What's Stephen Kay doing?

[worth]

Dear Stephen

if you could deliver a demo and post it on this website showing karma, producing a style that sounded like a normal arranger style but could play natural sounding and responsive bass licks , or drum riffs or guitar parts that got more humanistically (just made up a word there) complex or epitomised the way a real person might embelish a style in response to how it is being played , I am confident that the manufacturers would bite your hand off trying to get an exclsuive deal on it.

I dont know how the demo went down all those years ago when you first tried to introduce the technology to Korg, but the market has changed significantly since then.

yamaha ,(following Ketron) have introduced about 40 real audio drums in their styles and made a big song and dance about it but to my ears the real audio drums are not significantly better than the great sampled and midi drum patterns in the Korg instruments and the technology is dead end as you cant edit audio drum significantly if at all .

But a naturally evolving bass and drum sets on just 40 styles that could still be edited would literally make most arranger keyboard players/ and workstation users wet their pants !! I dont know how Karma works but if it can do what potentioally i believe it can.......then what have you got to lose by putting up just one demo. Lets say a blues style ........

[Thoraldus]

I'd love to see a Karma solution where a user could create programmable divisi ensembles with any combination of instruments (vs Tyros 5's 8 presets)

[bugzoo]

Yes handling of divisi sections is important. Consider a string section sound of, say, 25 players sampled. You play a single note melody line and it sounds fine since each note is this recording of 25 players. But the problem is when you start to play more than one note. Play a second note of harmony and you now have the sound of 50 players. Play a 4 note chord and you have just gone from the sound of 25 players to 100 players! This constant changing of the ensemble size is a one reason why samplers can sound synthetic- and one that most synthesists forget about.

[Bachus]

Dear Stephen

if you could deliver a demo and post it on this website showing karma, producing a style that sounded like a normal arranger style but could play natural sounding and responsive bass licks , or drum riffs or guitar parts that got more humanistically (just made up a word there) complex or epitomised the way a real person might embelish a style in response to how it is being played , I am confident that the manufacturers would bite your hand off trying to get an exclsuive deal on it.

I dont know how the demo went down all those years ago when you first tried to introduce the technology to Korg, but the market has changed significantly since then.

yamaha ,(following Ketron) have introduced about 40 real audio drums in their styles and made a big song and dance about it but to my ears the real audio drums are not significantly better than the great sampled and midi drum patterns in the Korg instruments and the technology is dead end as you cant edit audio drum significantly if at all .

But a naturally evolving bass and drum sets on just 40 styles that could still be edited would literally make most arranger keyboard players/ and workstation users wet their pants !! I dont know how Karma works but if it can do what potentioally i believe it can.......then what have you got to lose by putting up just one demo. Lets say a blues style ........

Why do you want karma to do the things an arranger does allready do very good?

[worth]

That's just the point Bacchus . Current arrangers don't do that very well . If you play a chord the keyboard will follow that chord with the same baseline every time you play that chord . A real bass player would get tired of that pretty soon and would come up with a variation eventually that still fitted the groove but was tasty .

Do you own an arranger Bacchus that can surprise and inspire you by not playing the same patterns over and over again but actually creates new variations without you having to painstakingly programme the new baseline yourself ?

if karma could create some musical phrases or basslines or drum fills automatically it would make the whole playing experience of an arranger less repetitive by its very nature.

Having four or five static variations only creates the illusion of variation to someone that has never heard the style before but the player will have shed that variation a hundred times before ! The predictive charscter of an arranger is both its strongest asset and curse

[StephenKay]

Yes handling of divisi sections is important. Consider a string section sound of, say, 25 players sampled. You play a single note melody line and it sounds fine since each note is this recording of 25 players. But the problem is when you start to play more than one note. Play a second note of harmony and you now have the sound of 50 players. Play a 4 note chord and you have just gone from the sound of 25 players to 100 players! This constant changing of the ensemble size is a one reason why samplers can sound synthetic- and one that most synthesists forget about.

Yes, that's all true - but that's more of a sound engine design decision than something like KARMA - you know, the sound engine says "I'm being asked to play one note, so I'll use this sample of 24 players. Now I'm being asked to play 4 notes, so I'll switch to using this thinner sample of 6 players."

Of course, if KARMA had its own sound engine, maybe it could do this - but I don't know that that will ever happen.

[Bachus]

That's just the point Bacchus . Current arrangers don't do that very well . If you play a chord the keyboard will follow that chord with the same baseline every time you play that chord . A real bass player would get tired of that pretty soon and would come up with a variation eventually that still fitted the groove but was tasty .

