HD-1 Streaming Sample Demo: The Ghost Ship QR

[Dniss]

That's awesome Qui!

Unfortunately, I have this additional new set of power tools lurking here in my studio and to be honest have 0, that's Zero knowledge of any form of sampling, transferring, filing and loading them.
Hoping to get on with the program from all the help here on the forum. Always appreciate your work, thanks for posting.

Hi Lou,

Qui has a video that may help you get started:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nURLCUGAzTw&feature=plcp

[RonF]

Qui.....when you say: "I've done all the Virus TI wavetables now, so i have those in my kronos now."

This got me thinking and experimenting tonight. Are you saying that you simply sampled a, lets say, 10 sec sample of each of the TI's raw oscillator wavetables? And if so...were you modulating those wavetables while you sampled them? Were you letting an LFO sweep the table while sampling or something?

Or....as I am considering....did you sample each individual non-interpolated waveform in the TI's wavetable(s), so that you can assign each individual waveform to a step in a Kronos wave sequence....and then have the flexibility to sweep the wave sequence by modulating the Position parameter with an AMS assignment? This would be true wavetable synthesis on the Kronos, and truly would be having the TI's wavetables on the Kronos.

Of course this would be much more time consuming, still perhaps a worthy task. And I wish there was a way to modulate the XFade parameter in the wave sequences for all steps simultaneously....thus emulating Interpolation in real time.

Anyways....just got my wheels turning, and wondering how you proceeded, before I get down to sampling single cycle waveforms, and building wave sequences (read: wavetables) that way.

Thanks for any feedback or input....

Ron

[QuiRobinez]

This got me thinking and experimenting tonight. Are you saying that you simply sampled a, lets say, 10 sec sample of each of the TI's raw oscillator wavetables? And if so...were you modulating those wavetables while you sampled them? Were you letting an LFO sweep the table while sampling or something?

I didn't do this, but now you mention it, this would be a great idea, so i'm going to try this. But when i'm going to do this i need to have an idea what kind of sound i want to create. Because when i create a new wavetable sound based on the linear interpolation (lfo sweep) then the end result of that sample is predictable.

But i can see the possibilities, so i'm going to try this and see what's going to happen when i use that sample in the Kronos.

Or....as I am considering....did you sample each individual non-interpolated waveform in the TI's wavetable(s), so that you can assign each individual waveform to a step in a Kronos wave sequence....and then have the flexibility to sweep the wave sequence by modulating the Position parameter with an AMS assignment? This would be true wavetable synthesis on the Kronos, and truly would be having the TI's wavetables on the Kronos.

Yes that's what i did. Although i didn't try to modify the position parameter (not sure if that's possible), but i did use the Note advance feature for this when i was testing this to see how i could use this when creating programs.

Of course this would be much more time consuming, still perhaps a worthy task. And I wish there was a way to modulate the XFade parameter in the wave sequences for all steps simultaneously....thus emulating Interpolation in real time.

Anyways....just got my wheels turning, and wondering how you proceeded, before I get down to sampling single cycle waveforms, and building wave sequences (read: wavetables) that way.

Yes i agree, the wave sequence area could be improved to support linear and high order interpolation. But i can do so much with it already that i'm still in the discovering phase .

But it would be nice if you could assign AMS sources to the and Xfade and the position parameters (is this already possible?)

You said somewhere that you consider the Wave Sequencing as a 10th engine, and i think you are totally right with that. Now we have the streaming sample possibilities this is one of the most exiting 'engines' that is available in the Kronos.

[RonF]

Thanks for posting back to me Qui!

Yes you can definitely modulate the wave sequence position parameter with AMS. Its on the 1st wavesequence edit page in Global mode, towards the bottom. To realize the effect, you'll want to deselect the "Run" parameter (tick box at top of same edit page)....then whatever controller you assigned via AMS to the position parameter will sweep through the wavesequence. Could be an LFO, Karma, Step Sequencer, a knob or slider or joystick, AMS mixer.....long list of possibilities. THIS is where my suggestion that the Kronos offer's a 10th synth engine: "Wavetable synthesis", comes to life!

