User Review of Kawai Ex Pro for Yamaha Modx

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Korg 'south Krome synthesizer was launched back in 2012 as the mid-priced choice in Korg's workstation range. For those unfamiliar with the 'workstation' concept, these machines will do pretty much annihilation required in song production bar the vocals (although some even endeavour that). You go drums, keys, existent instruments, feature-packed synthesizers, furnishings, multitrack sequencing and the kitchen sink. Korg pretty much invented the modern workstation with its gazillion-selling M1 back in the late 80s.

The Kronos is Korg's electric current workstation star, which information technology describes as 'the most powerful synthesizer in the world'. When nosotros reviewed it this time terminal year we institute that claim to be not that far from the truth. At the best part of three grand though, it's probably a stretch for many, and so the Krome range, which at present starts at around £665 street, could be a fantastic option. What I take on examination here is the all-new Krome EX, updated for a NAMM annunciation last year , and a workstation that borrows some of the very best $.25 from Kronos.

Shiny new Krome

New features added for Krome EX – aside from the new metallic greyness finish – include two new program banks with a large drove of EDM-style sounds, more than none-Western instruments, like the kalimba and kokyu, plus cinematic presets, all-new grand upright and electric piano sounds plus emulated vintage amps and cab furnishings. Before I explore those, though, I should delve a little deeper into what else Krome offers, and there'southward a lot of it.
We'll start with the overall stats, which include 16-part multitimbrality – and so you lot can tape 16 different sounds in your song – and a massive sequencer to put that melody together.

Information technology features 16 tracks, the options to add preset (710) or user (100) Patterns; a Drum Rails with another 710 Patterns (plus 1,000 user); up to 210,000 MIDI events (plenty); and 193 types of effect to throw at them (carve up every bit five inserts, ii masters and one 'Total'). Polyphony is equally large with 120 voices in Unmarried Mode and 60 in Double; more on these later. Throw in a polyphonic arpeggiator, 4GB of sounds with a huge number of drum kits and sample options and you take an unquestionably well-spec'd workstation. Equally with all of these types of machine though, it's the user feel that shapes how practiced it is and how that power is handled.

In use

I'm testing Krome EX-88, which is peak of the range after the 61 and 73-note versions. Those feature semi-weighted keys while the 88 has what is chosen an NH (Natural Weighted Hammer Action) keyboard which is velocity sensitive (only non aftertouch). This gives it weight (around 15kg) which, while heavy, is decent for a keyboard like this. (My local UPS commuter is still cursing my name afterwards collecting a 30kg Akai keyboard from me the other week, for example.)

Other than that, Krome EX is pretty thin in controls, especially compared to some other workstations, but actually, as we'll see, this lends itself well to its performance. Controls include a pitch-bend/modulation joystick – which is nicely lit, plus assignable buttons above information technology. There are useful real-time encoders that are assigned to synth, Arp or user parameters inside a parameter matrix where you can easily step through what the encoders control.
In that location is a lovely touch screen with which you might want to use a pen for the smaller controls and accurate changes, but the principal options are perfectly finger sized. To the right of this is a data encoder and a panel of number keys, and then information technology'southward ofttimes a case that you lot'll make a screen selection with your finger and input information values with either the keys or dial. Y'all can select sounds this manner and there are depository financial institution buttons that brand homing in on them and inputting more than exact data easier.

Krome EX does lack a decent number of outputs. In my ideal world, I'd want to be able to channel those 16 parts through an output each, but that is an expensive world and an unrealistic one. With just two hither though, I do feel a trivial short-changed.

At that place's a Mac and PC Krome editor that runs as a standalone or VST/RTAS/AU plug-in with EX; simply connect your computer upward via the USB slot. It looks pretty sometime-school but does let you to tab between various options and see a lot more on screen. Information technology'due south nice to run across, for case, the cadre synthesis options and waveforms all at once and be able to tweak them. That's non to say yous can't practise that on the keyboard, only it does offer some other way to access Krome EX's many different layers.

Sounds aplenty

Many of the sounds on Krome EX derive from Kronos, just you don't get the audio capabilities of that auto in terms of its sampling functions and massive number of synth engines. What you do become is a single large synth engine based around ii oscillators with two filters per oscillator of four types each. There's a phenomenal number of options (four dissimilar filter routes, for example) that are just a page tab or two abroad from the top layer and it's surprisingly easy to get to the guts of EX quickly. Yous also often get a visual graphic change when you make edits, which makes the feel more convenient.
So to the results of that engine and the real sounds are here in abundance – of course they are. Pianos are incredibly well represented, and I'll cover some of the newer ones that arrived with EX later, and there are plenty of acoustics and electrics – more than enough, in fact.