Do you own an arranger Bacchus that can surprise and inspire you by not playing the same patterns over and over again but actually creates new variations without you having to painstakingly programme the new baseline yourself ?

if karma could create some musical phrases or basslines or drum fills automatically it would make the whole playing experience of an arranger less repetitive by its very nature.

Having four or five static variations only creates the illusion of variation to someone that has never heard the style before but the player will have shed that variation a hundred times before ! The predictive charscter of an arranger is both its strongest asset and curse

I disagree, that there is no variation in the styles...
- You can program variations for maj min 7th chords and so, that sound very different, with totally different basslines if you want to
- Roland currently lets you vary your accomp volume (and you can even specify the tracks that do so) with the volume of your left hand..
- Ketron actually does what you ask for... it has some AI, that makes the style addapt to your playing..
-And then there is pads and arpegios on T5 and PA3x that play on top of your style....

But you are right arrangers are currently not so good at acting creating dynamics in their tracks.. But try silencing 2 accomp tracks and have 2 Karma scenes on your Kronos or Motif playing along the style and following the chords... you can use those 2 tracks to add more dynamics to the style... you can even run them on top of the 8 style tracks if that doesnt make your acomp to busy..

Keep in mind however that most of the dynamics in Karma also require real time interaction like sliders and or knobs.. or just switching to other scenes..


my point is, you dont need to replace current arranger technollogy with Karma, because its actually very good at what it does... You need to put Karma on top of the Arrangement..... I dont have access to Karma right now, since i sold my Kronos... and i dont think steven Kay has an arranger right now...

But maybe someone with both a top arranger and an instrument supporting Karma can show how Karma on top of an arranger can really make a difference...

[Bachus]

Yes handling of divisi sections is important. Consider a string section sound of, say, 25 players sampled. You play a single note melody line and it sounds fine since each note is this recording of 25 players. But the problem is when you start to play more than one note. Play a second note of harmony and you now have the sound of 50 players. Play a 4 note chord and you have just gone from the sound of 25 players to 100 players! This constant changing of the ensemble size is a one reason why samplers can sound synthetic- and one that most synthesists forget about.

Yes, that's all true - but that's more of a sound engine design decision than something like KARMA - you know, the sound engine says "I'm being asked to play one note, so I'll use this sample of 24 players. Now I'm being asked to play 4 notes, so I'll switch to using this thinner sample of 6 players."

Of course, if KARMA had its own sound engine, maybe it could do this - but I don't know that that will ever happen.

Did you ever play with the Ensemble feature on Tyros 5, or the session horns in Komplete.. those soundengines are indeed quite dynamic.... and i wouldnt be surprised if the big EWQL libraries supported such features too, but i dont have any experience with them...


But why would you want to create a soundengine.... just use something like NI Komplete as the basic, and start working from there for the things you need on top of the complete collection... You can create almost everything soundwise with the tools available in Komplete..

[SanderXpander]

KARMA already does a bunch of great arranger-like features - it creates slightly randomized drum grooves, bass lines, chord parts, etc. They are also easy to adapt with a slider. What it misses in order to really function as an arranger is the ability to make scenes switch into each other - e.g. hit scene B and it will play a one bar fill and continue into scene C. I would personally really like this approach because, using the KARMA sliders and buttons, it's really quick to adapt a certain comping to your liking. You could really quickly and easily create your "variations" for verse and chorus. So I don't think this is a dead avenue and while I'm no coder, it doesn't seem excessively complicated to me to add such a feature.

[miden]

Hardware is a complete logistics nightmare and Stephen would be better off totally avoiding that kind of headache at all costs. There's far too many factors to consider when building a physical object that needs to be shipped in a box. I wasted 2 years of my life on Lionstracs over such efforts.

It's also completely unnecessary as KARMA can be distribute electronically.

The only thing KARMA is missing to be a complete self contained package is it's own sound engine and sounds. That's a far more realistic challenge to take on than dealing with hardware. The sound engine Lionstracs used was Linux Sampler (runs on Win and OS too). I know the main developer of that and I'm sure that it could be licensed no problem.

All this would create a buzz on Kick Starter I bet.

Regards
Sharp.

THIS!!!

