Experimentations. Song created 100% on Kronos.

[maestrophillips]

Just something I been messing with, but it was done 100% on Kronos. Guitars recorded direct to the K.

http://soundcloud.com/ronf-3/05-track-05

This is well done. Excellent job.

[RonF]

Hey everyone...thank you SO much for your kind comments. Its very much appreciated!

This short piece is a similar style to what I frequently create for a certain client. Segment(s) of it will (hopefully, assuming the client loves it too) go as cue in a video project the client is producing. What often happens, is that no more than 10 to 30 seconds of this will actually get used as a cue, sometimes recurring throughout the video production as a "theme".

Not knowing exactly what the client will "love", I tend to flesh out a number of ideas or motif's over the course of a 2 to 4 minute presentation. Sometimes, the presentation will start abruptly and end abruptly, because I am not seeking to create a "song" as much as demo of a soundtrack. Have no idea what might get used of this piece here (if at all), but when it was finished it ended up sounding like a pretty cool self contained piece, and I wanted to throw it up on SoundCloud and here at KF since it has a Kronos connection. I will keep you posted as to whether it gets used (this project is for a TV commercial).

Pretty much everything you hear was sonically originated from the Kronos. You would be amazed at how much of it came from ONE program, which I tweaked in 90 different ways, because it has the sound character I love. In fact, its one of my favorite programs on the Kronos, and that is: User B-26 Analogue Pad. Now what I often do is run a particular sound I have tweaked out of some individual outputs on the K, into my Eventide processors, and then back into the K where I record the result as either a sample, or direct to an Audio track.

Some crazy things you may be wondering about....early in the piece you hear MY voice, processed through an Eventide H7600 (Black Hole preset), and then pitched up so it sounds like a female voice (I sound more like Barry White in reality), which turned out cool. Also, some "flute" type sounds that were asked about are actually guitars run through the Eventide and heavily processed, almost sounds like a guitar synth. However.....Almost all of the ambience (rather than special effects) came from the O-Verb, and other Kronos effects. The lead guitar processing was entirely Kronos effects. The guitar special effects were either Eventide or Kronos effects.

I did not use a computer DAW at all. All of the drums and bass were sequenced on the Kronos. I did mangle a few clips of Kronos in my MV8800, and then returned the resulting samples to the Kronos....but the original source material was from Kronos. Early in the piece you hear a lot of vector envelopes I programmed....but no KARMA was used at all in this piece (though I am not at all opposed to using it in other works!). What you mostly hear from Kronos sound content is the analog pad, drums, cymbals, fretless bass, various bells, and various synth effects, bleeps, and blops. The rest of it (probably more than you realize) is from my electric guitar (Steinberger ZT3) through the Eventide and/or Kronos effects.

Once it was all completed (composed and tracked), I then very lightly processed the resulting two track master direct from Kronos into an Avalon compressor/EQ to add clarity and punch and balance the low end (roll off the rumble)....but really very minor touch up.....I try to EQ as I go along, so I don't need to at the master stage. I like to think I REALLY know and trust my monitors. I did this, btw, in lieu of Kronos mastering compressor/EQ....which I am sure could have given very equivalent results. Of course, the conversion to SoundCloud causes a loss in fidelity....the master sounds outstanding by comparison.

Ok....that is everything I can think of about this production. Roughly 90% of what you hear was straight Kronos....with guitars colored by Eventide, and then tweaked and recorded on Kronos. Believe it or not, if I load up this song, and press Start on my Kronos sequencer...this song plays in its complete entirety from the Kronos outputs...and in real time it sounds marvelous.

Once again...my humble and sincere thank you to each of you for the kind comments. Its kinda scary, always, posting ones work for the world to hear. You guys are very cool for listening and offering such comments.

Ron

[RonF]

If you enjoyed this music....here is some more original works in the same general genre....of varying quality, date of production (nothing more than about 3 years old), and Kronos involvement. In this you may also hear some JP80, especially in the second song in the play list, FWIW. And you hear Kronos sprinkled around. You may notice the MS-20 in the first song in the playlist. On the older pieces you can hear Oasys too, and/or M3/Radias.

http://soundcloud.com/ronf-3/sets/ronf-music

[PianoManChuck]

That was awesome!! Really enjoyed that. Great job!

