Korg Forums

[Don877]

As a Krome user with a massive 3 days experience can I ask if there's any resource to answer "How do I do ..." type questions? I'm talking simple things like how do I add a strings voice to the piano voice I'm playing midway through a performance. That is a 1-button trick on a Yamaha. The Korg videos don't help much and the manuals are stuffed full of arcane details I'll never need. Thanks in advance!

[voip]

It can be a 1 button trick on the Krome, too. Try using Combi A-000 Piano & Strings and tap the onscreen "Play" button for Prog 2 in this Combi to mute the strings. Do this for as many of the other Programs in the Combi as you want. The relevant parts can be brought into play by tapping the corresponding onscreen "Mute" buttons. Muting the drum programs will only have an effect when the Drum Track function is running. Muting some of the other programs in the Combi may only have an effect when the Arp (arpeggiator) is running.

Searching YouTube for "Korg Krome Video Manual", or just "korg krome" should give some helpful results.

The "arcane" details in the manuals will probably start to become much more meaningful and useful as you become more familiar with the Krome. It is a deep and very capable keyboard.
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[Don877]

Thanks Voip, great to get a prompt reply from this forum!

I'd already figured out that I could mute timbres in a Combi from the smart screen, but I remain nervous that my sausage-like fingers will be able accurately hit the right buttons in a gig situation. I really need either a pedal or a switch/knob solution.

I watched the videos, which I found completely useless, read the manuals as far as I could understand them and fiddled for hours with the cryptic interface. I'm sure the Krome is fantastically powerful and sounds amazing, but it's not exactly intuitive, is it?

Anyway, I seem to have found some answers in the "arcane" bits relating to something called IFOs and other effect processing stuff.

Thanks again for the help!

[CowboyNQ]

With practice, you'll find Voip's method works pretty well, and would definitely be my preference. The touchscreen is a joy to behold once you get comfortable with it. I'm constantly switching patches/combis with it mid-song.

If you're looking for a more creative solution that doesn't involve pressing any buttons or switches at all, you could create a keyboard split, one half of the 'board piano only, the other half strings and piano combined. Transpose one of the splits by an octave or two, and hey presto, you can switch between piano and piano/strings as often as you like simply by changing which half of the 'board you play on.

Obviously this would be a bit trickier on the 61 than one of its bigger brothers.

Keep persisting with the UI too. It is a bit bewildering at first if you're not used to Korgs but with time and patience you'll definitely get the hang of it. The Krome is an incredibly versatile instrument and your tenacity will be rewarded!

[Don877]

Thanks for the helpful advice and support. In searching though the posts in here I found that it's possible to route a strings timbre to a stereo limiter and control the gain through that limiter via software knob 1. That works for me and gives me a better solution than my Yamaha's one-button-trick.

That's probably going to be my ongoing experience, the Krome seems able to do anything I ask of it but it's necessary to my hands dirty with cryptic stuff and learn a whole bunch of new acronyms first!

[voip]

The general approach to operation is common across a whole range of Korg keyboards, such as the Kronos, M3, M50 Triton Extreme, and others. Knowing one will make the others seem quite familiar. The control knob approach is a good one, allowing the blend of a timbre, or timbres to be varied. This could also be done using an exptression pedal. See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HROmeSew5wE

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[Don877]

I'd no idea that the interface was common across other devices - presumably that means I can look at the forums of Kronos, M3 etc and find useful advice too. Acknowledging that those keyboards may have features that the Krome does not.

Thanks for the expression pedal video too, sounds really cool.

One last point on this subject - if I had used the touchscreen to mute additional timbres that aren't being used at the start of a song, then unmute them to switch them on, I'm usually holding down a chord or bass note and want the extra instrument to start sounding when next I play new notes. String/organ type timbres sound immediately however, spoiling the effect. I'm assuming this is because the muting is done at the end of the effects chain and the relevant oscillator is producing an output all the time. My current solution works fine but is there a way to mute a timbre so that unmuting produces no additional sound until you hit new keys?

[voip]

The Kronos offers customisable Play/Mute behaviour, called Studio and Live, selectable in the Global menus, and it is Live mode that give exactly the behaviour you describe. Unfortunately, the Krome doesn't offer this.

It might be worth asking your local Korg representative if they could add this as a feature request to the next version of the Krome OS. The Krome hasn't had a firmware update in a while, with the latest version being 1.03, and Korg do listen. The behaviour of the Play/Mute buttons has been discussed in similar fashion several times before on the Krome forum, so you would not be alone in appreciating the benefits of such a feature.

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[Don877]

Thanks for the info, there seems to be enough functionality in the Krome to do almost anything I need - just differently! Played my first gig with the Krome last night and it went great.