The term "Interpolation" gets used in a few different ways when discussing synth programming. Such definitions may range from simple LFO sweeps, to basic crossfades, to actually morphing a range of *new DSP generated* waveforms between two existing waveforms (this is what the Microwave XT does). The Virus TI employs a more basic "Interpolation" parameter which more simply increases or decreases the level of Xfade's between the individual waves in the wavetable. Actually the new UltraNova synth (a very under-rated synth IMHO) does the exact same as the Virus TI, in this regard.

So to truly bring wavetable synthesis into the Kronos....we would want to turn down all the way the Interpolation parameter on the Virus TI, on its wavetable oscillator. This will cause the individual waveforms in the wavetable to play distinctly as individual "slices". As you scan the wavetable using the "WaveSelect/PW" parameter, each slice can be heard and played by itself if you simply stop on that slice. Sweeping that same parameter brings abrupt changes as you move through one waveform to the next within the wavetable. As you raise the interpolation parameter, the Xfades between the slices increase, and blend each slice together into a morphing evolving "super wave".

So....my idea is to break down some of the Virus TI wavetables, with interpolation turned all the way down. And to sample each individual slice within the wavetable. Then port these over to the Kronos, and assign said slices to steps in a wave sequence. Now, we can use the Kronos "position" parameter to sweep the actual wavetable. Kronos allows us to set up Xfades between the slices (read: steps of the wave sequence), but we cannot modulate the level of Xfade in real time for all steps at once. This is the only way that I find Kronos deficient for true wavetable synthesis. But its a minor quibble. I think in most practical applications the user would design the wavetable with the level of interpolation (Xfades) that works for the music at hand, and go from there, rather than too much real time manipulation of that particular parameter. However, Korg/Dan....if you are reading this by chance...you are one parameter away (global wavesequence Xfade under AMS control) from turning Kronos into the ultimate wavetable hardware synth!

So....the Virus TI has dozens of such wavetables, each with at least 32 steps (maybe more, I'm not sure). So to TRULY port the Virus wavetables into Kronos is going to take some work! But...once you had that done, the possibilities to use true wavetable synthesis inside the Kronos architecture would be absolutely amazing. The Waldorf Microwave XT and Q have fewer wavetables, some of which are recognized to be fantastic (namely the Alt1 and Alt2 wavetables)....I would like to start with these....BUT...the Waldorf system does not permit user adjustable interpolation in the same way as the Virus TI. So its not so simple to isolate and sample the individual slices (single cycle waveforms).

So......Sorry for the long post.....but YOUR post on this topic got my ideas flying high in this regard. Kronos 2.0 opens up realities that were before not even reasonable. I will continue to play with these ideas, as I know you will too, and report back as it goes on.

[QuiRobinez]

Yes you can definitely modulate the wave sequence position parameter with AMS. Its on the 1st wavesequence edit page in Global mode, towards the bottom. To realize the effect, you'll want to deselect the "Run" parameter (tick box at top of same edit page)....then whatever controller you assigned via AMS to the position parameter will sweep through the wavesequence. Could be an LFO, Karma, Step Sequencer, a knob or slider or joystick, AMS mixer.....long list of possibilities. THIS is where my suggestion that the Kronos offer's a 10th synth engine: "Wavetable synthesis", comes to life!

GREAT!

i've just tried it with a random SH LFO and that worked out fantastic!

Thanks for the tip, i didn't saw this one earlier, but this has great potential.

So....my idea is to break down some of the Virus TI wavetables, with interpolation turned all the way down. And to sample each individual slice within the wavetable. Then port these over to the Kronos, and assign said slices to steps in a wave sequence. Now, we can use the Kronos "position" parameter to sweep the actual wavetable.

yes this works great, although it's indeed a lot of work.
I've downloaded a subset of the TI wavetables where each slice of the wavetable is in one large sample. It would be great if we could set the offset in one sample per step, but ok, we know we can't do this, so you need to create slices per step and simulate the position within that wavetable with that functionality. Works also, but is more work.

