Wavestation waveforms and Kronos

[Zeroesque]

Wavestation Legacy is pretty cool, but to my ears it is somehow missing the richness of the original hardware (I have the SR). I pull up Northern Lights and all's well with the world - twinkly tinklies

That's another good point. It might be possible that the Kronos will ultimately sound every bit as good as the SR since it has more professional DACs (and is Korg hardware). Although, there is something to be said for the philosophy of "if it's a Wavestation SR sound you're after, get a Wavestation SR"!

Cheers!

Along these lines, I'm finding that transferring my all-time favorite Trinity sounds to HD-1 yields an even better result. For example, The Trinity's envelopes seem to approximate an exponential or logarithmic curve with several discrete linear sections to each part of the envelope. The HD-1's recorded output, however, absolutely looks like a curve in my sample editor. At the very least, it is a much more accurate approximation. Also, the HD-1 provides much faster envelope times than the Trinity. I've found that a Trinity's 0 value for an envelope decay time is somewhere around the HD-1's value of 21 (both have a range of 0-99). The HD-1 truly is hi-def compared to the Trinity and this seems to go beyond just DACs.

[TonyGen]

I think Wavestation / M1 would be a great addition to Kronos. Having the PCM sounds in HD-1 (like the Oasys) is of limited value (IMO) unless you can be bothered trying to recreate all the fabulous Wavestation / M1 sounds.

Korg did a superb LAC-1 (MS20 / Polysix) for Oasys and Kronos. This was also available for PC. They also did a superb Legacy Digital Collection (Wavestation / M1) for PC and I never understood why it wasn't made available for Oasys (or now Kronos).

I did recreate a few reasonable Wavestation sounds (Mini Lead, Warm Strings and Octave Strings) but it took me a long time to get the sounds close enough for my satisfaction. Oasys DAC's are far too clean in comparison to original Wavestation. In fact I ended up reverting to the real Wavestation for these (and other) sounds.

[danatkorg]

I think Wavestation / M1 would be a great addition to Kronos. Having the PCM sounds in HD-1 (like the Oasys) is of limited value (IMO) unless you can be bothered trying to recreate all the fabulous Wavestation / M1 sounds.

Korg did a superb LAC-1 (MS20 / Polysix) for Oasys and Kronos. This was also available for PC. They also did a superb Legacy Digital Collection (Wavestation / M1) for PC and I never understood why it wasn't made available for Oasys (or now Kronos).

I did recreate a few reasonable Wavestation sounds (Mini Lead, Warm Strings and Octave Strings) but it took me a long time to get the sounds close enough for my satisfaction. Oasys DAC's are far too clean in comparison to original Wavestation. In fact I ended up reverting to the real Wavestation for these (and other) sounds.

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

- Dan

[SanderXpander]

Were the wavestation's samples sampled at 32KHz? If the same samples are in Kronos, even if they were converted to 48KHz, they shouldn't magically get more sound content.

[Chriskk]

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

Korg did not re-sample all the WS samples from the original sources (e.g., Prophet VS) at 48kHz for the Kronos. The K's 48kHz sample rate doesn't substantially enhance those WS wave forms.

[danatkorg]

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

Korg did not re-sample all the WS samples from the original sources (e.g., Prophet VS) at 48kHz for the Kronos. The K's 48kHz sample rate doesn't substantially enhance those WS wave forms.

I've worked on both the Wavestation line and the KRONOS.

The Wavestation *plays back* samples at 32kHz (or perhaps 31.25; I'd need to check). The samples may be have been recorded at a variety of rates - that's part of what interpolation is for. For the original Wavestation ROM, I doubt that the VS waveforms went through any recording path at all; they were most likely used directly. I expect that the different interpolation algorithms should also make a noticeable difference in some cases. I have an SR and A/D here; when I get a chance, I'll do some comparisons.

- Dan

[TonyGen]

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

- Dan

Cheers, Dan.

Whatever the reason, my Oasys versions of Wavestation sounds are far too "clean" to sound original. To be fair some of the PC version LDC Wavestation emualtions sound too clean also, although the LDC programming is the same (or similar) to the original Wavestation and therefore quite useable.

Still think LDC should be provided for Kronos.....even though I don't have one...

