I just stumbled across something in the manual I hadn't spotted before, and that's the note in Table 3.1 regarding Oscillator 35 in the DWGS section:
So how on earth does that work?! Right enough, play from the lowest C to the highest C on the keyboard I can clearly hear an ascending scale and yet all the Cs have the same pitch. Bizarre....
So yes, the simplest of patches this week, initialize the patch, select the DWGS waveform and scroll to Oscillator 35 and have a play...
Here are the settings (starting from init, shift+3):
The 1st Gen iPad's launch in 2010 re-defined the way musicians create "content" (it used to be called music in my day!), from sequencers to effects, from audio editing to fantastically complex synthesisers - you could quite literally have a whole studio in the palm of your hand.
I didn't jump on the iOS bandwagon until Autumn 2015 by which time there were hundreds of virtual synths available and I hate to think of the amount of cash I have spent in the last 4 years or so on various apps but I never found myself particularly attached to any of them. The reasons for this are two-fold - (1) the dreaded GAS always took hold (there is always another synth round the corner which offers something the others do not) and (2) you can't beat having the tactile, zero latency experience that a hardware synthesiser provides.
So here I am! My iPad is relegated to streaming YouTube videos, surfing the net, recording any YouTube "content" (aka videos) I produce and very occasionally performing other audio production tasks such as sample editing, some more out there granular sound design and multi-tracking. And finally, getting to the point of this blog post - creating MIDI controllers for my hardware synths!
Although you can't beat a physical knob or slider, the touch screen of the iPad does afford some advantages especially over synths with a limited physical GUI as the microKORG. These include the ability to graphically see all the settings of the synth on a single screen and being able to edit more than one parameter at a time (which you can typically only do on the microKORG if they are on the same row of the editing matrix such as cutoff and resonance, decay and release, and so on).
So when I got my microKORG again last week I thought about creating an interface for my synth on something like MIDI Designer or Lemur but then I remembered that TB MIDI Stuff, which I had last used a couple of years ago, already has an editor for the microKORG included in the example editors that come with it - happy days!
Almost all the editable parameters are included with a couple of exceptions (e.g. I can't find a way to edit the tempo or the type of mod FX) but otherwise it is very thorough and easy to work with. There is also a page for the vocoder which I must admit I haven't tried yet. The only thing you will have to do is prepare a preset in the app (a "canvas snapshot") with the same settings as the microKORG init patch so that the on-screen parameter values matches those on the synth.
So for this week's patch you can watch me have a play about with the editor starting with an initialised patch!
Below are settings for the noisy arp! I particularly loved the effect when closing the filter and toggling the distortion on and off! (starting from init, shift+3):
Not sure if this will be useful to any of you or not, especially given that there are software editors for the microKORG as well as the standard MIDI dump method for storing patches. But just in case you like to be old skool and archive your patches by hand here is an example of the patch sheet form I use:
There are 4 blank pro formas per sheet of A4, pre filled out with the init patch settings. Only record what has been changed. Here is the pdf file:
Last night I decided to record a 100% microKORG track using the patches I have blogged about up to now. The only problem though, is that there are no drums to provide rhythm! Rather than compromise on my all microKORG philosophy I thought I would have a go at generating my own analog drum sounds on the microKORG. I could then load my hardware sampler of choice (the much underrated Zoom Sampletrak) with these to accompany my track.
Therefore the idea for the first MPAW Series was born! There are 8 samples in each bank on the Sampletrak so I decided to limit this series to 8 common drum and percussion sounds, as follows:
Obviously if I stuck to a patch a week this series will take me the best part of 2 months to complete. I therefore plan to publish 4 patches a week - traditional drum sounds next week and percussion sounds the week after (but this may change depending on how tricky the sounds are to program!).
As a bonus extra - I will then conclude the series by issuing the drum kit as a sample set (WAV audio files) so you can use in your own sampler without even having to program the patches yourselves (or even having to own a microKORG). Especially for Reason users I will also provide a refill ("The microKORG ADK") including a special Combinator patch housing a Redrum drum kit with all the samples preloaded. Hopefully these will be useful to someone. Check out the page with all the goodies here.
I haven't created any bass sounds for this blog yet either, which is something I'll address soon as well...
Note - The ADK Drip was a late replacement for a conga.
It has been two years since I concluded my Micron - Patch a Day
project. I love the Micron, and no doubt will go back to it at some
stage (or maybe even an Ion, one day...) but back in March 2010 I sold
my much loved silver and red box and bought a Novation A Station. A
great synth for tweaking but sadly I don't have the room to keep a rack
of gear anymore and so, after only a few short months, it too moved on
to pastures new.
Although I have a number of soft synths
which I love messing about with (especially Reason), I very rarely sit
down and get stuck into some patch creation; I dunno, just too may
distractions I guess (and as my soft studio is laptop based it isn't
always set up). Bottom line is I missed a hardware synth, there is
something very seductive about sitting down and using a user interface
designed solely for the purpose of making noises. And sometimes
(occasionally!) very nice noises too.
And so I bought one. A new synth.
So what have I chosen? What have I plumped for over and above
another Micron? I can almost hear the yells of Judas from the Micron users amongst you but yes, I got a microKORG (!). I have a few reasons for choosing the Korg over another
Micron, or something like a Novation K Station (the only other serious
option I considered in my budget), as follows:
It runs on batteries (so can grab it while I have a spare half hour sat about on the sofa)
Although not as easy as synths with a non matrix UI, editing is a bit easier than the Micron (especially away from a computer)
The simpler architecture means that copying / sharing patch settings can be done via a few lines of text rather than .sysex files (for posting on blogs for example)
The simpler architecture also means that creating patches is not as daunting
And with my new synth comes a new project, similar in nature to Micron - Patch a Day... microKORG - Patch a Week! I really struggled to create a new patch every day so I have ditched that concept for a more realistic
timescale of a new patch every week. Patches will generally be posted in
simple text format although I plan on posting videos, audio files and maybe .prg files too if there is a demand (bear in mind I run OSX though).
So there you go. I appreciate a lot of you Micron users won't be able to
follow my sounds on the new blog since the hardware is so different but I
hope a few of you will read what I am getting up to, and possibly even
try things out on your synths as we go along. Feel free to
even post your results here, the more the merrier! microKORG users, ditch those presets and join me on a journey, into sound!