If you want to download the existing wavetables, search on this forum for Virus TI wavetables. This file can be downloaded in one of the posts on this forum.

Kronos allows us to set up Xfades between the slices (read: steps of the wave sequence), but we cannot modulate the level of Xfade in real time for all steps at once. This is the only way that I find Kronos deficient for true wavetable synthesis. But its a minor quibble. I think in most practical applications the user would design the wavetable with the level of interpolation (Xfades) that works for the music at hand, and go from there, rather than too much real time manipulation of that particular parameter.

agree

However, Korg/Dan....if you are reading this by chance...you are one parameter away (global wavesequence Xfade under AMS control) from turning Kronos into the ultimate wavetable hardware synth!

that would be nice!

And i would like to add another wish, make it possible to use the offset as the sample start position (although i understand that this is hard to do with streaming samples). But that would allow us for instance to add a drumloop and position each step to a hit in that loop.
The end result would be that you can create tempo independent loops, and all kind of creative loopmangling (glitch effects and random loops) which would be great for the musicians that make dubstep or other modern dance music. It also would come in handy when using slices in wavetables in one big sample.

So......Sorry for the long post.....but YOUR post on this topic got my ideas flying high in this regard. Kronos 2.0 opens up realities that were before not even reasonable. I will continue to play with these ideas, as I know you will too, and report back as it goes on.

don't be sorry,
it's great to have these kind of discussions on a forum because i learn a lot from these kind of ideas people are mentioning on this board. Your suggestions opened up a lot of new creative ideas in my head

[QuiRobinez]

Yes you can definitely modulate the wave sequence position parameter with AMS. Its on the 1st wavesequence edit page in Global mode, towards the bottom. To realize the effect, you'll want to deselect the "Run" parameter (tick box at top of same edit page)....then whatever controller you assigned via AMS to the position parameter will sweep through the wavesequence. Could be an LFO, Karma, Step Sequencer, a knob or slider or joystick, AMS mixer.....long list of possibilities.

tried it tonight when creating a new ambient program. Here's how it sounds at the moment. It's one program where i start with a random positioned S&H LFO with plays one of the sine sounds i selected in each step (8 steps), every sine sound has a different transpose value.

The example starts with only the seeded random sine wave sequence which constantly changes (i could make it completely random, but i've used a random lfo in a predictable range). Then i add the second OSC which is also a Wave Sequence but this one has a steady crossfaded pattern.

Although the sound still needs some tweaking i think it's an excellent example of how fantastic that positioning functionality is for wave sequences.

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[RonF]

Absolutely LOVE it! This is quintessential wavetable synthesis, Qui! Its all of that motion and evolution, merely by sweeping through the wavetables in a variety of subtle ways. We haven't even gotten to more conventional forms of modulation to expound even further on that.....let alone Kronos exclusive forms of modulation, such as vector envelopes and Karma! Then you consider all the various sound sources, both internal on the Kronos itself, as well as now streaming sample sources, which can make up the slices in those wavetables. Then consider the layers of wavetables you can have in an HD-1 patch, velocity switched and dual oscillator....and then consider the power of a Combi! And your example here is drawn from the most basic building blocks.... and just listen to how great that sounds! The mind boggles at the possibilities!

[RonF]

And i would like to add another wish, make it possible to use the offset as the sample start position (although i understand that this is hard to do with streaming samples). But that would allow us for instance to add a drumloop and position each step to a hit in that loop.
The end result would be that you can create tempo independent loops, and all kind of creative loopmangling (glitch effects and random loops) which would be great for the musicians that make dubstep or other modern dance music. It also would come in handy when using slices in wavetables in one big sample.

