Odd request: Can I make a sound for you; Kronos

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:36 am

Keyboard magazine covered a Jordan Rudess lead sound (with feedback controlling etc.) in two articles:

http://www.keyboardmag.com/create-sound ... ynth/29451
and
http://www.keyboardmag.com/create-sound ... ound/29503

Some in this forum followed the instructions, and still had not quite nailed the sound. If you as Rudess expert could come as close as possible to what Jordan Rudess expains here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Is4q6FQLw
that would be great.

The instructions are basically clear: it's rather about fine tuning the sound to get as clsoe as possible to the Rudess video.

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:50 am

jimknopf wrote:Keyboard magazine covered a Jordan Rudess lead sound (with feedback controlling etc.).

I'd be happy to.

I did his various leads on kurzweil with a lot of success so let's see if I can get that to translate on the Kronos.

Challenge accepted!

black953mj · Post by **black953mj** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 3:23 pm

OK, don't laugh everyone, this simple sound has been one that I have always gotten "close enough" to without ever being totally happy with it. It it the synth sound from the Chorus of "Whip It" by Devo.

It's the simple sounding ones that give me the most fits sometimes, if you want to take a crack at it I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Thanks!

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 3:27 pm

Often the simple sounding ones (especially from 70s and 80s records) are the ones that depend the most on the distinctive character of the synth that was used. Like, within heaps of modulation it can be hard to hear the specific oscillator or filter sound, but when it's a basic saw with a filter envelope...

So I totally get what you're saying

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 3:28 pm

black953mj wrote:OK, don't laugh everyone, this simple sound has been one that I have always gotten "close enough" to without ever being totally happy with it. It it the synth sound from the Chorus of "Whip It" by Devo.

It's the simple sounding ones that give me the most fits sometimes, if you want to take a crack at it I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Thanks!

Sure, I'll add it to my to-do list. I'll try and get it better than "close enough" for you

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 1:51 am

black953mj wrote: It's the simple sounding ones that give me the most fits sometimes, if you want to take a crack at it I'd love to hear what you come up with.

Thanks!

Give this a try:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/490 ... WhipIt.mp3

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8v5ffwxt67mpc ... s.PCG?dl=0

I did the post-production of panning like in the song, as well as the weird sub-harmonic material there too. I only did the chorus sound like you mentioned, but I didn't know if you wanted the rest or not. I just did the upper sound.

Let me know if that works.

black953mj · Post by **black953mj** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:44 am

Haha... That works, especially when you play it with the rest of the band, appreciate the effort. And yes, this is the piece I was looking for, the bass I do on my Virus and the other synth in the verse on the Prophet 12. Now to do an in depth deconstruction of what you did so I can learn a thing or two. The sub harmonic stuff is what I just couldn't get quite right.

Thanks again!

lunaluna · Post by **lunaluna** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:58 am

enigmahack wrote:
lunaluna wrote:can you make the intro lead to Numb Linkin Park ?
I gave it a real quick shot, I'd mess with OSC A though if you want to change the flavor. I think it'll work when you mix it in with strings and the rest of the band though.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6gcugdav9zws ... n.mp3?dl=0

The MP3 demo.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/crkn07oix07mi ... N.PCG?dl=0

The PCG for Kronos.
..................Awsome !! Thx a lot .

Let me know what you think though.

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 12:51 pm

black953mj wrote:Now to do an in depth deconstruction of what you did so I can learn a thing or two. The sub harmonic stuff is what I just couldn't get quite right.

Thanks again!

I'm happy to help

Okay, so honestly this was a really simple sound in terms of making it, but "hearing" what's all inside of it was the more tricky part.

Initially, I heard only 1 sound. I mean yes, two tones, but it sounded like a single oscillator with a wobbly LFO. I'm still not completely convinced it's actually an LFO, but more of a funny ENV associated with pitch but you don't hear the sound long enough before it's re-triggered.

Anyway, when making the sound, I recognize that the majority of what you'll hear on an album is going to be EQ'd and compressed for the final master mix. Take that, and add YouTube compression to it, and you have a poor representation of what the real sound is meant to be. If you can get past that, then you have to imagine what the source sounded like.

