Korg Forums

[domc]

Ideally I think I would like a midi track for each of my drum tracks, kick, snare, HH etc. but given the current 16 track limit and to get myself more acquainted with the sequencer, I've had a go at recreating a cubase song of mine on the Oasys, and moving all of the drum tracks onto one Oasys midi track. [This seems to be the way that Korg would like me to work as RPPR and Karma are all set up to play all drum sounds on one midi track]. This then gives you 15 other midi tracks for other sounds which for a lot of cases is fine for me.

Not being a previous Korg user, this probably took me longer than others on this forum, but along with some help from threads such as Kevin's 6 week BBC project and others, I've discovered the use of lots of functions (incl. those such as Shift/Erase notes etc.) which allow the fast creation of tracks when you know what you're doing. It's also convinced me (as some others have said) that the sequencer has most of the functions one would like (cue list aside). [It's just that a more intuitive or conventional DAW like interface would allow people to learn about these and access them more easily.]

The thing that I think I lose by having all my drum tracks on one midi track is the ability to mix the drum track as I go. On the global page you're able to do a huge amount of cool manipulations to your drum kit, including balancing all the different sounds by using the level parameter. However you're not able to do this at the same time as the sequence is playing (or add automation to control the volume in time with your sequence) so you have to guess the levels, then play back the sequence, rather than adjust them as you go.

Has anyone found a way around this? If not it would be great to see a way of doing this in a future Oasys operating system.

Cheers, Domc
_________________
Oasys 88
Kronos 88
Virus TI Keyboard
Octopus

[Mike Conway]

Domc, I too prefer having seperate tracks for high hats/cymbals and bass, snare and toms. In the past, I have put drum kits on 2 or more tracks. With only 16 tracks, I tend to fill them all up, so I often put drums on just one track.

If you have to put it all on a single track, one thing the OASYS sequencer will let you do is COMPARE what you just recorded to what you already had. As an example, I just did some sequencing where I laid down my high hats. Then, I Overdubbed bass and snare on top of the high hats. I didn't like the bass and snare, so I pressed the COMPARE button and I was back to my high hats. If you record or make an edit while COMPARE is lit up, you will keep the compared sequence, as opposed to your last pass.

It's a pretty cool feature, which allows you to keep what is working and get rid of the bad take. Much better than recording the whole track, again.

[pandel]

I agree that the COMPARE button is really nice to have, but regarding the complexity of the whole system I would really like to see some kind of real undo function for, let's say, the last 3 or 4 steps or some kind of snapshot function (as the KARMA scenes) which lets you alternate between several versions. Especially if you're fine tuning some more complex rhythmic structures (i.e. bass and drums) and you're not shure which version to take or you take them as an impro base to let them influence you when searching for a cool solo or other instrumental additions snapshots to alternate between could be helpful. I don't like to always set up a new song when it's only a variation of some tracks (other bass line, drum variations). That should always stay in the same song. In fact I only do set up a new song for that when I entirely change structural elements like adding a new part or something like that...

[StephenKay]

Note that there is another approach that can be used to mix drums, when all the data is on a separate MIDI track (and in fact, this technique is used in a number of the combis):

Put the same drum kit on several tracks, all with the same MIDI Channel, with all the same IFX etc, and then Key Zone it so that different drums appear on different tracks.

In other words, if your kick is on C3, and your snare is on D3, can do something like this:

Track 1: bot C-1 top C3
Track 2: bot C#3 top D3
Track 3: bot D#3 top G9

Then, all 3 tracks are on the same MIDI Channel, listening to 1 track/channel of MIDI data. However, the kick comes up on Track 1, the snare comes up on Track 2, and the rest of the stuff comes up on Track 3 (for separate mixing, panning, EQ, even different IFX routing).

Some other handy additions to this technique:
1. Since you only have 1 note being played on a track (like the kick or snare), you can use the Track Transpose Parameter to easily try different kicks and snares from the same kit.
2. You can "mix and match" different drum kits - put a different Drum Program in Track 1, and use a kick drum from a different kit, again using the Transpose parameter to find one you like.
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Stephen Kay - KARMA Developer • Karma-Lab - karma-lab.com

[danatkorg]

[StephenKay]

As long as we're talking about Drums and IFX, there is another thing that bears mentioning.

As Dan has said, the samples in drum kits can be routed separately to different IFX. In the factory drum kits, the basic arrangement is something like:

Snares -> IFX1
Kicks -> IFX 2
Toms -> IFX 3
Cymbals, hi-hats -> IFX 4
Percussion -> IFX 5
...the rest -> L/R

(BTW, this information is clearly viewable in the Voice Name List, Drum Kits section - you can see which IFX each sample is assigned to.)

So, on the IFX Routing page, when you assign a Drum program to "D.Kit" routing, you are enabling this arrangement, and you will see lines go from the Drum Program into all of the first 5 IFX.

