictly use your DAW standalone without any other gear?

Having a workstation means whatever you want it to mean. And that goes for all different types of workstations, DAWs, samplers/grooveboxes, and keyboards.

Exactly. Blank slates for organizing and playing sounds by different means.