[StephenKay]

KARMA already does a bunch of great arranger-like features - it creates slightly randomized drum grooves, bass lines, chord parts, etc. They are also easy to adapt with a slider. What it misses in order to really function as an arranger is the ability to make scenes switch into each other - e.g. hit scene B and it will play a one bar fill and continue into scene C. I would personally really like this approach because, using the KARMA sliders and buttons, it's really quick to adapt a certain comping to your liking. You could really quickly and easily create your "variations" for verse and chorus. So I don't think this is a dead avenue and while I'm no coder, it doesn't seem excessively complicated to me to add such a feature.

This already exists in KARMA 3.x (KARMA Motif for the Yamaha keyboards). Well actually, not quite yet. But the current version (3.1) has a fill button, and the fills can be different in each of the scenes. So you hit a scene change (coming up at the next bar) an then hit the fill button. Or hit the fill button first, then trigger the scene change. You get a fill leading into the scene change. The new version 3.2 which is coming soon (that adds support for the S70/S90 XS) has an "Auto Fill" feature whereby if you change scenes, it automatically triggers the fill leading into the next scene. Of course, this is (wooo-whooo!) so much better than changing scenes and hitting the fill button, but there you have it.

Of course, I should mention for those who don't know that KARMA 3.x for Motif has 6 Modules, so that there is generally an additional 5th melodic part compared to the Kronos, and the 6th Module is usually a dedicated fill Module in each KARMA Performance. Not possible really on the Kronos, with only 4 Modules and KARMA 2.x.

[StephenKay]

Yes handling of divisi sections is important. Consider a string section sound of, say, 25 players sampled. You play a single note melody line and it sounds fine since each note is this recording of 25 players. But the problem is when you start to play more than one note. Play a second note of harmony and you now have the sound of 50 players. Play a 4 note chord and you have just gone from the sound of 25 players to 100 players! This constant changing of the ensemble size is a one reason why samplers can sound synthetic- and one that most synthesists forget about.

Yes, that's all true - but that's more of a sound engine design decision than something like KARMA - you know, the sound engine says "I'm being asked to play one note, so I'll use this sample of 24 players. Now I'm being asked to play 4 notes, so I'll switch to using this thinner sample of 6 players."

Of course, if KARMA had its own sound engine, maybe it could do this - but I don't know that that will ever happen.

Did you ever play with the Ensemble feature on Tyros 5, or the session horns in Komplete.. those soundengines are indeed quite dynamic.... and i wouldnt be surprised if the big EWQL libraries supported such features too, but i dont have any experience with them...


But why would you want to create a soundengine.... just use something like NI Komplete as the basic, and start working from there for the things you need on top of the complete collection... You can create almost everything soundwise with the tools available in Komplete..

My point was to answer this specific question about "divisi" - and my answer was "KARMA doesn't need to do it."

[SanderXpander]

KARMA already does a bunch of great arranger-like features - it creates slightly randomized drum grooves, bass lines, chord parts, etc. They are also easy to adapt with a slider. What it misses in order to really function as an arranger is the ability to make scenes switch into each other - e.g. hit scene B and it will play a one bar fill and continue into scene C. I would personally really like this approach because, using the KARMA sliders and buttons, it's really quick to adapt a certain comping to your liking. You could really quickly and easily create your "variations" for verse and chorus. So I don't think this is a dead avenue and while I'm no coder, it doesn't seem excessively complicated to me to add such a feature.

This already exists in KARMA 3.x (KARMA Motif for the Yamaha keyboards). Well actually, not quite yet. But the current version (3.1) has a fill button, and the fills can be different in each of the scenes. So you hit a scene change (coming up at the next bar) an then hit the fill button. Or hit the fill button first, then trigger the scene change. You get a fill leading into the scene change. The new version 3.2 which is coming soon (that adds support for the S70/S90 XS) has an "Auto Fill" feature whereby if you change scenes, it automatically triggers the fill leading into the next scene. Of course, this is (wooo-whooo!) so much better than changing scenes and hitting the fill button, but there you have it.

Of course, I should mention for those who don't know that KARMA 3.x for Motif has 6 Modules, so that there is generally an additional 5th melodic part compared to the Kronos, and the 6th Module is usually a dedicated fill Module in each KARMA Performance. Not possible really on the Kronos, with only 4 Modules and KARMA 2.x.

That's great to hear Stephen. It's a shame it's not available in hardware form as I feel it would bridge much of the remaining gap between synthesizer workstations and arrangers.

