I am about to buy my first music workstation and I am pretty confused whether to go for the XF or the Kronos. Essentially I am looking to be able to produce a wide range of musical styles and to record my music without too much technical complexity.  So far, what I seem to have gleemed is that the motif may have better instrumental sounds but the Kronos may have better synth sounds and is more technically advanced, but I may be wrong in this!I know I am in the motif fans forum but I would be grateful for some unbiased opinions

The best advice I could give is to spend time with both keyboards. Take a good set of headphones with you and really get to know the sounds and features. Ask a lot of questions at the store, plus spend time comparing specs and features online.

I purchased my XF6 about a month ago and was also close to buying the Kronos. They have very distinct sounds and user interfaces. As to sounds, it really is an individual choice. It’s very subjective. I know you can create any type of music with a Motif as I am now doing it. I am sure you can with a Kronos as well. The bottom line for me was:

The primary reason I preferred the Motif was the Motif sound, especially the Acoustic instruments, and the user interface.
I did not like the crowded Kronos touch screen.
I found the Motif OS more intuitive for me.
I didn’t need the extra synth engines
I did not need or want Karma at this time but can added it latter to the Motif if I do.

The final deciding factor was construction quality. The Motif appears to be of much high quality and if you read the posts over at the Korg forum you will read about the quality issues especially relating to the 88 key versions with sticking keys. You just don’t find these types of issues with Yamaha products.

Joe

I own a Kronos 88.  There are no issues with my unit and the percentage reported at Korg Forums is very small. 

Both instruments have their ups and downs.  I actually have an XF7 (still sealed in the box) right here beside me that I’m trying to decide if I want to open it and play it or follow through with my plans to sell.  (So, if you decide to buy an XF, I’ve got one on eBay right now.)

The good thing is which ever you choose, you’ve got a winner.  Both have superb sounds and features.  You’ve just got to decide which interface you are more interested in learning and using. 

You can’t really go “wrong”.  But if it was me, I’d probably go with the Kronos.  There’s just more to offer and the interface is very easy to learn and navigate.  (the next guy will probably say the complete opposite)

Apex - 27 October 2011 02:05 PM

You can’t really go “wrong”.  But if it was me, I’d probably go with the Kronos.  There’s just more to offer and the interface is very easy to learn and navigate.  (the next guy will probably say the complete opposite)

I do like the touch screens Korg has. Maybe the next workstation from Yamaha will offer both a touch screen and Karma built in.

:o)

I have owned the XF8 and purchased the Kronos 88. Overall, the quality of the Acoustic Piano, Electronic Piano, weight, interface, Karma, and organs make the Kronos a winner. As others have commented, acoustic guitars, build quality, and saxophones are better in the Yamaha. I still own a S90XS that I can get those sounds if I need them. If you more of a pianist, I would say the Motif 88’s action is superior. I use to carry my XF8 on church gigs and it was a bear. Also, it was not nearly as user friendly in live situations as the Kronos.

Rumor has it that the XF will be replaced and that Roland has something significant coming to compete with the Kronos.

If you are working a lot with sample libraries you should be aware that the Motifs are a bit choosy which samples they will load. I have several vocal sample libraries and I’ve had to record samples manually from about half of them which is a real bind. If you are using samples a lot you should maybe consider the Roland Fantom G where the sampling features are brilliant. You can also use a mouse to navigate the fantastic screen which will show the waveforms of your samples in great detail. There’s lots of YouTube tutorials to help you see what it can do.
Before the Kronos the dream set-up was considered to be a Fantom G with a Motif XS Rack.
Whatever you choose I hope it goes well and I wish you all the best in your musical endeavours.