Each sound is assigned several different real-time effects on the parameter matrix on the left on the keyboard, which makes changing them very hands-on and intuitive. These become very axiomatic in categories like Organs, for case. These too are very well featured, and frequently very distinctive cheers to those existent-time furnishings adding a swirly Leslie blazon result.

Standing the 'existent' theme, strings and other orchestral presets are also many and varied. Like the pianos, the strings demonstrate Korg'south excellent sampling, sounding incredibly real on occasion, and once again the real-time encoders – which I'grand falling in dearest with at this point – can add a startling level of depth and atmosphere, just with a single twist.

Information technology would take an historic period to go through the rest of the existent sounds, but highlights include some excellent guitars, more than groovy orchestral options, plus some very usable vocals and effects in the Vocal/Air section.

With such a fully-featured synth engine, you won't be surprised to hear that the electronic side of Krome is just every bit well-formed. There are some really lovely sweeping pads, dozens of synth basses and atmospheric pads and – yet again – those existent-time controls will change parameters like filter frequency and resonance with ease to totally transform and finely sculpt these more than electronic sounds.

Combi mode is next and sweeps upward sixteen sounds into either a single huge audio or bottom groups of sounds. You tin apply these as keyboard splits – where you lot'll play different layers or individual sounds on different parts of the keyboard – or as multi setups for external sequencing.

Combi Mode also allows you to pair sounds with melodies, arpeggiations and pulsate patterns via a Drum Track. The drum patterns are derived from Krome'southward many and varied electronic and acoustic drum kits. The level of particular in the kits here is quite extraordinary and yous can hands get in and change kit sounds (from literally thousands on offer), sample lengths, add effects and mix them with ease.

What the patterns from Drum Track do effortlessly well, especially when you bring in the melodic patterns and the arpeggiations, is inspire you if you are bereft of ideas. There was a time when these suggested patterns and beats would grate with me on workstations, but Korg (and others) have updated the concept well. When those beats and melodies commencement cycling effectually your ain riffs, yous feel complete ideas taking shape in no time, and many of the supplied combinations allow you to create entire songs and song parts in an nearly illegally fast way. Having accompaniments like these won't exist everyone's idea of composition and creation, but I can pretty much guarantee you will exist impressed by a selection from the many hundreds on offer. The only slight negative in Combi style is that you'll accept to share the insert and other effect types beyond whatsoever group of sounds yous are combining, so you could run out fast.

More than and more than features

And while I'm on them, permit'due south have a quick run through these furnishings, as they are abundant and actually tin can transform the preset sounds on Krome EX. Yous can choose from five insert consequence combinations (in series on parallel), a 3-ring EQ per track with sweepable mid, ii Master effects (usually reverbs and delays) plus what Korg calls a Total effect, an overall event – a limiter for mastering, for example. That's a lot of furnishings and flexibility – one of Krome's key strengths.

The sequencer is adjacent on Krome's all-encompassing feature list that I should encompass, and you can employ this on many levels. Simply hitting Tape and playing volition start it, and then recording moments of inspiration is easy. But you can also go into it on deeper levels, looking at each track office (from 16) and fifty-fifty down to piano curl level, at private notes which you tin can and so drag, drop, lengthen or delete with your fingers. You tin fifty-fifty zoom in and out on the events in an easier fashion than you'll observe on many full-blown DAWs. Okay, overall It's not quite as high-spec as Cubase or Logic, but nor is it a million miles away, and it certainly beats my early experiences with workstations where you were basically just watching bar and beat numbers cycling effectually per runway!

What else is new?

And and then to the newer EX options, and if it's a great range of pianos that you desire then Krome now delivers. There's a new grand piano, which sounds lush and expansive; a new upright with a very authentic feel; and new electrics that hark back to 80s funk or provide lovely, gentle pulsing. It'south all there if you are subsequently a live piano feel in a more mobile and sturdy keyboard, and of grade, these sounds combine incredibly well with the weighted keyboard of the EX on test to produce a rich and incredibly realistic 'proper' playing experience.

There is also a new option of globe sounds in EX. These include some fantastic Centre Eastern sounds – which again have rhythmic tracks equally suggestions.

A bigger, newer addition is that Korg has bolstered the more contemporary side of Krome with a selection of EDM sounds. That could mean annihilation in such a wide-ranging genre, of course, and I do still experience a little wary when big keyboard manufacturers try to include 'absurd' sounds – I think the early on days of this genre of keyboard, and some of the inclusions were toe-curlingly embarrassing. Happily, that's not the case here, thank you often to the Drum Track which adds some pretty abrupt and modernistic beats, or even the odd pumping sidechain effect to each preset selection should you require it.

