Why is all the talk about G70‘s, Tyros‘s, Korg PA’s (once in a while) and Ketron’s (once in a greater while) and no talk of the Korg Oasys on this forum? I tried one a few years back and thought it was the Roll-Royce of keyboards if only for the sounds of acoustic instruments. I didn't spend a lot of time on it because it was $8,000 at the time. I understand the technology is now in the Korg M3 workstation. I'm sure it must be improved even over the years.

I'll eventually get time to stop at GC and try it out again (the M3), but in the meantime I'm wondering what you folks who are familiar with it think about the acoustic instrument sounds (guitars, horns, pianos, etc) with this Korg platform?

Lucky

Its not an arranger?

...maybe also because it has been discontinued as of July 2008. What a piece of technology that ... was ahead of it's time.

Truly, it was far more than an arranger, PROVIDED you had plenty of time to tweak it..Multiple Karma engines meant you could really get some spectacular arranger type things happening, as it also recognised chordal structures. But it needed a lot of work..Nothing O.O.T.B about the Oasys

Sad to hear it has been discontinued, but not surprising considering the price!!

Dennis

PS Lucky, I was THAT close to going for the M3 module over the PA2x. It was the "ready-made" ease of the PA2x that won me over in the end.


[This message has been edited by miden (edited 06-28-2008).]

Might have to keep an eye out for one..being discontinued might mean some bargains to be had

I thought it was awesome too, but the price................


Sheesh!

Why it as been discontinued?
Will they continue fix the full open bugs or they have stopped the OS developements too?
What happen now with the all old Oasys clients? No more OS support??

Korg ran out of hardware parts to create more units...

Expect an OASYS 2 with better/faster hardware and downwards compatible OS.

Great instrument it was, the only current produced hardware instruemnt to come close to vst quallity. (but then it actually was just another software synth)

Part of the myth of 'open' keyboards is this assumption that, once you buy the hardware, software will keep it contemporary into the far future...

Now, I don't know about you, but I keep a fairly careful eye on the state of audio software and computers. I've been using them for decades now (well, over one decade, anyway!). And probably the first thing you learn is, it doesn't matter how powerful a computer you have, someone WILL make a program that taxes it beyond it's capabilities. This is especially true when it comes to VSTi's.

The realtime generation of synth and sampler sounds, with programming FAR in excess of hardware capabilities comes at a price. That price is the need for the latest computer hardware, and the latest computer OS's. This is what all the 'open' users like to forget about (or rarely discuss, at least). Both of our most vocal 'open' arranger users here (abacus and Fran) admit that their hardware needs upgrading considerably before they can even run the CURRENT OS and VSTi's, yet alone any future ones. So much for 'open'....

The Oasys has, I think, fallen into the same hole, touting itself as 'open' but without an easy processor upgrade path, not to mention all the periphery hardware. At it's highly elevated cost, it's users were expecting just a bit more than the 'Triton on steroids" they got... There has been next to no groundbreaking software added to the system, and bugs have been extremely slow to squash. And, for a fraction of the price, anyone can put together a computer system with hardware synths that not only rivals it's sound, but is FAR more easily upgradeable.

Let's face it, folks... What on earth is the point of putting DAW capabilities in a hardware unit? The entire industry has gone software. Pro-Tools rules the roost, with Cubase, Sonor and Logic vying for the 'composer' field. All of these programs dwarf ANY hardware's capabilities, at a fraction of the cost. The Oasys (and I believe the FantomG and other DAW equipped keyboards) are trying to address a market that just doesn't exist. Anyone worth their salt is working with computers, and the remaining computer-phobic wannabes are not a big enough market segment to allow continuing development of hardware (a far more costly endeavor than writing software).

It is time for keyboard manufacturers to concentrate on making the best KEYBOARD they can, not a keyboard/DAW/VSTi host hybrid that will always be outperformed by separate components.

The Oasys was a great concept although poorly executed. The synth sounds were phenomenal but as a whole I wouldn't classify it as a usable workstation. The sequencer and audio recorder were merely afterthoughts and because Korg used a 16 BIT sound card for the audio with limited track count, it couldn't be remedied without a hardware change.

Korg's inability to do significant software changes other than adding some new sound engines wasn't enough to make it what it should have been from the onset. As an Oasys owner who became disgruntled with Korg's lack of software support and bug fixes, I sold my Oasys in hope that one day they'd get it right and I'd jump back on board. Now it seems that will never happen.

I doubt there will ever be an Oasys II as the Oasys itself didn't sell well and in this business it's a numbers game. Now Korg will use variations of the Oasys technology in many other Korg products to recoup their R&D costs.

[This message has been edited by Ensnareyou (edited 06-29-2008).]