[jorgemncardoso]

As much as i wich for the kronos to be able to sound exactly like a wavestation when i would play my favorite wavestation patches i know that it will never sound exactly the same. The fact it has different sample playback rate, different converters, and different programing structure will impact on the final sound. Yes the kronos can do a lot more, and in many cases it will sound better. But if i want e specific sound to be like the original, i meen to have the same feel, presence, the same particular sound characteristic then i'll just have to play the original. That is why when i buy the kronos, even if the possibility to port all my wavestation sounds to it, i'll never part with my wavestation SR. Not even the KLC sounds the same as the hardware version. Same goes for the M1 or any synth that will be recreated on the kronos in the future. The synth engine is different, sample rates are different, so you can have an emulation of the sound, with can be better or worse than the original, but you can not have an exact recreation of that synth.
For example, i always wanted the 01w when it came out, but when i finaly had the money to buy one it was out of production and i ended up buying the Trinity instead, and i had all the 01w sounds for the trinity and it didn't sound remotely the same, yes the core of the sound it there, but the feel and presence is just different. That became even more evident when i bought my two 01w's a while back, and i just love them and will never part with them no matter what new synths i buy, same goes for the wavestation SR.

[TonyGen]

As much as i wich for the kronos to be able to sound exactly like a wavestation when i would play my favorite wavestation patches i know that it will never sound exactly the same. The fact it has different sample playback rate, different converters, and different programing structure will impact on the final sound. Yes the kronos can do a lot more, and in many cases it will sound better. But if i want e specific sound to be like the original, i meen to have the same feel, presence, the same particular sound characteristic then i'll just have to play the original. That is why when i buy the kronos, even if the possibility to port all my wavestation sounds to it, i'll never part with my wavestation SR. Not even the KLC sounds the same as the hardware version. Same goes for the M1 or any synth that will be recreated on the kronos in the future. The synth engine is different, sample rates are different, so you can have an emulation of the sound, with can be better or worse than the original, but you can not have an exact recreation of that synth.
For example, i always wanted the 01w when it came out, but when i finaly had the money to buy one it was out of production and i ended up buying the Trinity instead, and i had all the 01w sounds for the trinity and it didn't sound remotely the same, yes the core of the sound it there, but the feel and presence is just different. That became even more evident when i bought my two 01w's a while back, and i just love them and will never part with them no matter what new synths i buy, same goes for the wavestation SR.

You misunderstand my point. Korg LDC for PC is excellent. So I think it would be a good idea to create an LDC emulation for the Kronos. Sure, it wouldn't be exactly the same, but then neither is MS20 or Polysix from LAC-1 exactly like the real thing, or CX-3 exactly like a Hammond.

All the superb Wavestation PCM sounds are on board Kronos and Oasys but (AFAIK on Oasys) there are no programs which use them.

Don't get me wrong, there are already "millions" of sounds available for Oasys and Kronos. Certainly more than enough on Oasys to keep me busy. I just think having already put all the hard work in to developing a software synth version of Wavestation / M1 for PC, it seems a shame that it couldn't be made available for Kronos.

But hey, what do I know....

[X-Trade]

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

- Dan

Cheers, Dan.

Whatever the reason, my Oasys versions of Wavestation sounds are far too "clean" to sound original. To be fair some of the PC version LDC Wavestation emualtions sound too clean also, although the LDC programming is the same (or similar) to the original Wavestation and therefore quite useable.

Still think LDC should be provided for Kronos.....even though I don't have one...

Have you tried using a Decimator IFX to reduce the bit depth and sample rate accordingly?

[TonyGen]

I may sound like a broken record about this, but the difference in the DACs will pale in comparison to the differences in sample rate (32kHz vs 48kHz!) and interpolation.

- Dan

Cheers, Dan.

Whatever the reason, my Oasys versions of Wavestation sounds are far too "clean" to sound original. To be fair some of the PC version LDC Wavestation emualtions sound too clean also, although the LDC programming is the same (or similar) to the original Wavestation and therefore quite useable.

Still think LDC should be provided for Kronos.....even though I don't have one...

Have you tried using a Decimator IFX to reduce the bit depth and sample rate accordingly?