[jick]

Great Job Ron! Can't wait to get my hands on my own K

[Korgstream]

Just something I been messing with, but it was done 100% on Kronos. Guitars recorded direct to the K.

http://soundcloud.com/ronf-3/05-track-05

Excellent job, RonF!

[EJ2]

Excellent recording, Ron. Very much enjoyed listening to that. You'll have to share your process with us.

[RonF]

Excellent recording, Ron. Very much enjoyed listening to that. You'll have to share your process with us.

Thanks Jim. In regards to my "process", you might be surprised to realize how simple this particular cue really is. If you listen carefully (headphones perhaps) you can make out that it is really only made up of a few layers (maybe 6). The Drums and Cymbals and Bells is where I started to sketch the outline of the piece, which took the most time to sequence in the Kronos....BUT, its mostly a repeating groove (which is Enigma inspired, btw! good ears!), so once i got the basic sections of groove down, i just copied and pasted it over many bars. Then, I go back over the resulting mockup and throw a number of real time drum hits and fills over the top of it (using my SPD30 drum pad controller and sticks for realism) to give it more of a live feel, rather than just the repetitive mockup. But in this genre, some repetitive aspect is good, I think, because it draws you into a trance, so to speak.

With percussion out of the way, I sequenced the bass. Very straight forward fretless bass, and then some bass pad in a simple undertone .

Now the layout of the piece was done. Time to add the "colour".

There is only three layers of "synth". Remember, the pads being used here are big and thick and they fill up the mix space FAST, so....I tried to keep it as sparse as I could, so not to get mushy. I have two pads going against each other, so they play off of each other, adding a lot of random motion and interest. Long env release times! Throughout the entire piece you pretty much hear different tweaks on the Kronos Analogue Pad program. This is playing against my guitar creating a second pad through the Eventide H7600 using the AmbiClouds preset, which creates a "synth pad" all its own. On the Guitar all I am doing is hitting harmonics, or tapping the strings lightly, because AmbiClouds is a very HOT preset (easily overloads).

With those two passes done (Analogue Pad and AmbiClouds), then I have another pass where I add in tons of blips, squeaks, falls, arps, and various silly synth noises, which gives it all interest and movement. These synth effects are all mostly tweaks and programming tricks using the same Analogue Pad program from the K. Just messing with LFO times, Env attacks/decays/releases, and heavy use of the step seq on the osc pitch. I find this very fun. I will just randomly tweak and seek interesting noises, and then route them out the Eventide to add depth, and then back in to the K and sample the results. Then with a nice inventory (about 20) of sampled synth noises, I will just lay then out on the keyboard, and apply then in a real time pass while sequencing.

One nice trick I used that I like, you can hear just a pulsing sine wave in the mid-low register in the background during the main guitar lead section near the last third of the cue. This simple sine wave just pulses with the beat and drives the song giving that section a huge and dramatic energy. Solo'd its just a sine wave with a simple sine LFO slightly pulsing its pitch in time with the beat. Something so simple, almost subliminal...but it works so well!

Lastly....I recorded the two guitar "leads", and few other guitar "spice" passages. These are straight forward...a main pass and a harmony pass, pretty much in real time, with Kronos effects recorded in real time.

Thats it! Its really only about 8 midi tracks and 6 audio tracks, adding up to, as I said earlier, about 6 "layers". Its all thick pad type stuff (sans the percussion) which fills up the space quickly.

In the end, its got a lot to do with the mix: Ambience effects, EQ, and compression. You will notice how soft and in the back a lot of the synth stuff is. This lets the rhythmic aspects shine through with clarity. A little synth goes a long way. And you will notice how I EQ'd the very thick dynamic range of the Kronos synths, into its own space. The Kronos has a huge dynamic range, especially in synth type pads....but this awesome sound quality needs to be shaped to fit into a mix. So if you listen to my individual tracks solo'd, they sound very thin (after EQ and compression) by comparison. But pieced together it fills up the full range, and fits together like a puzzle.

