Korg Kronos or M3

Well its almost time for a new keyboard and was thinking of a couple of different models, is anyone using Kronos or M3 that share user experiences with me? I have tons of VSTi but want a keyboard that can cover a lot of ground including Sting/pad/Synth moog sounds and of coarse decent piano/elec pno sounds. I won’t be using pianos for recording purposes so they just need to be very good not perfect lol

I wasn’t thinking of Nords because I already have Hammond for organ stuff and I was unsure of ease of getting good Synths and programing off them

Thanks for any info or ideas you can share.
Kenny

Between those 2 there really is no contest. I would chose the Kronos every time. Better sounds, proper sampler, more synthesis types.

Mark do you have any other suggestions? I have been using a laptop so long and would love to be free of it and have something I can edit live with

My current main board is a Roland Fantom G, which I really love, but it is a 3 year old product, and I don’t think Roland will be putting any more development effort into it now (So no new supernatural ARX expansion cards - which is a shame) If I was looking now, the Kronos would probably top my list, followed closely by the Kurzweil PC3K.

I’d also really like to audition the new Roland Integra module and pairing it with the new A88 master controller.

I can’t speak for the Yamaha offerings (I was a bit underwhelmed by the Motif when I was auditioning last and bought the Fantom) but someone I know just got a MOX and really likes it.

My suggestion is to spend some time looking at a few youtubes and then when you are a bit familiar with various offerings get yourself to a music shop that has a few in stock, and play!

Mark, I have 2 older Kurzweil (PC2X and PC88mx) now that I want to replace this with. I have always liked Kurzweil but had some issues with recent support. In past I used to call them directly for any needed parts etc and they were great. They outsourced all this to American Musical Supply who sent me wrong parts and it took over 3 months to resolve and get correct item which left me w/o the keyboard. That’s why I am thinking of the switch to Kronos which I tried and sounds great. That roland though looks incredible and I love the IPad interface. I have a nice controller that might work well with this Integra and also to use in conjunction with my Muse Receptor. The receptor sounds good but can’t change or edit sounds live.

I guess Roland isn’t in store yet but having a jupiter in a box would be great! Guess I will wait till I can try it. I also wasn’t crazy about any Yamaha I tried in past but guess it won’t hurt to try new one. I will miss the the easy to setup controller functions on Kurzweil as I used it in past to control my Laptop plugins effectively live.

Sonic State has a great demo/review Product Presentation: Roland Integra-7

One little thing to note about the Kronos: it takes 2 minutes to power up. Should the power spike or an accidental unplug or so means no sound for a good while.
Don’t have one, but from what I’ve seen/heard it’s amazing otherwise though.
Do you need an arranger with it? If yes, check the Tyros.
The Roland Jupiter80 also has really good sounds.

Wow a two minute boot maybe a deal breaker! I played the keyboard but never turned it off/on. It takes my Muse Receptor almost 4min to boot and it can ruin a gig when it goes down.

I loved the Jupiter 80 but its a lot for what it does and its keybed isn’t what I would normally play (synth action, normally I like waterfall and weighted keys. On another note I played with the Integra yesterday and it sounds great. Not really user friendly programing it from module but the ipad app looks real easy to use so it maybe okay to use live. Way to many sounds though lol. I didn’t get a true test drive though as I couldn’t layer sounds etc on the controller I was testing it on. So far its the best thing I’ve tested next to Kronos

The Tyros is incredible I played it at Guitar Center but it costs as much as a car (the ones I drive). I need weighted keys and durability the tyros doesn’t look like an onstage keyboard but who knows