There was some peculiar harmonic content that was sitting lower in the sound, so I had to add a second oscillator and drop the volume way down.

(I'm not at my keyboard right now, so I don't remember the exact waveforms but I can walk you though my thought process)

Once I had the base of the sound, I needed the sounds themselves to interact. Most sounds will layer on top of one another like layers of a cake, but what I needed was for them to become intertwined somehow. Also the raw waveforms were too buzzy and needed some high end taken down a bit.

Instead of using an EQ to remove the buzzy sound, I chose a cabinet emulator effect. This works twofold; When you have a speaker simulation, the waveforms start to work off of each other. If you think of real-life physics, you have two waveforms that are coming out of one speaker (arguments sake) - The speaker will have the occasional resonance where the cone needs to be in but the OTHER waveform suggests it should be out, and weird harmonic things can happen.

This is what I wanted to emulate, so the cabinet effect brings that all together. It forces the waveforms to interact with one another, even if it's all virtual to get this phase-y sounding sub harmonic resonance. It's super subtle but it's definitely something that makes the sound hit properly.

In the PCG, if you look at the second OSC, you'll notice I turned the volume down. If you turn it up, take a look at how the character of the sound changes completely as the harmonic content thickens. I turned it down to add flavor, but not hot enough to make it sound like two oscillators.

Anyway, hopefully that helps - I can give you more specifics once I get home and in front of the board, but I get the feeling that tonight is the Jordan Rudess lead sound programming so I'll be around to toy with it a bit.

Harpernet · Post by **Harpernet** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:21 pm

I have the ensoniq 16 plus which has two great guitar patches one is called dist guitar & zlick strat I also have the original floppy disk of these sounds very small in size but the sounds are big. I also have the korg microkorg xl the sound patch is called smack it & I've heard the
guitars which were way better than the kronos don't remember name of the guitar patches

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:23 pm

Harpernet wrote:I have the ensoniq 16 plus which has two great guitar patches one is called dist guitar & zlick strat I also have the original floppy disk of these sounds very small in size but the sounds are big. I also have the korg microkorg xl the sound patch is called smack it & I've heard the
guitars which were way better than the kronos don't remember name of the guitar patches

Do you have sound clips of the guitars so I could try and replicate them somehow?

black953mj · Post by **black953mj** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:39 pm

Thanks again for the effort and sharing your thought process! Iwas able to spend some time looking at what you did in the program. Good thinking on using the second oscilator like that, I was always just trying to make it work with one! AND the creative use of the speaker simulation...very cool!

jeebustrain · Post by **jeebustrain** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 9:24 pm

Hi Enigma - nice to see you over here from the Rudess forums.

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 12:12 am

jeebustrain wrote:Hi Enigma - nice to see you over here from the Rudess forums.

Dude... How have things been?

I've finally joined the "dark side" haha (Coming from Kurzweil to Korg... Finally making the switch!)

enigmahack · Post by **enigmahack** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 3:35 am

jimknopf wrote: The instructions are basically clear: it's rather about fine tuning the sound to get as clsoe as possible to the Rudess video.

Hey Jim.

Check this out.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/490 ... xample.mp3

This is the sample clip.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/490 ... AD-WIP.PCG

This is the PCG.

Now please keep in mind that this is still a WORK IN PROGRESS. The main sound is done, the main feedback layer is done, but there is still some additional stuff that I need to do to get more accurate syncing stuff happening... And for some reason when I assign SW2 to "passthrough" from Combi to Program (And the program is set to go an octave up) it doesn't work so I'm troubleshooting that one. Could be a simple fix.

Anyway, the main sound, feedback and primary playability of this sound *I* think are pretty much dead on. I still have work to do however, so while it's a very playable lead, there are some small things I'm still left tweaking as I did a rush job with the effects. (Ran out of time tonight, but wanted to post something)

Enjoy!

Korg Forums

Odd request: Can I make a sound for you; Kronos

Re: Numb Linkin Park