Korg Forums

[19naia]

My Kronos is stored on East coast USA and i am happily trapped in Hawaii.
I tried to arrange to have it shipped, managed to spend $300 just to organize a bungled packing attempt that cost me $89 in return shipping costs for wrong sized packaging supplies and still no word from UPS about being able to ship the Kronos.
This has been the case for over a month of trying and having someone else's patience tied up in the matter. So i dropped the ambition to ship my Kronos, and saved people the stress and trouble of trying to handle it for me and getting nowhere.

So here without my music rig, i decided to grab a used 2015 iMac from a refurbishing shop in town. Then bought a cheap new Casio DP 150 88keys with USB midi.
Got Logic Pro and Omnisphere -and two days later it is all downloaded, and running.
Already today i set up two projects in Logic that stack combi layers for me.
Which is all i really need. Got a Combi using Omnisphere and Logic Pro instruments in the mix. I guess i will get Mainstage also.
No audio interface, just USB midi to Keys so i can have Combis to play again, and it is working out better in some ways(new sound quality and better polyphony), but not so much the familiar Kronos work flow. No Karma either. So recreating my Karma Combis will be an issue.
Also have not worked out a way for a function like drum track or Karma style drums i used with Kronos.
Also the Casio DP 150 has no control surface worth using with DAW.
Will probably get a compact control surface rig for a dozen functions or so, to go with Mainstage.
iPad for Logic remote, sets up well on the Casio sheet music stand.

I doubt Karma Software will be able to work into the DAW mix, but good thing Korg triton is in VST form, from the original triton up to the triton Extreme.
I had a Triton Extreme before and loved it, so i will get the Triton VST and probably be able to work out Triton Drum track contributions into the Logic Pro Mix.

Will be using Logic Pro and Omnisphere to recreate my favorite Kronos Combis, of which some were recreations of my favorite Triton Extreme combis. So maybe Triton Extreme Software combis will save me some touble.

But still the issue of No Karma functions will remain.
Thanks for any tips on good substitutes, or ways of making Karma Software fit into the PC based mix.

[pete.m]

Hi,

I'm sorry to say that I'm not the one to answer your specific queries, but I wanted to add that I know people in New York who have experienced similar headaches in trying to use UPS at the moment. They'd certainly say that it's not worth the expense or grief of trying to wrestle with it, and that you've definitely done the right thing.

I just wanted to add that maybe you don't need to consider recreating aspects of your previous set-up. For myself, I find that making the effort to try and make music in ways other than using the Kronos - an instrument that I totally love - pays me unexpected dividends by taking me into unexpected musical situations, especially if the other gear I use is limited. Often, I will take those new pieces back into the Kronos later, too. You'll understand all that already, I'm sure, and I hope that someone else will have the specific answer you want.

[alland]

[ChrisDuncan]

Tons of good plugins out there for keyboards, of course, but if Triton has you covered then you're set. If you want the DX7, then Dexed is a free VST plugin that's well regarded.

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/dexed-by-digital-suburban

As others have mentioned, Karma is a Kronos thing. That said, I'm a dedicated studio rat these days. What I use for drums is EZ Drummer ($150), which has both a standalone player and a VST plugin which is how I use it. In addition to excellent, production ready drum sounds, it has a large library of midi drum loops recorded by actual human drummers (or as close to human as drummers tend to get).

I also own their more expensive and full featured Superior Drummer, but I don't use it. It's designed to emulate miking up drums and going through all the mix stuff you'd do to get a great drum sound. EZ Drummer is designed with ease of use in mind. Browsing and preview of drum parts is done via a very well designed UI, the drums are already mixed and sound radio quality right out of the box.

Here's a quick overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qF7QmVtVkQ

For bass guitar, I use 4Front Bass, a free VST plugin that sounds like you plugged a P bass into your console. Easy to EQ it and get a solid bass part.

http://www.yohng.com/software/bass.html

For DAW control surfaces, I use a Mackie MCU, which isn't cheap. Nonetheless, no matter what marketing hype says for any of them, be prepared to manage all your plugins with a keyboard / mouse. It's just too awkward trying to do that on even the best of hardware. The value I get are faders, transport, mute / record / pan, etc.

The Mackie supports the MCU protocol (more robust than the older HUI that Pro Tools still only supports). A cheaper model is the Behringer X-Touch, $600, that's essentially a cloned Mackie MCU (ripping off other manufacturers is their specialty). I owned one, cheaper construction but full MCU support.

If you don't want to go all in on control surfaces, the other end of the extreme is the well regarded Presonus Fader port ($200). It has lots of the transport / channel functionality and a single fader, which controls the currently active channel in your DAW.

All of them will play nice with Logic.

Anyway, that's some of the stuff I use and / or am familiar with. Hope it's helpful.
_________________
Studio: Cubase 13 | Windows 10 | Yamaha TF5 | Mackie MCU | CMC AI, QC
Keyboard Station: Kronos 2 88 | Fantom 7 | JV 2080 | Cubase 13 | Windows 10 | Focusrite 18i20 | CMC TP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Duncan
Atlanta, GA, USA, Earth

[19naia]

Thanks for all the replies.
I just got Korg Triton software up and running and it sounds better than what I recall from when I owned Triton extreme 88.

Will probably be few months of playing and learning the virtual systems before I move towards hardware interface for audio and control surface. Not gigging or doing studio projects any time soon. Just playing and learning for now


Thanks