How do I design Club Dance music on the Oasys?

[JoeJack101]

Here is the genre music I am trying to create...

http://www.xtcradio.com/
Click on Tune In...

I compose all sorts of genres on the Big O, and I am skilled enough in each mode to do just about anything, but here's the problem.

I am having a trouble mimicking that sort of sound, with the drums, and different analog sounds. Any advice?

Also, should I be designing more of my sounds with the AL-1, LAC-1, and MOD-7?

What am I doing wrong?

[Kevin Nolan]

The problem is not the OASYS.

It has two and a half THOUSAND drum samples, among the best available anywhere.
It has 7 of the best synthesizers in existence, including three virtual analogues, with step sequencers and arpeggiators, and the MS20 about the hardest-edge sounding synth in the 'virtual synth' world (it'll cut your ears to shreds over headphones if you're not careful)
It has hundreds of dance Karma GEs.
It has stunning effects, including virtually every type conceivable for dance music.
It's got an amazing sampler so all the loops you want can be brought in.
Its got MIDI and HD-Audio recording..,
...and so on.

The issue, IMO, is that you need to be 'into' the genre to do it properly. You can't fake it. But if you can't do it on the OASYS, you can't do it anywhere.

You need to take time to listen to a lot of that music, ask lots of questions about that genre, go to clubs and then do one or two tracks properly, in my opinion. I'm not a into dance music, but I genuinely believe that, next to jazz, you actually need to be embedded in the culture to be able to do it properly. A fake will be spotted a mile off. But it's possible to get into it, even if it's not your area, and its not an age thing - some of the best dance artists are 80's synth heads who don't admit their age!!!

Kevin.

[JoeJack101]

Maybe I need to be purchasing sample packs for the drums though. I think people in that culture are not using the Oasys and instead are using sample packs to create their music.

Maybe I can get the best of both worlds by being an Oasys owner.

I agree with your post above, Kevin, and I do want to make sure that my tracks sound 100% authentic.

[Kevin Nolan]

Again, I'm no dance artist but loops are important and virtually none are invented from the ground up. you've got to know what's bang up to date.

The OASYS samples are stunning however. Also the Karma GEs cover a huge range of bases in dance music.

While definitely not dance music, I was involved in a project that used the OASYS exclusively for capable rhythm and percussion tracks for a TV drama along the lines of John Powell (Italian Job and The Bourne films). The composer was an ex-London Symphony Orchestra percussionist and now LA based composer (but this job was in composed in Ireland for UK Channel 5!). He fell in love with the OASYS drum and percussion, claimed them to be among the best he'd ever heard; and boy did he make the OASYS stunning. I could not believe my ears. Ever since then I smile to myself every time I hear someone talk in lack-lustre terms about the OASYS drum and percussion sounds.

But dance ‘norms’ are more about Ableton Live, AKAI MPC series stuff, Roland TB303… Groove boxes…, Samples… but the truth is that all good tracks take lots of time, and I witnessed and aided a percussion 'master' in make the OASYS absolutely amazing with the drums and percussion. But it took loads of time – mixing individual lines from various GEs, careful selection and editing of drum kits etc for weeks on end. As said, it wasn't dance music (mostly) but it showed how adaptable OASYS percussion and drum sounds and GEs are.

I thinkg EJ2 has done some dance specific Combi's for the OASYS - you should definitely contact him and sample his incredible work (EJ2 in the members list)

Kevin.

[elvisjohndowson]

It has two and a half THOUSAND drum samples, among the best available anywhere.

I beg to differ, Kevin. I'm not satisfied with the drum samples at all, w.r.t it being unique. It is run-of-the-mill, nothing spectacular. An old TR808 seems to have more character and individuality than the ones on the OASYS (there are some TR type sample in it though).

The first thing I did when I bought the OASYS was to buy some drum sample libraries. However, there is a flaw in the OASYS internal architecture, where by the +12db gain set in sample mode, is not applied to the same drum sample when used as part of a drum kit.

If you look at the Triton, it uses the sample's +12db gain setting correctly in the drum kit. Since the sounds have already been created and balanced, Korg has decided to make it the spec. I did however notice a new automatically set +12db option in OS v1.3.1a, but don't know what it does.

The work around is to use a compressor or limited to process the drum samples to get a gain of +12db.

Recently, I went ahead and purchased FXpansion BFD2 drums for around USD$400. Not quite the dance kit, but I was looking for good acoustic ones. So, now what I'm doing is selecting drum samples from this 55GB library, tuning it, exporting it to wave, importing it into the OASYS and then increasing the playback level to +12db gain using compressors and limiters.