[jerrythek]

Yes handling of divisi sections is important. Consider a string section sound of, say, 25 players sampled. You play a single note melody line and it sounds fine since each note is this recording of 25 players. But the problem is when you start to play more than one note. Play a second note of harmony and you now have the sound of 50 players. Play a 4 note chord and you have just gone from the sound of 25 players to 100 players! This constant changing of the ensemble size is a one reason why samplers can sound synthetic- and one that most synthesists forget about.

Yes, that's all true - but that's more of a sound engine design decision than something like KARMA - you know, the sound engine says "I'm being asked to play one note, so I'll use this sample of 24 players. Now I'm being asked to play 4 notes, so I'll switch to using this thinner sample of 6 players."

Of course, if KARMA had its own sound engine, maybe it could do this - but I don't know that that will ever happen.

Did you ever play with the Ensemble feature on Tyros 5, or the session horns in Komplete.. those soundengines are indeed quite dynamic.... and i wouldnt be surprised if the big EWQL libraries supported such features too, but i dont have any experience with them...


But why would you want to create a soundengine.... just use something like NI Komplete as the basic, and start working from there for the things you need on top of the complete collection... You can create almost everything soundwise with the tools available in Komplete..

For me, the more important issue with divisi is separating the notes/parts played, not the number of players laying unison.

Divisi definition from Oxford: A musical direction indicating that a section of players should be divided into two or more groups, each playing a different part.

A simple example is playing horn section parts from soul/R&Bfunk tunes. You want a trumpet on top, sax in the middle and bari sax or trombone on the bottom. And you need to be able to move your voicings around. This sound can't be made by layering those instruments... you need them divided up, each playing their assigned notes. A String Quartet is another obvious example.

The Tyros 5 has started to try to emulate that (I've read), but it's a type of intelligent voice assignment that I bet Stephen could emulate/develop, It needs to be smarter than just top note, middle note, or low note priority for each voice. You'd want it to be able to bring the notes to unison when only 1 note was played, for example.

I have experimented in the past with creating "one finger" chord voicings to replicate this in a Combi by tuning each timbre to the proper interval, but you can only get a few voicings before you run out of timbres.

This is the next frontier for realistic horn voicing emulation from a keyboard!

Jerry

[Bachus]

Yes, that's all true - but that's more of a sound engine design decision than something like KARMA - you know, the sound engine says "I'm being asked to play one note, so I'll use this sample of 24 players. Now I'm being asked to play 4 notes, so I'll switch to using this thinner sample of 6 players."

Of course, if KARMA had its own sound engine, maybe it could do this - but I don't know that that will ever happen.

Did you ever play with the Ensemble feature on Tyros 5, or the session horns in Komplete.. those soundengines are indeed quite dynamic.... and i wouldnt be surprised if the big EWQL libraries supported such features too, but i dont have any experience with them...


But why would you want to create a soundengine.... just use something like NI Komplete as the basic, and start working from there for the things you need on top of the complete collection... You can create almost everything soundwise with the tools available in Komplete..

For me, the more important issue with divisi is separating the notes/parts played, not the number of players laying unison.

Divisi definition from Oxford: A musical direction indicating that a section of players should be divided into two or more groups, each playing a different part.

A simple example is playing horn section parts from soul/R&Bfunk tunes. You want a trumpet on top, sax in the middle and bari sax or trombone on the bottom. And you need to be able to move your voicings around. This sound can't be made by layering those instruments... you need them divided up, each playing their assigned notes. A String Quartet is another obvious example.

The Tyros 5 has started to try to emulate that (I've read), but it's a type of intelligent voice assignment that I bet Stephen could emulate/develop, It needs to be smarter than just top note, middle note, or low note priority for each voice. You'd want it to be able to bring the notes to unison when only 1 note was played, for example.

I have experimented in the past with creating "one finger" chord voicings to replicate this in a Combi by tuning each timbre to the proper interval, but you can only get a few voicings before you run out of timbres.

This is the next frontier for realistic horn voicing emulation from a keyboard!

Jerry

Jerry you really need to watch some Tyros 5 videos about their ensemble feature

Just look for the user SoundWonderland on youtube and she has some great guides explaining the Yamaha ensemble feature... Waht Yamaha did is translate the advanced scripting features of kontakt intoo easy acccesible menu choices ( just like in the Kontakt Horn and string ensembles).

I think everything you ask for is possible in Tyros 5. And most of it integrated in the sound engine part of the arranger...


However, i can see features like divisi or even arrangertracks be added as midi effects to Ableton live. .. karma however should interact with midi, instrument, audio and effects...