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Korg Kronos drum programming

 
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navydave
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Joined: 11 Jul 2002
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Location: Turner, ME USA

PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 5:15 pm    Post subject: Korg Kronos drum programming Reply with quote

What do you find easier to work with? The Kronos for making drum patterns and sequences or a stand alone drum machine? Considering picking up an Alesis SR18 because programming on the Kronos seems tedious to me. Thoughts?
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GregC
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 6:34 pm    Post subject: Re: Korg Kronos drum programming Reply with quote

navydave wrote:
What do you find easier to work with? The Kronos for making drum patterns and sequences or a stand alone drum machine? Considering picking up an Alesis SR18 because programming on the Kronos seems tedious to me. Thoughts?


might depend what you are doing.

jamming around the house vs producing multi tracked songs ?

On many songs, I spend a lot of time on multi track drum parts, congas, etc.
Its because drums are so important. I also use drum track when I can for the SEQ/Song. Even then, there are some things with the drum kits that are lacking.

I am 99% on the SEQ so my context might not be like yours.

If I knew of a drum machine that would save me time on recording, I would buy it . It would have to fit easily into my work flow.
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navydave
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Joined: 11 Jul 2002
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Location: Turner, ME USA

PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 6:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Korg Kronos drum programming Reply with quote

GregC wrote:
navydave wrote:
What do you find easier to work with? The Kronos for making drum patterns and sequences or a stand alone drum machine? Considering picking up an Alesis SR18 because programming on the Kronos seems tedious to me. Thoughts?


might depend what you are doing.

jamming around the house vs producing multi tracked songs ?

On many songs, I spend a lot of time on multi track drum parts, congas, etc.
Its because drums are so important. I also use drum track when I can for the SEQ/Song. Even then, there are some things with the drum kits that are lacking.

I am 99% on the SEQ so my context might not be like yours.

If I knew of a drum machine that would save me time on recording, I would buy it . It would have to fit easily into my work flow.


Probably jamming around the house and/or with friends, with the ability to dump it back into the Kronos sequencer w/edits if I like it. Might see if I can find a used one on E-bay for a good price.
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pete.m
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Joined: 05 Apr 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd use the Kronos every time. The built-in kits are fine, but I have also gradually loaded around 5,500 drum samples organised randomly into around 90 drum kits, so I'm never short of new sounds to inspire me. Best of all, I can alter the sounds in so many ways using all the sound-shaping tools of the Kronos, and the effects add a whole load of additional possibilities.
As another forum user remarked during a recent post, one of the side effects of being a Kronos user is that you start to get rid of other pieces of gear because they pale by comparison. Old-style drum machines fit into that category for me. Each to their own, of course...
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amit
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Joined: 13 Jul 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I dont play drums so I rely on different things for that.

1: A Close friend is a session drummer and a phone call away.
2: Use hardware sequencers like the arturia beat step pro or novation circuit (mine has gone haywire). works great for electronics, but no so much for rock/blues/metal etc
3: Use a realtime drum track generation software , a bit like karma, i.e. rayzoom jamstix, This is by far my favorite. http://www.rayzoon.com/
4: Use drums(tracks) from different Arranger styles/midis
you can find a lot of styles I converted to midi at the following link.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qbfwt4i2t332ts5/AAAc9zZD1htp0tW_A9Hcludga?dl=0&preview=Y2K+Converted+Styles+for+Korg+Arrangers+and+Kronos.rar
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19naia
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Joined: 29 Nov 2012
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 9:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kronos is tedious compared to Boss Dr.880.
Kronos is good for making beats and the kronos drum kits are hard to match.
Also a standalone drum machine may have limitations related to sample mapping. Adjustments to compensate are there but if you decide to run kronos preset pattern with an external pattern that required key shift edits, then you may not be able to run the both over the same track and same drum kit to save space and effort.
Dr.880 is my choice over Alesis. Same type of drum machine with multi genre patterns and dedicated but interchangeable fills. Dr.880 was the flagship and top dog among that class of drum machines, It was the kronos of hardware drum machines of the day. It was the peak of those types of drum machines before everything went to groove boxes and EDM style machines.

There was a time when if you said "drum machine", those who were in the know, understood it to mean what Alesis, Boss Dr, series and similar were doing.
Now you say drum machine and you get shown a device with no presets but a million ways to tweak arpp style pulse in the themes of trance, dance and all things electronic.

Kronos is tedious if you want to make beats from scratch. DR.880 is quicker and also Alesis but alesis is not quite where Dr.880 is with very fine Roland drum samples as well as internal memory. Dr.880 input, USB, 5pin midi, several pedal inputs and sevearal types of outputs. Effects, EZcompose and more, all on Dr.880. Also cost twice as much. Is a tank that can take a beating. I dropped mine many times and drunks dropped it at the venues many times and it was hard to scar and never missed a beat or screen view.
Even a power surge that damaged it did not affect any of the functionality. Just the screen and a digital pop on the 1 of 500 presets that was open when the surge hit. Digital pop only happened when i opened that one page and from there it functioned fine until i scrolled to another screen and back, then a single quick pop sound as i scrolled back to open that one page.
Seems like it was designed to take Surge damage in a way that did not kill the functionality. Eventually the back light went out but not the LCD characters reading out the functionality.