So, as you can see, it's a hell of a lot of trouble and convoluted process just to get some decent sounding drums on the OASYS, similar to mastered CD audio tracks.

The only thing that shines through and is best in its class are the EXi synth engines, definitely not the drums!

[Kevin Nolan]

Hi elvisjohndowson,

I normally don't like to get into pointless forum debates; but you are flat wrong on this; I can assure you and everyone reading this.

I spent 6 gruelling weeks working exclusively on editing OASYS drum and percussion sounds; and in the hands of the percussionist/composer I was working with (who is currently working on a concerto commission for Evelyn Glennie), the OASYS was STUNNING - I mean STUNNING. The composer in question, whose name I don’t want to mention, is seasoned composer and a total professional, and was blown away by the breadth, depth and dynamics of the samples, from dance all the way to orchestral and everything in-between. And boy is he normally choosey. Him liking the OASYS samples is, IMO, a significant thumbs up for them.

While at first I did not know whay he liked the OASYS so much, I began to understand after a while. It turns out that, due to the sheer quality of the sampling, coupled to the dynamics; that the response of all of the percussion - no matter what one was selected - fetl right to him. Whether on pads, a connected set of drum pads or fromt he keyboard; he could perform the percussion and he absolutely loved it. The results alsways sounded right. Severl packages he brought to the job were left untouched. Similarly when using GE's, he'd very often felt that the grooves were 'just right' as in they were programmed by capable percussionists. So - rather than playing in myriads of latin percussion, hi-hats etc; he'd often layer many differen GE individual instruments to separate audio tracks; and what he'd build up was absolutely fantastic. Admittedly he was a percussionist - but he was only using the OASYS, and the results were so good that it was difficult to believe. But the OASYS delivered - in EVERY department.

Hence the results we produced were spectacular. The director - also a well known up and coming director of TV and film in the UK, was blown away. He wouldn't believe that we hadn't recorded at least some of the percussion and drums in a top end studio. In fact for the 1st six days of composing we were competing for the job against three other composers in the UK, and we won the job – on the basisof the OASYS drums and percussion.

While you have made it clear on this forum before that you do not care much for the OASYS drums and percussion, I can confidently say from real experience that it is you, and not the OASYS, that is at fault. I would not say anything only you have challenged my post above. I'm not in he game of trying to prove a point for the sake of it but I know what I produced and heard, and I know the reaction received from earnest professionals.

The OASYS delivers spectacularly in the drum and percussion department - when you take the time to exploit it.

I accept I cannot provide demos as the material is not mine and it was all recorded to a protools session I do not own in any case, but in this instance I cannot leave your comments unchallenged since they are flat wrong. There may be other more ‘instantly gratifying packages and sample kits out there’ but the superlative quality, variety and dynamics of the OASYS percussion, coupled with its mammoth GE selection, provide a rock-solid foundation to do work at the highest echelons. But you need to know what you’re doing, and you need to put in a lot of time, accepted.

That's all I'll say on the matter - as said I’m not interested in a debate on the issue.

Kevin.

[elvisjohndowson]

Since you can't provide samples, I cannot judge for myself. But as you can see from my post, I have take the BFD2 route (which will change your definition of superlative levels of sample articulation depth, when compared the ones on the OASYS), so that I have more realistic drums sounds, far greater in terms of quality than what's available on the OASYS, (for sure, 'cos I've got both with me side by side), go through a process of selection, tune/tweak it, and then import it into the OASYS, and then apply IFXs and balance the mix. The drum patterns themselves are prepared using the sequencer's pattern feature.

This is one route to getting higher quality drum samples into the OASYS.

The other route, of course is to pain-stakingly tweak/synthesize/layer and develop individual drum samples, which will take a long time.

It all depends on how much time you have on your hands and what portion you are willing to spend on one activity alone.

I prefer to cut through a full slice quickly, with quick results, rather than spend an inordinate amount of time on the drum tracks alone.

Clearly, what can be concluded from both our posts is that the OASYS doesn't make it easy to get good sounding drums out quickly.

[elvisjohndowson]

BTW, some clear differences between the on-board OASYS drum sample, for example, the kick drums not having enough low freq content, can only be made out when listening to a drum track with a sub-woofer. I initially monitored through a pair of Mackie HR824s and it wasn't so apparent. But when I listened to an audio CD export of the drum track from the OASYS, hate to say this, but in my car which had a sub (14-speaker configuration, an no its not a boom thing, it's just the standard factory speaker config, but with two small subs) there you could clearly hear how limited the OASYS kick drums were, in terms of low freq content.