BTW....what you describe here is almost the exact functionality of the Elektron Octatrack. Does exactly what you contemplate. Its easy to load a loop, or a table of waves, and assign an offset for each step in a sequence. Leads to loop mangling and other tempo based stutter effects which are fantastic. And, as I understand, this is done from Virtual Memory (a combination of RAM based and storage based streaming). So the technology is out there!

don't be sorry,
it's great to have these kind of discussions on a forum because i learn a lot from these kind of ideas people are mentioning on this board. Your suggestions opened up a lot of new creative ideas in my head

And just wanted to say that I absolutely agree with you here....and I appreciate the discussions too!

[QuiRobinez]

what you describe here is almost the exact functionality of the Elektron Octatrack. Does exactly what you contemplate. Its easy to load a loop, or a table of waves, and assign an offset for each step in a sequence. Leads to loop mangling and other tempo based stutter effects which are fantastic. And, as I understand, this is done from Virtual Memory (a combination of RAM based and storage based streaming). So the technology is out there!

A friend of mine has the Octatrack and is really enthousiastic about it. I still need to find some time to visit his studio and look at the complete elektron suite (he has them all).

The technology i've described can also be done on a computer, i do it all the time by using Kontakt for the commercial vocal FX (like BT does in his tracks), voor drumtracks and glitch sounds on my Vsti's and hardware I use a Free VST Effect called Dblue Glitch, where you can program all kind of glitch effects. Because there is no difference in my studio between VSTI's and Hardware i can route anything through anything, which makes the productions very easy to do.

I mentioned this functionality because it would give great extra possibilities to the kronos and the sound you can create with that , so that the kronos is getting better and better

[RonF]

A friend of mine has the Octatrack and is really enthousiastic about it. I still need to find some time to visit his studio and look at the complete elektron suite (he has them all).

The technology i've described can also be done on a computer, i do it all the time by using Kontakt for the commercial vocal FX (like BT does in his tracks), voor drumtracks and glitch sounds on my Vsti's and hardware I use a Free VST Effect called Dblue Glitch, where you can program all kind of glitch effects. Because there is no difference in my studio between VSTI's and Hardware i can route anything through anything, which makes the productions very easy to do.

I mentioned this functionality because it would give great extra possibilities to the kronos and the sound you can create with that , so that the kronos is getting better and better

Yes, I have the Elektron "Trinity" in my studio. Its great kit! You should really spend some time with it. Especially the Octatrack.

You also might want to check out Izotope's StutterEdit software. It was authored by BT (I'm a big BT fan myself. His very recent two ambient releases were mind blowing!). Quite amazing how StutterEdit simplifies micro tempo based chops in real time. Its sort of like the Virus TI Atomizer function....but way more advanced! Not too costly either.

But, I think we both agree whole-heartedly, the beauty of the Kronos is having all of these synthesis technologies integrated into one *hardware* unit with a unified OS. Right now, Kronos is darn close to having it ALL! Just a few minor tweaks....and it would be there. My comment about the Octatrack already having that technology was just a subtle hint to Dan and the Korg boys.

[QuiRobinez]

You also might want to check out Izotope's StutterEdit software. It was authored by BT (I'm a big BT fan myself. His very recent two ambient releases were mind blowing!). Quite amazing how StutterEdit simplifies micro tempo based chops in real time. Its sort of like the Virus TI Atomizer function....but way more advanced! Not too costly either.

thanks for the tip!

i'm definitly going to check this plugin next week.

But, I think we both agree whole-heartedly, the beauty of the Kronos is having all of these synthesis technologies integrated into one *hardware* unit with a unified OS. Right now, Kronos is darn close to having it ALL! Just a few minor tweaks....and it would be there. My comment about the Octatrack already having that technology was just a subtle hint to Dan and the Korg boys.

yes i think we're on the same page with this. At the moment i'm focusing on the Ambient possibilities because i'm in the middle of creating all kind of soundsets for that.

But from november i'm going to focus on the dance and modern sounds area in the Kronos. I know that it can be very powerful for that too. But if you look at the demo's online and the things people are doing with it this area seems to be undiscovered by most people. That's probably also because dance musicians are looking for the known synths in that scene. I have programmed some sounds already for personal use and the MS-20 and AL-1 are fantastic engines for that.