Yamaholic

I own both (88 keys each one) and I’m also on Korgforums (I saw there your post) Any of those is a great choice, and there are certain deciding points to consider in order to choose the best for you:
- If you’ll use many personalized samples (third party libraries) to get your sounds, then choose Motif XF. It has Flash memory boards which will let you load permanently your samples.
- If you’re going to program your own sounds without using samples, then choose Kronos. It has 9 different ways to program sounds.
- If you will extensively record your music on the workstation, then choose Motif XF. It has two paradigms for sequencing and, while Kronos has RPPR, it just doesn’t compare with patterns on Motif XF.
- If you’ll use many synth sounds, then choose Kronos which has many synth engines with awesome sounds, not possible on Motif XF.
- If you will use the workstation with a DAW, then choose Motif XF. The Firewire expansion gives you more power and flexibility, compared with Kronos.
- If you’ll use the workstation for live performances, then choose Kronos which has SST and you’ll be able to switch between programs/combis/sequencer without sound dropoff. Motif XF can also do this, but not at all at the level you have with Kronos.
- If you plan to use acoustic sounds (other than Piano), then choose Motif XF (it also has 3 great pianos: CFIII, S6 and S700). I really prefer the acoustic sounds and XA (expanded articulations), but you better go, hear and decide because this is always a subjective comparison.
- If you need powerful tools to help you boost creativity, then choose Kronos. KARMA is more powerful than arpeggios on Motif XF, but if you don’t mind using your computer to use KARMA, then choose Motif XF which has an arpeggiator and KARMA, third edition.

The only possible comparison between synth engines on Motif XF and Kronos is AWM2 (Yamaha) and HD-1 (Korg) Both are really different, powerful and you may need to read about them to see which one suits you better, because if you don’t understand those, you won’t use the workstation to the full extent. I personally find HD-1 more flexible for certain points (AMS comes to mind, for example), but I prefer the way the elements on Yamaha, rather than the oscillators on Korg.

If you can get both, it’s even better… I like them both, and now I’m prefering the keybed action for Motif XF (88 keys) rather than RH3 from Kronos.

Now, regarding the # of posts you have on Korgforums, I think you’ve decided for Kronos, aren’t you?

The kronos is slick. I played on one at the local store and liked the piano sounds. But haven’t gotten use to korg at all. I owned a m3 module for a while but never liked the sounds or the way it worked. The kronos seems to have the same design although it is better. Motif and kronos are great, but I prefer the motif because it is easier to work with and feels better.

P.s. Yamaha, start putting better piano samples in your keyboards!!! I hope the next board coming out soon can seriously compete with the kronos.

I’ve got an XS8 and a Kronos 88. I love the XS, know it intimately. I’m getting to grips with the Kronos.

Auditioning the sounds ‘out the box’ is necessary but IMHO it’s not the deciding factor in which one to get. Workstations are complex pieces of equipment and there is no substitute for spending a lot of time with one to find out if it is really going to work for you.

It’s only after spending a month with the Kronos that I’m starting to ‘get’ it. I’ll be honest, apart from the awesome piano and some of the nicer presets, at first I wasn’t that impressed with the Kronos. That is, until I started to get used to the way it works and tinkered under the hood a bit. Now I’m blown away by it.

The way that you can use the sustain pedal/held keys to seamlessly switch between Combis (Korg speak for Performances) and Programs (Korg speak for voices) is fantastic. You lose any active Karma/Drum patterns at the switch, but the held notes still retain all their internal LFOs and modulation. You can even switch between Combi mode and Program mode without a break in the audio. This permits some seriously cool jamming, switching from one complex sound to another, letting the whole process evolve and take you directions without interruption.

The sheer depth and compexity of the Kronos may be offputting for some. The same is true of the XS/XF - just check these forums to see that, but the Kronos is a step up in terms of depth and programmability, not least because of the multiple sound engines. Spend enough time with it however and you’ll be making Combis that leave Performance mode on the XS/XF way behind in terms of how much stuff is going on.

The sounds available from the analogue modelling engines are much more pleasing to me than the equivalent sample-based analogue sounds on the XF/XS, and being able to combine voices from different engines in the same Program or Combi is great indeed. With the pending OS 1.5 upgrade allowing you to put 2Gb of RAM in the Kronos, plus giving you another 7 full userbanks of voice slots (in addition to the existing ones) I’m even more sold on the Korg.

At this time, for me, the Kronos wins hands down. But remember, the Kronos is not a direct competitor to the XF/S. It’s got a whole bunch of stuff in it that the XF/S doesn’t have, and therefore it’s got a correspondingly higher price tag. I think the XF is still the best you can get for the money it costs.

If I had to keep one workstation I would lose all the others and keep the Kronos in a heartbeat. I am, however, very much looking forward to seeing what Yamaha and Roland respond with. We live in exciting times.

Df.