So, I went and got myself some high quality samples, to reproduce the effect, and it works. I'm just finishing up a tutorial and I've already got the permission from FXpansion to upload my tutorial, so I'll be able to post an OASYS KSC, PCG & SEQ file for you to assess. A before and after case study, if you will. FXpansion has a clause that does not allow a user to create sample libraries out of their product, so I had to obtain special permission from them to publish my tutorial.

As for why publish the tutorial, it's cos it might help someone else at some point!

[JoeJack101]

Besides just getting the right drum loops, I really need some help being able to design music that sounds exactly like that on the XTC Radio link.

http://www.xtcradio.com/
Click "Tune In"

I want to perform this type of music in clubs and hopefully do so as a part time or full time job.

What do I need to do to learn how to create that sound with or without the Oasys? I feel I am a talented composer and musician, however I have yet to achieve just that "sound" and atmosphere.

-Derek

[EJ2]

Hi Elvis,
I can understand what you're saying. But, I'm with Kevin on this. You have enough tools (drum programs, drum GEs, EQ, IFX, MFX, TFX) to craft in-your-face, kick-ass drums on the OASYS. Sure, it may take a bit of work to taylor-make the sounds the way you want, but in my opinion and to my ears, OASYS drums can stand their ground superbly.

Maybe I need to look at this concern as a potential project. However, it'll have to wait till we get our CATALYST v 1 combi collection to market. Speaking of which, as Kevin mentioned, this set has it's share of dance, techno-house, trance, etc. combis amongst other genres of course.
Cheers,
Eric

[medusaland]

Here is the genre music I am trying to create...

http://www.xtcradio.com/
Click on Tune In...

I compose all sorts of genres on the Big O, and I am skilled enough in each mode to do just about anything, but here's the problem.

I am having a trouble mimicking that sort of sound, with the drums, and different analog sounds. Any advice?

Also, should I be designing more of my sounds with the AL-1, LAC-1, and MOD-7?

What am I doing wrong?

Hi,

look at the KARO Dance Composer...
available in few days


Best regards,

medusaland

[newguy]

The beat in the beginning of this Sting Song is the Standard Regeatton Beat. I have previously requested help on this in the karma-lab forum, but no one had any answers.
I tried to build it myself - spent hours. Couldn't do it (that says more about my limitations than the limitations of the OASYS)

Shocking that it is not available on the OASYS since it is one of the most popular beats in the world, used by a great many of the latin artists (and Sting) in their music. IT is probably the MOST widely used beat around today, that or the chill beat. Check out DADDY YANKEE, DON OMAR, Wisn y wandel, - it is used in EVERY ONE of their songs.

I still can't believe that it is not readily available on the OASYS.
Somebody should be working on this.

[RobertPlatinum]

Elvis, do you know how to get the drum programs you create to load at startup automatically with the rest of the default programs? I've been wondering how to do this for a while.

[cyrille mirgain]

OASYS has been designed for musicians, not only drum players.
nevertheless ...td are available for drum stuff
Cyrille

[elvisjohndowson]

Elvis, do you know how to get the drum programs you create to load at startup automatically with the rest of the default programs? I've been wondering how to do this for a while.

Hi Robert,
What I do is to switch to global mode from an existing drum program so that you take advantage of it's IFX/MFX settings, and create a new drum kit based on an existing one, and then proceed to audition and replace/tune the existing drum samples.

I try to keep the drum sample layouts the same, as far as possible, so that the Karma Drum GEs will still work. You will also need to keep the IFX routings more or less consistent, unless you want to optimize the number of IFX available to you for your mix:

Code: Select all

Drumkit IFX Routing

Snare      : IFX 1
Kick       : IFX 2
Tom        : IFX 3
HH,Crash   : IFX 4
Tamb,etc   : IFX 5

You can select from ROM samples or your own samples loaded from WAVE files or a sample library and utilize it as part of a drum kit.

Some of the parameters available to you are to alter the tuning, the decay, the eq, drive, boost and filter for each of the 4 samples that you can layer for each note (e.g. C4).

At this stage, you must write the drum kit to memory, using the Global Mode page menu command. Other wise you will lose your new drum kit changes. (This is probably the step that you missed).

After that go back to Program mode, replace the drum kit with your user defined drum kit and write the new program to a new location.

Don't forget to run the drum samples through a compressor or limiter to raise the gain to +12db, to make it louder.

Save the program bank and the user drum kit bank to disk. If you used drum samples from a sample library, you need to save them as well (*.ksc)

The next time you need to use the drum kit, simply load the *.ksc file before each session. There is no automatic way to load a *.ksc file at the moment.

Best regards,

Elvis Dowson