Hi X-Trade, no I haven't. As I said I gave up and reverted to using the Wavestation itself. I did use the Oasys versions a few times (live) and they sounded very good, but I thought the real Wavestation was needed to get the required sounds. I don't play live any more so no real urgency from me to emulate on the Oasys.

In particular I like LDC because it has pretty much all the expansion program cards that were produced for the Wavestation.

[postman]

I'll be continuing to tinker with the wave sequences today to programmatically (are we sick of that word yet? ) convert from the WS (KLC'07) banks to a nice, unified global bank on the Kronos. I'll have a program file with all the wave sequences available either for download or email to anyone interested.

Cheers!

Hi,

I know this is an old topic, but apparantly you have done allready a lot of creating the wave sequences of the wavestation.

I tried to do the same, using the wavestation legacy as reference. In the legacy software you can use the mod wheel to cycle smoothly through the wave sequence (see for example RAM1 009 *WhSweep). How can you do this with the Kronos? I tried using wave sequence AMS > JS+Y, but than it only happens when you hit a key again, instead of smoothly cycling to another step while pressing the key. I also tried the modulation AMS, and this will cycle through the steps, but not smoothly (XFade is ignored). What am I doing wrong or is this a "bug" in the Kronos/HD1 implementation of the wave sequence?

Regards, postman.

[1jordyzzz]

I just wish at some point we get a wavestation exi and M1 exi - that would complete the kronos for me - which i love

That's very odd if you cannot recreate m1 on the kronos...

[jhulk]

when sampling at 32khz the aliasing filter filters all frequencies above this

so you lose the higher frequency spectrum but at the same time when played back you get less aliasing in the higher note due to there being less high frequencies going beyond the nyquist

now the 01w was sampled at 32khz but the wavestation was done at 31.5

thats why when using 01w pcm cards on the wavestation can sound a little out of tune

now i do pcm samples for both the t series and wavestation sr and 01w

and the trinity and i use 32khz for t series and 31.5 for the sr

and 32khz for the trinity now on the trinity it just means that the transpose engine will uptranspose the samples at more octaves due to theplay back engine

on the trinity its 96khz playback being a 1 octave uptranspose for 48khz sample playback but becuase the 32khz sample are sampled at 32khz the uptranspose engine will allow the sample to be 3 octaves uptransposed before it plays the same note

these same samples will play on a triton and oasis and kronos becuase they are korg format keymap files

i dont know what the playback frequencie engines are on the oasys or kronos as i dont own either

but on the t series they sound very warm due to being band limited and not producing the overtones of aliasing

they sound very warm on the trinity and 01w using them with the waveshapes

most off the samples done on the m1 and t and wavestation and 01w were done on the dsm1 12bit sampler but the samples maybe played back as 12bits but they are saved as 16bits in memory

and when dumping them from a dsm1 to an editor they are 16bits

and i have been doing dwgs multisounds with the additive engine for years and have thousands from analog creations to pure digital creations

they sound way better at 32khz and and becuase they are more steppy at 32 than 44 or 48 you get digital distortion coupled with the antialiasing filters of the dsm1 its very musical rather than being very clinical like 24bit samples and high sample rates that our ears cant even hear

as our hearing range is 20hz to 20khz and as nyquist to get that range you need to sample twice the frequency so 40 khz is about as much as needed

but through sampling for 25 years the only samples that have that type of frequencie content are cymbals and hihats

32khz will give us a frequency range of 0-16khz which will cover most of any frequency range of instruments we use

and its a none fact that cymbals sampled at a lower frequency gives you that crunch and why 12bit and 8 bit samplers are still sort after today

and bit crushing in the fx section is implimentated to also do this

and the dss1 with its analog filters and with the the 16mb upgrade sounds so massive

[danatkorg]

now the 01w was sampled at 32khz but the wavestation was done at 31.5

thats why when using 01w pcm cards on the wavestation can sound a little out of tune

They used the same hardware, including sample rate. My guess is that you're encountering some small variations in the interpretation of the sample data or metadata (such as loop tuning, perhaps).
Note that, as with most sample playback devices, the samples themselves can be at various sample rates, and do not need to be at the same rate as the system.

- Dan