Main issue will be how you can use the crafted beats if there is sample mapping inconsistencies for midi data transfer across devices. Even if key shift adjustments can solve it, working the key shifted patterns in tandem with kronos made or preset patterns, will require separation across tracks. Maybe if you midi rig it to sound out kronos drum kits and record it that way, then it will dump into kronos working as if a kronos local sample mapped pattern...

in my case where i rely on ready made presets for my lack of beats making skills, I would have more chance of sample mapping issues. I want to rip ready made patterns with seaparated fills and intros. Rip them and patch them together into elaborate drum bars, rather than making them without the skills to do so. Kronos can do it all but requires drum beat skills and going through the tedious system that has drum machining as a side bar rather than the main focus. RPPR is tedious and Karma is tedious. A lot more than those old drum machines do ,can be done for beats on Kronos, as a whole, but it takes real "work", as was implied when kronos was called a "workstation".

I looked at a few virtual drum machines and some have quick or auto sample mapping features to make them easily compatible with running drum kits in other devices. So i would have kronos with Dr.880 and a selection of computer software drum machines with the advanced sample/key mapping features and other advanced features that do not come in the outdated Alesis and Dr.880 hardware drum machines.
Dr.880 is more expensive than Alesis but offers more. They are all 10+ year old technology even new out of the box. Not much updating since then. EZ-compose feature is there but missing deeper more modern functionality outside of the realm of just composing beats. So thats why having software drum machines to work together with the old fashioned standalone and kronos.
External drum machine definitley saves polyphony especially for people who like to layer up thick sounds. Kronos patterns can drive the external device without loading up Kronos CPU. Software Drum machine that can take in Kronos drum samples and then be driven by the the Alesis or Boss Dr.880 so that all kronos does is cue the start and stop or whatever CC messages. All 3 working together to make things easier and less burden on Kronos CPU.

Karma software is a good addition because you can take those patterns into Karma software and set them into a GE for parameters and Karma also has a key mapping feature to handle any mapping inconsistency.

The trifecta- Kronos, software drum machine plus karma software, and a standalone midi drum machine(Boss Dr.880). Thats where i am headed.
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navydave
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 11:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your input. The DR880 was another one I was looking at but reviews were saying it had limited memory. And complaints of complicated programming. Also was looking at some Elektron boxes and while cool, I probably wont get into that much editing. But maybe. The Digitakt was another one I looked at. The Elektron Analog Rytm was another (nice to have) box but a little too pricey for me. I'll take another look at the DR880.
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19naia
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Joined: 29 Nov 2012
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 1:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

navydave wrote:
Thanks for your input. The DR880 was another one I was looking at but reviews were saying it had limited memory. And complaints of complicated programming. Also was looking at some Elektron boxes and while cool, I probably wont get into that much editing. But maybe. The Digitakt was another one I looked at. The Elektron Analog Rytm was another (nice to have) box but a little too pricey for me. I'll take another look at the DR880.


Dr.880 i think has more memory than than the smaller Alesis that are usually displayed in music stores. Main thing is it has midi via USB and 5pin. So you can use kronos or external storage to store all you want.

https://www.boss.info/us/products/dr-880/specifications/

It has a lot more going for it than the other drum machines of that type. It has internal bass guitar sounds that you can play with the velocity sensitive pads or play with kronos keys via midi. Full bass and drum arrangements and has guitar input that gets to use all the onboard effects. 500 preset slots and 500 user slot patterns. Not sure how many full drum sequence songs it can hold but it obviously depends of how long they are. But they can be stored externally to Standard Midi Files (SMF) to clear internal memory for more.
If you have kronos, you can store all your extra midi files in kronos songs and just run the Dr.880 with its own patterns but from within kronos sequencer. Or use a DAW and plugins for the SMF.

I had a Dr.880 and if it is a bit more complicated, it is because it has a lot more going on than others from its era. The more modern ones may be easier functionality or more dynamic functionality but missing what i like most about the Dr.880. Not sure how far the drum pad functions can go -if it can work into kronos midi CC functions or map to the kronos chord pads, but i am sure the Dr.880 velocity sensitve pads can play kronos samples, programs or combis just like keys on a keybed.

If you are good at making your own beats from scratch, then Dr.880 may not be the best for you. I love it because of how many and how dynamic the presets are. I need ready made beats.
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pete.m
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you are seriously thinking of using an Elektron Analog Rhythm, do take plenty of time to see whether or not it really suits you.
I can get on with most gear, but I made the mistake of buying an Elektron Octatrack a couple of years ago. I liked the features it offered, but the claims for its seamless workflow and functionality seemed well wide of the mark to me. It was the worst laid out thing I've ever bought, and I threw in the towel after getting exasperated with it once too often. It'll suit some people, I'm sure, but I suspect that most people won't find it particularly user-friendly.
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