Folks, if I may - I work for a major (non-audio-related) manufacturer and I have some idea regarding product development and management:

Yes, everything is mostly code now. Nobody disputes this.

That absolutely doesn’t mean that a product is what the designers truly intended it to be. Most of the time what you get is a compromise between what the intention was vs what implementation reality is.

QA is a huge part of this - in my career I’ve seen incredible engineering innovations cancelled when code complete, only because there wasn’t enough QA personnel to do the final step.

It also isn’t as easy to change stuff as some of you may think. Any change (even if easy to code) means a whole new cycle of QA.

And the developer/QA time may conflict with other cool new stuff Korg has in the making.

So while they may want to do all those things you want and more, they simply don’t have the time because their priorities are focused on the next big thing.

There’s a finite number of engineers.

Plus, companies look at things like the Pareto principle and develop a lot of stuff that way.

It is what it is.

It doesn’t mean you can’t ask for nice things. If you don’t ask you don’t get.

But at the same time buy what’s on the truck - if you don’t like OpSix as-is then don’t buy hoping it will massively change.

That sends the message to the beancounters.

It’s the strongest message you can ever send.

I can only read their quoted messages.
Long ago put on my Ignore List.
Personally I like the SE.
The question is, do I retire my Blofeld keys for a OP SIX SE?

I will ponder this while this is still in pre-order mode in Canada.
Always dead last to receive products here, which is good as it gives mr lots of time to play
"Will I, won't I?"

I can understand your Points, but these are trivial arguments. Because when I have a company and produce products, I always need resources in the form of money ,in the form of staff, creative ideas, time, good planning, cheap loans, and so on. As an Entrepreneur/Company you always bear the risk, that's nothing new here. And of course unforeseen things can happen that you didn't expect, economic difficulties , problems with the delivery of components etc. If Korg doesn't have time to change a sound engine , to optimize it and perform quality control, why don't you hand this over to Sub companies? If you cannot find staff yourself or do not want to bear the costs for additional IT specialists when it comes to programming sound engines?

It’s hard to outsource certain advanced engineering - some stuff is often tied to specific people. Lose those people and you have a big problem.

Even hiring more staff isn’t the answer - that’s like saying “Vangelis is dead, let’s hire 10 other musicians to replace him”.

Or, as they say, a baby takes normally 9 months to be born. You can’t make 9 women pregnant simultaneously and hope for a baby to be born in 1 month instead.

Sorry for all the analogies

The DS-8 was not a competitor for the DX7 that is pure ignorance

The DX7 had a very deep 6op FM Engine with 16 voices of Polyphony

The DS-8 had is 4op, and is just the keyboard version of Yamaha's FB01 module. When the DS-8 came out, Korg had sold itself to Yamaha, it also only has 8 voices of polyphony

At the time it came out Yamaha had the TX802 which gave you 8 part multitimbrality and 16 voices of total Polyphony and used the DX7II FM Engine. If you wanted eight parts you got two voices each

And before that you could get a fully loaded TX816 which offered 8 timbres at once each with 14 voices of Polyphony

It should be noted also that Yamaha never made any significant upgrades to the FB-01 or the DS-8 they were finished products and bargain products at that

The Gray Matter boards were also third party as Yamaha considered the DX7 to be a finished product, until the MKII came out which was a finished product until the SY77, and then SY99

If you are going to try and post the history of FM please post accurate information

Not every instrument has to be multitimbral.

True. But it’s hard to mention any that aren’t with 80+ notes of polyphony and 61 keys.

Plus of course there are many benefits even to 4-part. Or just 2.

Even Modwave can do 2. It’s been one incredibly frequent complaint for OpSix, made worse by the SE model.

If anyone asked me for ONE thing to add, it would be that.

2-4 minimum is fairly standard these days, even in instruments with way lower polyphony and keys

If we were talking about the plugin version, who cares, just create more instances - but we are talking about the 61-key, expensive version

A good way to create more demand and market segmentation would have been to have some extra functionality in the SE model beyond just aftertouch. Make it so the software only allows it when in the larger keyboard (wearing my product management/development hat).

32 notes for two parts is not much for me as a live player on the Modwave.
With long release I am always running out, even with 4 note chords.

I welcome a monotimbral synth with many many notes!

the price....

hahahahhahahahahaha

My request would be a performance mode for the A-F knobs (assignable through performance matrix or something).

Still no multimode, still simple ADSR Envelopes(without Loop and Trigger) doesent show the Potential of FM...sad....such a Big Keyboard and waste of Money. Those Limitations are not understandable in 2024.

Some people value ease of use over features, what year it is is never going to change that.