In my view...the mix is the hard part. The composition here was fairly straight forward.

Hope this may be helpful to anyone who looks to record on the Kronos. All in all...it is VERY fun stuff. Using the Kronos sequencer was the daunting part....but this piece has a very simple and repetitive percussion section, so it wasn't too bad. If I was going to do anything more complex, I might have chosen to use the MV8800 hardware sequencer...or perhaps Ableton Live which is my computer DAW of choice. But I have to say, the Kronos was super nice to work on in this way.....once I started on the Kronos sequencer, it was easy to finish up on it....and I especially liked the audio tracks on the K. Nice!

Thanks again!

[runningman67]

Hi Ron

Apart you talent and imagination, would you agree that separation (panning)
and effects balance is what really sets something apart?

Lester

[RonF]

Hi Ron

Apart you talent and imagination, would you agree that separation (panning)
and effects balance is what really sets something apart?

Lester

Absolutely yes...but not just panning, which is only one "use" of your space in your "canvas"....but also frequency blocking. As I said in my previous post....I EQ and heavily compress the synths to sound very thin, taking out a lot of bottom end on them. You would think they sound horrible solo'd....because I used multi-band compression to drop the frequencies below about 125Hz (starting to roll off around 150Hz), which leaves enough synth bass to hear it in the mix, but opens that frequency range for the bass tracks and kick drum to shine through. Controlling bass is a key component to a successful mix...always! Also, stereo effects, especially reverbs and delays, accumulate into mush very easily. The tails need to be compressed and controlled in the frequency range too. So I often take the bottom end out of the tails, so they don't gain too much energy....but are still audible and subtle.

Think of the frequency range as "energy". Bass frequencies always produce more energy than treble frequencies. A successful and punchy mix has leveled or balanced that frequency range so the bass does not over-power the mid and high frequencies.

Short answer...YES...you are right on target. Think of your mix as a 3-D canvas. Left to right (panning), and top to bottom (frequency range). Good balance in all of that overall space is what you seek.

[runningman67]

Hi Ron

Apart you talent and imagination, would you agree that separation (panning)
and effects balance is what really sets something apart?

Lester

Absolutely yes...but not just panning, which is only one "use" of your space in your "canvas"....but also frequency blocking. As I said in my previous post....I EQ and heavily compress the synths to sound very thin, taking out a lot of bottom end on them. You would think they sound horrible solo'd....because I used multi-band compression to drop the frequencies below about 125Hz (starting to roll off around 150Hz), which leaves enough synth bass to hear it in the mix, but opens that frequency range for the bass tracks and kick drum to shine through. Controlling bass is a key component to a successful mix...always! Also, stereo effects, especially reverbs and delays, accumulate into mush very easily. The tails need to be compressed and controlled in the frequency range too. So I often take the bottom end out of the tails, so they don't gain too much energy....but are still audible and subtle.

Short answer...YES...you are right on target. Think of your mix as a 3-D canvas. Left to right (panning), and top to bottom (frequency range). Good balance in all of that overall space is what you seek.

I couldn't have put it better myself lol

That is a concise explanation that we should all copy and paste.

[PianoManChuck]

Ron - thank you for posting those explanations. I learned a couple of things from you today and am ecstatic that we have someone like you that's willing to take the time to explain your technique on a public forum. Just goes to show that no matter how much you think you know, there's always more to learn.

[runningman67]

Ron - thank you for posting those explanations. I learned a couple of things from you today and am ecstatic that we have someone like you that's willing to take the time to explain your technique on a public forum. Just goes to show that no matter how much you think you know, there's always more to learn.

+1

[camper1]

Hi Ron I would just like to say a big thank you for not only posting a great piece of music, but also explaining how you created it. I have been using an arranger keyboard for years where so much is pre programmed and have wanted to get away from that kind of music, so recently i got a k88 ( love it ) so your explanation of how you created this piece, has given me an insight on how to achive the kind of music i want to play. Thank you so much

[burningbusch]

Great piece Ron. Love how it builds and the intricacies throughout.

Busch.