This is just great. Went trough the video several times.
I noticed you have Korg Krome 88. How do you like it? Did you have any issues with it?
I am thinking of buying Korg Krome-88 EX. Would you recommend it for wannabe keyboardist like me? Its a bit cheaper then MODX6 but it is a 88 keys workstation? What do you say?
Thank you my friend. Glad you enjoyed it.
You're close, it's a Krome 61.
I love the Krome. I've owned mine since 2013 and have had ZERO issues with it apart from a power supply dying on me, but I always carry a spare, which I recommend for all mission-critical keyboards that have an external power supply.
I don't really use a lot of the advanced workstation features so I won't comment on those. Mine is a live workhorse.
I'm going to be really honest with you about where I see the pros and cons of the Krome.
Pros:
- Sounds fantastic for a mid-tier keyboard. I use mine live at every gig and I'm always happy with the sound. I have very occasionally had punters come up to me and ask me about it and how I can get so many sounds out of one machine. One FB troll even accused me of playing 90% backing tracks! For the record I play 100% live, so I kind of took that as a compliment even though he was being mean.
- Super easy to use once you learn the Korg way of doing things. The giant touch screen with big font is really helpful too. I actually prefer it to the Kronos touch screen because I'm old and my eyes are bad. For a live player it's great because if you set things up correctly you can fly between patch changes with a single finger press.
- Lightweight
- Tough. I've had an LX bar fall on mine. Those things are massive and heavy. It punctured the touch screen but I was still able to gig using the buttons. Didn't impact the keyboard's performance. I replaced the screen and despite a few scars it's still going strong. I've played it in heat, dust, cold and a tiny bit of rain. I would estimate it's travelled over 100,000 km by road and air. The thing just won't die.
- Versatile. With enough thought and pre-planning I can pretty much make it do whatever I want. I sometimes do whole gigs with just this little keybaord.
Cons:
- The 61 that I use has a difficult to love action. It's quite tricky to play accurately, particularly if you're using a lot of the black keys. Doable but takes a bit of getting used to. I know you're interested in the 88. My opinion on the Krome's 88-key action is it's somewhat sluggish and doesn't feel that much like a real piano. It's not as good as Korg's RH3 action which they put in the Kronos, Grandstage, SV-1 and Nautlius. I would suggest trying it yourself and seeing if you like it.
- I know many of the first run of Kromes had an issue where certain samples, notably the pianos, would cut off abruptly when sustained. Mine has never had this issue but you can Google it and see commentary on it everywhere. I assume they've fixed this for the EX?
- The organ sounds are a bit of an Achilles' Heel. This being said, I do organ with mine live all the time - sometimes in quite high-end shows. But if I'm honest the organ does not compare well with most of its competitors.
Ultimately I recommend playing with one before you buy if you're able to. But on balance I reckon they're great keyboards.
