Love the Kross, HATE the portamento!!!
Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 8:29 am
I have been going with a Rig that consists of the Kross on top of my old m1 and my sp250 piano, all sounds coming from the Kross with the m1 and piano solely as MIDI controllers. Then to the right my beloved old Korg Mono/Poly analog synth.
Recently I decided that doing all this Rick Wakeman music I'm doing, (and trying to do all or most of it live in real time with no backing tracks) that I don't really need the mono/poly, and in fact in my teaching studio with space at a premium I decided to set up all my combi's without it, and using the Kross for an analog synth along with all the piano, organ, mellotron-ish sounds.
The advantage aside from space, is one touch selecting the combi and all sounds are set and ready to go, as opposed to having to dial up the patches on the mono/poly for each song (which is fine, but obviously having them in a memory is more convenient)
I do pretty well in programing the actual timbre's, but ol' Wakey used a lot of moog solos with portamento.
I find the Kross portamento sounds...well.....terrible.
It is weird. It almost sounds like every note has a pitch envelope on the attack. It is definitely not smooth like a nice analogue portamento that's for sure!
I mean I am sure someone may pipe in to say, "well of course the pitch changes when you hit the note, it has to to glide from the previous note. That's what a portamento does".
I understand that (I've been playing analogue synths since the 70's) but it just sounds digital, jumpy and not good.
I've tried many changes, tried it on my own patches and factory patches, and it is simply the worst sounding portamento I have encountered in all my years.
I pretty much have to go with fingered portamento to prevent it sounding goofy. That is ok I suppose, but of course not terribly authentic since the minimoog didn't have such an option. Portamento was on or off. Otherwise your only option was setting the rate.
The Mono/poly works the same way (except that each VCO glides a bit differently, whereas on a minimoog all VCO's glide the same. This allows for some unique effects, but I generally only use 2 or 3 VCO's for most of the Wakey sounds, in part to minimise the different glide rates and of course in part because the minimoog only has 3 VCO's, one of which is often serving as an LFO, where the Mono/Poly has 4 VCO's and 2 LFO's) and it is never a problem and never has that jumpy sound on the attack of a note.
I've messed around with fingered portamento, using time versus rate in many instances, and even slightly rolling back the attack in the VCA to reduce any jumpy effect, to a point where it is reasonably acceptable, but it is an area I am quite unhappy with the Kross in.
I feel like if they added a delay setting on the portamento, it might solve the problem. It just feels like the glide is too fast at the beginning of the note (regardless of if it is set for rate or time it seems.)
I don't think there is a solution unless there is something hiding in a menu somewhere I am not aware of, so I am mostly just venting I guess.
Hopefully I've explained it in a way that makes sense.
If someone does have a solution, I'm all ears.
Recently I decided that doing all this Rick Wakeman music I'm doing, (and trying to do all or most of it live in real time with no backing tracks) that I don't really need the mono/poly, and in fact in my teaching studio with space at a premium I decided to set up all my combi's without it, and using the Kross for an analog synth along with all the piano, organ, mellotron-ish sounds.
The advantage aside from space, is one touch selecting the combi and all sounds are set and ready to go, as opposed to having to dial up the patches on the mono/poly for each song (which is fine, but obviously having them in a memory is more convenient)
I do pretty well in programing the actual timbre's, but ol' Wakey used a lot of moog solos with portamento.
I find the Kross portamento sounds...well.....terrible.
It is weird. It almost sounds like every note has a pitch envelope on the attack. It is definitely not smooth like a nice analogue portamento that's for sure!
I mean I am sure someone may pipe in to say, "well of course the pitch changes when you hit the note, it has to to glide from the previous note. That's what a portamento does".
I understand that (I've been playing analogue synths since the 70's) but it just sounds digital, jumpy and not good.
I've tried many changes, tried it on my own patches and factory patches, and it is simply the worst sounding portamento I have encountered in all my years.
I pretty much have to go with fingered portamento to prevent it sounding goofy. That is ok I suppose, but of course not terribly authentic since the minimoog didn't have such an option. Portamento was on or off. Otherwise your only option was setting the rate.
The Mono/poly works the same way (except that each VCO glides a bit differently, whereas on a minimoog all VCO's glide the same. This allows for some unique effects, but I generally only use 2 or 3 VCO's for most of the Wakey sounds, in part to minimise the different glide rates and of course in part because the minimoog only has 3 VCO's, one of which is often serving as an LFO, where the Mono/Poly has 4 VCO's and 2 LFO's) and it is never a problem and never has that jumpy sound on the attack of a note.
I've messed around with fingered portamento, using time versus rate in many instances, and even slightly rolling back the attack in the VCA to reduce any jumpy effect, to a point where it is reasonably acceptable, but it is an area I am quite unhappy with the Kross in.
I feel like if they added a delay setting on the portamento, it might solve the problem. It just feels like the glide is too fast at the beginning of the note (regardless of if it is set for rate or time it seems.)
I don't think there is a solution unless there is something hiding in a menu somewhere I am not aware of, so I am mostly just venting I guess.
Hopefully I've explained it in a way that makes sense.
If someone does have a solution, I'm all ears.
