we would like to most cordially thank you for welcoming us in the midst of the OASYS community. Meanwhile, we had the opportunity to work a bit on our recently purchased OASYS 88
. Before commenting further on the topics you raised, in particular the FM libs for the OASYS, we believe that it is worth while to introduce ourselves a bit. Let us start with Guido.
Guido Bruck has been with the University of Duisburg, now, University of Duisburg-Essen since 1984. He received his doctorate in electrical engineering (Doktor der Ingenieurwissenschaften, Ph.D. equivalent), specialization in communications technologies in 1989 on source coding, with special focus on image processing. Since June 2000, he has been senior member of the Chair of Communications Technologies (Lehrstuhl für Kommnunikationstechnik, www.kommunikationstechnik.org).
Now coming to Peter. While working his way towards his diploma in Physics (M.Sc. equiv.), Peter has been a freelancer for Yamaha in the time perod of 1985 to 1990. He has been involved in the sound design and workshop presentation of Yamaha products and, in the later stage of his work for Yamaha, he had some influence on the design of new products. In particular, he worked on the TX81Z, the V-50 and the SY series. Since about 1990, he concentrated on his academic and professional carrier in industry, receiving his Ph.D. degree (Dr.-Ing.) in 1993 and his D.Sc. (Dr.-Ing. habil.) in 1996, all in Electrical Engineering/Communications Technologies. After a few years with Siemens Semiconductor/Infineon Technologies as senior director, he joined the University of Duisburg as a full professor in June 2000.
Guido and Peter founded a private biz, IKT, in 2005.
We hope the stuff above was not too boring. In the case you have special questions on what we have been working on in the past two decades, let us know at your earliest convenience.
Now coming to our engagement in the eletronic music domain, again. Having expertise in the technical fields of source coding and sound generation, we decided to broaden our activites. And then we realized that Peter's long-time friend, Kurt Ader, has been involved in the sound design for the superb OASYS. So, we bought an OASYS, resumed our contacts with Kurt, and... now we find ourselves in the middle of a new community.
Thanks again for your warm welcome.
Allow a few words about the libs KFM-1 and KFM-2, Kurt already mentioned. First, a bit about the status. The alpha version has been ready since about a week, we reviewed it quite thoroughly and about an hour ago we completed the beta version. Now, the final quality check will come and with a bit of luck, we will be able to make the lib available on the KARO homepage in a few days.
KFM-1 is Peter's legacy TX816-based lib, pimping up many of the superb sounds that the late Gerd Führs provided some twenty years ago. There are 256 programs and 128 combinations with great strings, great brass, gread basses, great percussions, and more, we believe. The combinations are really reviving the TX816. The set-up we have been using includes an expression pedal, in our case an EXP-2, which we mapped as a Foot Controller (cf. the Global Settings of the OASYS). Somce of the sounds will respond to the FC changes. The organs use Leslie and SW2 for slow/fast rotation. If your into the TX816, we believe KFM-1 is the right choice.
KFM-2 is a compilation of 256 programs stemming from our vast DX sound library, including many own sounds. Most of the sounds have gone through a polishing in the OASYS, however, maintaining their unique legacy DX character.
BTW, KFM-1 and KFM-2 are complementary in many aspects. In particular, KFM-2 has a vast collection of SFX, additional percussion and lead sounds. So, we guess that it will be sensible to think about using boh libs.
Some of you raised the question about Hubertus's sounds. I am afraid that we cannot really recall all the work that Hubertus and many others did on the programming of the DX series. However, we believe that a most prominent piece of work was his grand piano sound, which has undergone many interpretations. Assuming that our memory is right, you will find a feel of these kind of sounds also in the KFM libs.
That's all for the moment.
Looking forward to your comments.
Peter & Guido
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