I purchased a Triton Studio 76 from Guitar Center...with in a couple weeks I traded it to DanO for a new in the box Roland VR760...and a smile...

Triton to this day does not impress me..I even liked my Fantom X6 better than the Triton....and that had to go.....I will take a top arranger any day over a "workstation"...

In regard to your statements above:

I don't feel the price of the Oasys was "so high you had to sell your studio to afford it". I have microphones that cost much more than the Oasys. The cost of the Oasys also doesn't compare to most of my outboard gear.

I do agree that many couldn't afford the Oasys but that was never Korg's intention to make it a mass market product. Korg never intended to or expected to sell tens of thousands of Oasys keyboards although had that happened they'd have been ecstatic. Ferrari doesn't expect to sell hundreds of thousands of cars and these types of items are made for but a select few. Why then should anyone expect an $8,000.00+ instrument to be a runaway sales success?

I completely disagree with your statement that those that owned a studio didn't need the Oasys to have DAW features because we already had a better one in the studio. Had the Oasys matched my studio DAW then I could have easily transported the Oasys with me to gigs, other recording sessions, and when I traveled to compose while I was away from my studio. Unfortunately the Oasys failed on that level and I was left with no choice but to sell it. I sold the Oasys hoping Korg would come through some day on its promise of a software update to the sequencer and audio recorder but so far that hasn't happened and likely never will.

When I keep an instrument it has to meet my expectations on many levels. On a synthesis level the Oasys truly shined. As a real time controller the Oasys was quite good there as well. As an all in one solution that I could compose with, sequence, record audio, lock to code, and mix a finished track, the Oasys fell seriously short. I could have easily justified the cost had the Oasys met all my expectation but as a glorified Karma Synth for $8,000, my money was better spent elsewhere.

The Oasys did and will continue to spawn products that utilize similar technology and for that I commend Korg. I'd love to see new software developed for the Oasys but Korg will most likely develop and entirely new product rather than update one on an older platform.

Well, at least the M3 has benefited from the trickle down... Now that the Oasys seems off the page, about 650MB of sound sets developed for the Oasys are being given away FOR FREE to lucky M3 owners.

I will try to review one of these expanded M3's soon, and see if the additional sounds (although still no mention of how long it would take to actually LOAD them) make the difference. I still was shocked at how flimsy the knobs, sliders and especially the pads felt, though. Looks like Korg are taking a leaf out of the Yamaha arranger playbook... make it SOUND good, but make sure it won't hold up for ten years under heavy use.

In the meantime, I'm still shocked that anyone would prefer to use a lo-res tiny touchscreen to do entire audio/MIDI production on, rather than a glorious 30" hi-res computer display. No school like the old school, I guess...

Ensnareyou,

I was 'a little bit' ironic when compared the price of Oasys to the price of studio. Of course it wasn't that much expensive, but still it was really expensive.

For 8.000,00 USD you could buy 3-4 different top-of-the-line synths that cover most of the Oasys sonic capabilities (although Karma engine would still be missing).

Also, for that amount of money you could buy PC/laptop with enough software (sequencer,VSTi...) to rival Oasys (again without Karma).

As for the expectation to have DAW capabilities on keyboard to match DAW capabilities of studio equipment (or even software DAW) I doubt it will happen soon. Big screen, computer keyboard and the mouse combined with good MIDI/DAW controller are much easier to use then anything a synth keyboard could offer.

I'am not saying that Oasys was bad product, it was really great keyboard, but they should have stick to the Karma and different sound engines, and throw out everything that doesn't belong to the keyboard.

While you could buy a PC/Laptop and load it with VST's that would rival most of the sound capabilities of the Oasys, it would not be possible to put together a PC/Laptop that could match the real time performance controls and GUI integration of the Oasys. That's a big selling point for the Oasys.

If the Oasys were truly "Open" then Korg could have bundled the Oasys with professional grade DAW software such as Cubase or Logic and that would have taken care of the DAW problem. Wersi has included Cubase with their OAS system for many years and those who use it see the power an all in one package can offer.

The Oasys does have the capability to utilize a mouse and a larger screen (the hardware exists inside the Oasys for these features), Korg just didn't make that hardware accessible to the end user. Korg has done everything in their power to claim the Oasys is open ended but Korg kept it closed by only utilizing Korg software and Korg updates. Korg could have taken Wersi, Lionstracs, and Open Labs queue and offered a much more open ended system that would have significantly benefitted the end user but they chose not to. The reasoning for that is highly questionable but I'm sure greed had a lot to do with it. If you control every aspect of the instrument then any additional software must be purchased through the manufacturer and not a third party.