I was wondering to myself why korg berlin exists. Like i would be shocked if they sell enough of these to pay for the preceding five years of rent much less the salaries. Is it genuinely moonshot r&d, like a bell labs or xerox parc? Is it just to prevent Takahashi from starting a competitor? Something else? Whichever reason, i’m glad it exists… it just feels improbable.
Phase 8 is a high margin collectible and brand promotion device. Korg may not make their money back from direct sales - although I wouldn't be surprised if they did - but likely there would be enough of a halo effect to make it worthwhile.
I expect this will turn into a small range of variations with strings, tubes, and so on.
But it's also part of a cultural trend moving back from do-it-all software products to tactile collectibles with a simple, legible purpose. Vinyl started that, and I think this is a kind of musical take on the idea that something mechanical has more presence and authority than software.
Sonically I don't think that's true at all, but it's a comprehensible marketing pitch.
Agreed, its existence is implausible, but I assume they're consulting on other projects for Korg Japan in addition to developing Phase8 and other prototypes. They're undoubtedly taking a loss (despite low European salaries) but their contributions across the board could also scale non-linearly.
I also imagine that it's the olive branch that brought Takahashi back to the company after he left. He brought Korg back from the dead and they were probably and rightfully desperate to find a way to retain their top performer.
It's honestly incredible they're bringing this to market! This style of incubator tends to work on a lofty goal and the research and ideas explored on the way trickle down into other parts of the company and find their way into more accessible products. Really similar in theory to the over the top concept cars manufacturers build that never see the light of day.
Slight tangent, but does anyone have experience with recording hydrophones in excess of 192khz? Last I checked, most of these are specialty devices with high price tags.
Recording full-fidelity whale or dolphin sounds (amongst others) requires using a higher sample rate than is available in most consumer-grade equipment. There's a lot more information down there!
Despite being categorically "non-narrative" music, the longevity of both records is almost entirely dependent on these narratives behind them. Ambient 2-4 are musically much more interesting, but the memetic quality of its origin story has given Ambient 1 (and the Basinski record) undue attention over time. Conceptually pure, yes! Sonically compelling, maybe. At least the Eno's approach was novel.
Also, Stockhausen was not entirely wrong. It was insensitive and poorly phrased, but 9/11 is undoubtedly the defining aesthetic image of our time.
This is especially egregious in the Books app on all platforms. I dream of a version that presents you with your library on launch instead of the store — good user experience would expect you to be opening the app to read books 99% of the time, not to purchase new ones.
Thankfully, on macOS, you can disable the store in the Music app entirely. This will probably be removed at some point. When disabled, the only remnant is a small username in the bottom-left corner of the screen. I would love to see this gone as well, but local libraries are increasingly of no concern to Apple or the general public so I doubt they will fix this.
Very few people are buying a new machine every year, even when the updates (like this year) are arguably more than incremental — selling outdated hardware that will become obsolete sooner is not more environmentally-friendly.
Hardware longevity and quality are probably the least valid criticisms of the current Macbook lineup. Most of the industry produces future landfill at an alarming rate.
I should know better, but I'm still surprised they're shipping this version of Liquid Glass. Performance is stable but there are so many UI bugs and inconsistencies that haven't been fixed from early betas, including low-hanging fruit that a second year design student would notice. I don't mind change or interface elements moving around but keynote-level UI overhauls should be fully implemented at launch, otherwise people are stuck using a broken OS for a year.
At this point I'm doubtful that these will be addressed in the 26.X updates, so the wait begins for 27.0...
Yeah I shouldn't be surprised this was allowed to launch today, but yet I am.
I ran the whole beta on all my devices. Every new beta I'd ask myself "Surely they fixed 'x' by now, right?" and we advanced, beta after beta, with the same bugs and performance regressions all the way up to launch.
The icons still need to redraw in the settings app and app library. It's overall sluggish. The drop shadows are huge in the finder and other apps top bar. If you turn on always show scrollbars they get cut off at a weird angle due to the excessive corner radius.
My iPhone 16 PM runs hot all the time, even on release now, vs. iOS 18.
I don't mind the transparency or glass effects. I actually like it in some areas. But man does it need some serious polish and bug fixing, and a lot of time and effort spent on consistency.
This should never have went live in this state. I consider .0 just another beta, really. Actual release will probably be .2 or .3
This is always how it goes. The big change happens, and it’s refined over time.
For what it’s worth, there where threads here on HN where people complained at length about the bugs and inconsistencies in the previous version of the Apple operating systems.
Well done; this app has been needed forever, yet shockingly missing for years. I have some homebrew solutions in Max/MSP and Ableton but they're cumbersome.
My one request / question: is there any way this could be triggered with a global shortcut? I've long dreamed of being able to record ambient audio from films while watching without leaving full screen, much like one would take a screenshot.
I came across your website organically and it's been a great resource for me in the last few months, including times when the answers presented by Gemini have been definitively and legally incorrect. Thank you for organizing all of this information so clearly.
In principle, Korg Berlin looks like a great model for satellite incubator within an established organization. Would absolutely love to work there.