The new kits help here also, adding some proper attitude and bite. Within the new dance sounds, the vocals are contemporary but won't be for everyone, only the stabs, leads, risers and other transitions are very usable peculiarly with a bit of custom tweaking, which is easily done.

One other new add-on is what Korg call the Trailer Effects kit, a nod to the blazon of Hollywood film trailers designed to grab your attention, and then yous get all sorts of impact, drops, and attention-grabbing samples – a overnice touch for soundtrackers. Finally, Krome EX adds 128 new combinations – so even more than instant song-writing and sequencing can be had.

Conclusion

Over the final couple of years we've reviewed some corking workstations which prove that this sector of the music technology market is non only alive and well, but thriving like never before. This is largely down to what yous go for your money. The big three music technology companies of Roland , Yamaha and Korg accept had to up their games to compete with each other but also with software. Yous can get some great ROMpler type software options that offer loads of varied sounds (call up SampleTank) but these older – and let'due south say more traditional – companies accept all really risen to the claiming. And of grade their hardware keyboard options are great for gigging musicians as well.

Krome EX is a wonderful example, packing in features that I would have but dreamt of a few years ago – the bear upon screen, the storage, the effects and massive polyphony are but a few examples – and actually does permit y'all produce complete tunes from one box. What Krome doesn't practice, which some other models do, is offer more control over your sounds. Some of these workstations have a plethora of knobs and sliders to get to the centre of a sound or set-up. Krome EX'south view is more of a simpler fascia, which gets to what you lot are doing with more than simplicity. That might non be what you desire, but the overall user experience – and remember I said this was crucial right at the start of this review – is simpler and workflow is greater. It's summed upwards by the four control buttons on the left (yet again). They command some main options for you; do that, move on, and so do something else.

The over-riding experience, then, is that y'all are working more efficiently and rather more slickly. If you want more hands-on tweakage, then in that location are other options – such as Roland'south new control-packed Fantom – but you're paying a lot more money for those options (in that case well over twice the price).

With Krome EX, it comes right back to that cash for options bespeak. With the EX 88 for instance, you're talking almost everything you lot need to get up and running making music in a huge diverseness of genres, all within an elegant and easy to use package, and with a quality weighted keyboard thrown in – for not that much over a grand. That's pretty exceptional whichever way yous look at it.

Overview

USB and SD slots

SD and SDHC memory cards can be used to transfer data (up to 32GB). The USB slot allows MIDI control and Krome to be edited via external software.

MIDI and foot controls

You get three pedal connections – Damper, plus assignable Switch and Pedal – plus MIDI In and Out connectors. Pretty standard stuff.

Outputs

Existence a mid-priced workstation, yous're not really expecting too many outputs and Krome only offers a couple, plus headphones.

Do I really need this?

With soft synths, modular and the re(re)nascency of analogue, some people predicted the demise of the workstation. Just the fact is, if you are a live actor or composer who needs a huge and varied palette of sounds at your fingertips – plus a great sketch-pad way of assembling them – and then they are a great selection. Krome EX is very well priced and spec'd and a fantastic choice.

Key features

• EDS-X synth workstation (Enhanced Definition Synthesis)
• Available as EX-61 (61-note, semi-weighted), EX-73 or EX-88 on test hither with 88 Natural weighted keys
• Polyphony: 120 voices Unmarried Mode, 60 in Double Mode
• Memory: 4GB, 728 multi and 2,502 pulsate samples
• Engine: OSC1 (Single); OSC1 + 2 (Double); two filters/osc with iv types and routes
• 16 part multitimbral
• Large modulation options
• Effects: v insert, 1 Total, 2 master, 193 types
• Polyphonic Arpeggiator
• Huge sixteen-rail sequencer
• Drum Track: ane,700 patterns

Alternatives

Yamaha
MODX 8 £1,099

Nosotros reviewed this beauty just over a year ago, and the 8 offers an 88-note feel and is a slightly cut-down version of Yamaha's Montage mothership. Touch screen, loads of sounds, effects and controls including the rather slap-up Super Knob.

Native Instruments
Komplete Ultimate from £800

Workstations like Krome are aimed at players, but if yous just want a vast range of sounds, they don't get much vaster than this. Over 100 soft instruments, 45,000 presets, 600GB of content.

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Source: https://musictech.com/reviews/hardware-instruments/korg-krome-ex/