A different approach to learning.

[Bertotti]

Well Like everyone I love some other boards out there. I would love to add another board.
I have no desire for different pianos or organs the Kronos is great for me, I have no need of most synths but need doesn't always drive my choices.
With this in mind I am trying a different approach and perhaps it will help my learning.
I love the Moog stuff and plan on adding the Sub37 but have been trying Dan's steps and variations to mimic the Moog sound and some of it's abilities. I'm not there but the process has been helpful in learning AL1 which still stumps me more often then not.
Next will be the Nord sound specifically the lead 4 and the new Lead A1. There are things in both I like.
Next a DSI mopho X4.

Where am I going with this? Well now to the point. I know a lot of getting these sounds is my lack of knowledge in programming. But How Much? How close can you guys get to the sounds of these other boards? Not asking anyone to go out of their way to try but I would be some of you have taken steps to do this already and I am curious how successful you have been. Please let me know. One last question for you programming gurus is is there a sound out there the Kronos, can not now with any amount of skill, be able to reproduce? These exercises and your replies will definitely direct my future gear desires. I have even looked at the nord drum 2. I have not tried working with the Kronos drums or making any synth drums sounds. No idea where to even start. A topic for another thread in the near future I suppose. Thanks for bearing with my long post. As always I appreciate your input, one and all.

Oh and for anyone of you with some level of mind reading tell me why learning the Kronos sequencer is hard for me! lol kidding I know I just need to keep rereading and working at it.
Later Bertotti!

[QuiRobinez]

I'm doing these kind of things in my studio, i have a lot of VA synths like the Nord Lead 4, King Korg, virus TI, Radias and many others. All these synths work with substractive synthesis techniques and can produce more or less the same sounds. However there are differences in sound character. For instance the Nord Lead 4 has a rather cold in your face sound, where the king korg has a more smooth sound. They both complement eachother very well for instance.

Also on the nord lead 4 there is a dedicated third lfo that you can only use for the vibrato sound. That one is fantastic and adds a lot of atmosphere in the sustain phase of a sound and i have a hard time reproducing that behavior on the kronos to the sound (although i am close at the moment).

So al those other synths have specific things that are complementary to a Kronos. I choose synths based on sound character instead of feature sets. The Nord A1 is an entry synth, i don't understand that product, it's way to limited for creating your own sounds. In that price range i would choose the King Korg which can do a lot more. (my personal opinion of course )

On the AL-1 i can reproduce most of the presets of the other VA's to a certain point, although not everything (for instance the Virus ti has specific oscs or wavetables that aren't available on the Kronos). But just the standard two osc sounds are very comparable. But the most important part is the filter in my opinion, when using the moog ladder filter on the Nord Lead 4 then that's a completely different filter (soundwise) then on the AL-1 (even with the 'ams moog modification trick'). So an exact match is very hard to do, but you can come close.

[SanderXpander]

I'm with Qui, I think the differences are 95 percent sound character rather than "can't do"s with the Kronos. That said, it can be really nice to have a synth with a different character, and especially a 1 knob per function synth (or something close) can really help you understand synthesis in general and also lead you down creative routes you wouldn't otherwise follow.
I've been drooling over the Sub Phatty myself (and I already have a Voyager). It still has a lot of "hidden functions" though I think the 37 is better in that regard. If you can deal with the limitations of a mono (or nearly) synth I think it would be a great addition to the K. If you want something mode modern and versatile the Nord is definitely worth checking out and so is the Virus. I haven't played the Virus much but I think the Nord is a little more direct interface-wise, which would be part of the point of getting it. Any Nord I ever played or had (apart from the modulars) have been a joy to program and generally fiddle with.

[jeremykeys]

I'm only going to repeat what the others have said here in that you can get very very close to the sounds of other synthes. For myself, I think it depends on your own ears. you have to remember that each manufacturer has a different idea about how to creat sounds. I'm hoping to eventually get a King Korg. I'd love a Moog of almost any kind but I have to get that one past the wife. "You want to pay how much for only one note at a time?"

Could be difficult.

AL-1 if very powerful and I think that if anybody spends enough time with it they will come away very satisfied. I've barely begun to scratch the suface but I really like what I hear.

[Bertotti]

I know we all try to copy tones but i wasn't really trying to nail them just get in the ball park but it sure seems the Kronos has the ability to get closer. I know we won't nail the character of the other synths like moog and DSI etc.. but I think we can get closer then ever before. Still, I'm curious if there is a synth out there that will elude even the most savvy or programmers and never get closer then maybe 85% there. Thanks guys/gals!

[X-Trade]

It really depends on the flexibility of the synth. I've often said with the Radias... it can sound however I like it to if I put enough effort into programming it. More than close enough to most sought after synths.

If you just program it like any synth and dial in the mechanics of the sound, it will sound 'like a Radias', but then you have to take it further and tweak all those other parameters in order to get it closer to the actual sound you wanted, rather than a 'Radias version' of the sound you wanted.

I'd say for the most part the same thing applies to the Kronos and any sophisticated synth. Of course the Kronos is even better for this because it has several different sound engines which give us different synthesis methods and starting characters and modulation options.

With the Radias some FM sounds were unreachable for example but this shouldn't be a problem on the Kronos.

Don't be afraid to use EQ, drive, and IFX in order to sculpt the sound if you need to get it perfect. Spend forever tweaking those multifilter balances, changing the curve of that envelope, etc.

It's all a matter of attention to detail.

Only thing about really characterful synths with too few programming options.. they are really easy to get 'that' one sound that they do... You probably won't get very far making other wildly different sounds though.

[Citizen Klaus]

I'm not really sure how important it is to critically capture the tone of another subtractive synth, particularly a virtual-analog one. Thanks to popular demand, most modern VAs (including the Kronos) can emulate the sounds of most of the popular filter designs (Moog, SSM 2040, state-variable). Oscillators, LFOs, envelopes, etc. are generally more similar than different -- and the Kronos' variable envelope contours, as well as AL-1's "Edge" control, cover even those unlikely points of difference.

Really, the only subtractive synths that would be difficult to emulate on something like the Kronos would be the ones with distinctive filter designs: VC3, Polivoks, 200/200e, etc. (Yes, the Buchlas use low-pass gates rather than filters, but we'll set that aside for now.) Anything else, you can probably get in the ballpark by tinkering with EQ and filter resonance behavior. Really, when I start jonesing for a non-Kronos hardware synth, it's not because of the sound, but because of the user interface. As much as I love the big K, I much prefer to program my sounds by twisting knobs rather than tapping the touchscreen.