Motif XF’s Acoustic Instrument sounds are by far much better than KRONOS.

KRONOS’s various synth models offer more synth power, but the Motif XF’s Synth sounds are great as well, especially if you do some in-depth custom editing. The sampling on Motif XF and the ability to load various sample libraries and have them always available in flash memory is a big + for Motif XF. 

I prefer the UI of Motif XF over KRONOS’s crowded, and small font touch sensitive display. I also find touch displays slow in reacting.

Sequencing on Motif XF is great to build your song, I don’t know about KRONOS Sequencer.

I don’t own the KRONOS, but have played around with it at music stores, and to my taste I MOTIF XF always sounded better to my ears !

Now… If ROLAND released a new Workstation (Next generation Fantom, or something totally new), I will be taking a serious look at it).

Oh....and KARMA is coming to MOTIF XF (Hopefully we will have this in released in the very near future, it has taken a long time already, but I’m sure it will be an additional great feature you can use with the MOTIF XF via KARMA for MOTIF XF software).

Cheers,
Muziksculp

I went over the sounds of the Kronos while I was on a Sam Ash in Miami last month. I spend like half an hour on the machine and what I can tell you is that the pads just blew me away, Yamaha doesn’t have that type of sounds period. The normal regular strings just keep been better always on a Korg than on a Yamaha(including Motif XF), ever since the M1 came out vs whatever Yamaha was on the market at the same time.

Some of Yamaha strings(the ones I use the most) have this problem with vibrato, they just cannot have a clean smooth sound.

Other than that Motif XF does pretty well in the rest of the sounds, A few years back I had a Triton and the vibraphone and marimba stuff sounds awful compare to Motif’s, as well as the pianos. All Triton pianos were terrible, but the new German piano of the kronos is pretty decent.

Just my two cents.

Motif XF can produce some amazing PAD sounds, don’t evaluate it via the preset pads, it has a lot you can do with, but you need to go under the hood, and get your hands dirty, and do some major editing !

A lot is possible if you Tweak it.

PSALM23 - 28 October 2011 05:23 AM

Rumor has it that the XF will be replaced

Imo the future Yamaha competitor to the Kronos should be a multi-synthesis worksation.

I would be happy if Yahama could release an EX5 II (or whatever they call it) with all the modern technology. But I’m wondering; they haven’t released a new VA, VL, FM or FS instrument for a long time, so:

Do Yamaha still have in-house expertise to design a multi-synthesis synthesizer ?

Yamaha has been on top of the workstation game for 11yrs now but this time Korg kick there ass.  This should be the XF vs M3.
Why would u pick a XF over a Kronos i dont know.  Wait! for Yamaha to answer with a new release. Roland dont make workstations now because the motif xs out sold the famton g. Motifs havs beeb beating the Famton ass for yrs. Now has Roland gave up and this is Korg last try.

I had the motif and now the motif xs for 2 1/2 yrs I wish Yamaha would forget about the motif and make some new.

The XF just to close to the XS to be competitor for Kronos.
The Kronos is like the pass and the future right now.

Most keyboardlist can see,hear or feel that the XS and Xf is about (98%) the same.

All people can see,hear and feel that the M3 and Kronos is not the same.

If u can wait for NAMM 2012 Yamaha will not gave up like Roland.

youdog - 31 October 2011 11:36 AM

Yamaha has been on top of the workstation game for 11yrs now but this time Korg kick there ass.  This should be the XF vs M3.
Why would u pick a XF over a Kronos i dont know.  Wait! for Yamaha to answer with a new release. Roland dont make workstations now because the motif xs out sold the famton g. Motifs havs beeb beating the Famton ass for yrs. Now has Roland gave up and this is Korg last try.

I had the motif and now the motif xs for 2 1/2 yrs I wish Yamaha would forget about the motif and make some new.

The XF just to close to the XS to be competitor for Kronos.
The Kronos is like the pass and the future right now.

Most keyboardlist can see,hear or feel that the XS and Xf is about (98%) the same.

All people can see,hear and feel that the M3 and Kronos is not the same.

If u can wait for NAMM 2012 Yamaha will not gave up like Roland.

it’s funny to me how people make the assumptions and state them as if they are facts about the business development of these major corporations… actually it’s more than funny.  it’s hilarious.