OK, well and good - you can use it that way if you want. But sometimes, 5 IFX slots affecting the drums is too much, too wasteful, depending on what else you are trying to do. So there are several other options:

1. Simply route the Kit to a single IFX, and this sends everything in the Kit through that IFX, disregarding the Drum Kit IFX routings. In conjunction with the Key Zone Method I outlined up above, you can key zone one track to do kick, run it through a single IFX, split off the snare and hi-hats, run them through another, etc.

2. Page Menu > Drum Kit IFX Patch
This is a (sort of hidden, yet) awesome tool, that we (the programmers) use quite a bit in combi mode to get more juice out of the available IFX. When you have a Drum Program assigned to routing of "D.Kit", if you hilight that field, then this item becomes available in the Page Menu. When you select it, you get a dialog that allows you to temporarily override and re-route various IFX bus assignments in the Drum Kit. For Example, by default it comes up like this:

IFX 1 -> IFX 1
IFX 2 -> IFX 2
IFX 3 -> IFX 3
IFX 4 -> IFX 4
IFX 5 -> IFX 5

A common one that I use is this:

IFX 1 -> IFX 1
IFX 2 -> IFX 2
IFX 3 -> L/R
IFX 4 -> L/R
IFX 5 -> L/R

This leaves the kick and snare in separate IFX, but sends everything else to the L/R assignment, where you can use the send 1/send 2 fields below the bus routing to add master effects to them. You will see that 3 of the effects routing "lines" disappear, and the D.Kit is now only bussed into the first 2 IFX. I just freed up 3 IFX for other things.

Another example:

IFX 1 -> IFX 1
IFX 2 -> IFX 1
IFX 3 -> IFX 2
IFX 4 -> IFX 2
IFX 5 -> IFX 2

This would route the kick and snare to the same IFX 1, and everything else to IFX 2.

A third example:

IFX 1 -> 1
IFX 2 -> IFX 1
IFX 3 -> 8
IFX 4 -> L/R
IFX 5 -> L/R

In the above, the snare is routed to individual output 1, for external processing. The kick is routed to IFX 1. And tricky: the toms and anything else on IFX 3 have been routed to Individual Out 8, and then, if output 8 is not connected to anything on your mixer, what you've done is removed those sounds from the drum groove. It's like a down and dirty groove simplifier.

See also "Drum Kit IFX Patch" in the E3 OASYS Operation's Guide on Page 374, or the online Help.
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Stephen Kay - KARMA Developer • Karma-Lab - karma-lab.com

[domc]

Hey thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Dan, I'm going to try that work around - I hadn't thought of that but using the compressor/eq output levels etc, should give me a way of changing the levels on the most important items (kick, snare, HH) in real time while I listen to the track. Thanks,

Stephen, I have been using that drum kit IFX patch which I agree is a very useful tool. I've found it to be a necessity, as a couple of times recently I've been playing to one of the new LAC patches and thought, hang on that's cool, I should record that. So I use the auto setup [Enter]+[Rec] to set up a new song and play away. Then I think, lets add some drums - but the LAC already has the first few FX slots, so when you copy in a drum program with effects, then it doesn't sound right as it routes the drums still to the first 5 slots (I'm not sure why it does this - is this a bug) and so the only workaround is to use the drum kit IFX patch to route them to the right places and away you go!

Cheers, Domc
_________________
Oasys 88
Kronos 88
Virus TI Keyboard
Octopus

[StephenKay]

[Kevin Nolan]

All of this advice is excellent and extremely valuable. I'm going to coalate it for my own use. Might I suggest that this post be moved to the Oasys Tips and Tricks thread; I think a lot of people will want to access this advice over time?


cheers,
Kevin.
_________________
Kevin Nolan
KNECT
Email: knolan@knect.ie
WWW: www.knect.ie

[domc]

[thekeymaster]

I have to admit a very useful thread...thanks to all who have contributed so far.I shall use some of these tips,very handy.

Thing is this got me thinking...what if Korg could make Parameters available in Tone Adjust that when you select a Drum Kit you could assign Drum Voices or the Note values with volume/velocity cntrl to the Eight Sliders,that way you could assign your Drum Kit to one track but have the sliders act as like a mini mixer for your kit.

So as an example

You select your drum kit say Track 10,hit tone adjust on the control surface and then assign C2 to slider one;D2 to slider two;F2 to slider 3 etc etc

That way you would have volume cntrl of say Kick Drum,Snare Drum,Hi hats etc etc da get my drift and have realtime control as the sequence is playing.You would only need one track as well.Yes you would be limited to eight notes but its enough for Drum kit arrangement,the perc and other drum voices could be balanced around these sliders maybe.Just a thought.

Anyone else think that would be useful?
_________________
Neil.

Cake Muncher

[Vadim]