There are still some area's to explore for me, for instance a have programmed a couple of 'Skrillex' dubstep patches which relies very heavy on time based LFO's connected to the filters. I still have to find out if its possible to connect an AMS source to the time based parameter. I can't find it yet. So lets say i have this 8th tempo based LFO and when i move the Joystick down i want to change the time based LFO to 4th.

Do you know if that's possible?

I know that it's possible with the frequency parameter, but i want to do it with the time based parameter.

[RonF]

There are still some area's to explore for me, for instance a have programmed a couple of 'Skrillex' dubstep patches which relies very heavy on time based LFO's connected to the filters. I still have to find out if its possible to connect an AMS source to the time based parameter. I can't find it yet. So lets say i have this 8th tempo based LFO and when i move the Joystick down i want to change the time based LFO to 4th.

Do you know if that's possible?

I know that it's possible with the frequency parameter, but i want to do it with the time based parameter.

Cool ideas, Qui! Off the top of my head, without sitting down at my Kronos (because I am at work for the next 9 hours or so....ugh!).... I would focus on a step sequencer to modulate time as a parameter. With just a few "steps", you can shape a virtual "LFO wave shape". Each step will represent a division in time....a divisor of the tempo. You can AMS modulate the start step parameter, which means you can change the tempo divisor.

I will have to flesh this out further when I have some time......but thats my "theory".

[QuiRobinez]

Cool ideas, Qui! Off the top of my head, without sitting down at my Kronos (because I am at work for the next 9 hours or so....ugh!).... I would focus on a step sequencer to modulate time as a parameter. With just a few "steps", you can shape a virtual "LFO wave shape". Each step will represent a division in time....a divisor of the tempo. You can AMS modulate the start step parameter, which means you can change the tempo divisor.

I will have to flesh this out further when I have some time......but thats my "theory".

that's quite creative hahahaha. And also very complex to create, but it's definitly something worth checking and you can indeed use the common step sequencer as an AMS Mixer source, so it's should work in theory. Going to check this tomorrow when i'm in the studio !

[RonF]

Ok.....here's a solution I put together tonight.....

Using an HD-1 program.

Set LFO1 and LFO2 to MIDI/Tempo sync mode. For each LFO, adjust the "Times" parameter (a tempo divisor) to the clock rates that you wish for each of the two "beats" you will alternate between, using the Joystick. Of course select an appropriate wave shape for each LFO that works for your artistic expression. A square wave might be appropriate. Using different shapes in each LFO will yield different styles of clock pulses (or "beats").

Now, on the OSC (1 or 2, or both) Pitch page, in the "LFO1/2" block, set the Intensity of LFO1 to a setting which modulates a steady beat which will play when a key is depressed. In my example I set it to +12.00. So now, the "beat", which is midi synced based on the tempo divisor and shape of LFO 1, causes the pitch of the Oscillator to pulse, accordingly, when I press a key on the keyboard.

Now, in the same "LFO 1/2" block, set the AMS controller to JS-Y for LFO2, and set an appropriate intensity which modulates a steady beat (a different beat now, based on the midi synced tempo divisor of LFO 2) when the Joystick is pulled downward. In my very simple example, I set it to +12.00 as well.

Now....when I play a chord on the keyboard, I hear a beat, based on LFO 1 and its divisor and waveshape. When I pull the joystick downwards, I hear another beat, based on LFO 2 and its divisor and waveshape.

This example effectuates the "beats" by modulating the "pitch" based on a divisor of the Kronos master clock (rather than the frequency of an LFO). The same concept could be used to modulate the filter(s) too, for another form of pulses/beats. It could also be done to envelopes/amplitude for yet another type of pulse/beats. Or yet further....could be done to all three at the same time.

If you apply the same theories to EXi patches......you can employ the step sequencers similarly, as pseudo LFO's, with finer control. But in most cases you are only provided with two AMS ports for the relevant parameter blocks....so alternating between *two* "beats" seems the fundamental limitation. (of course with Karma help you could get up to 4 beats going...but that's another topic all together).

Pretty cool in practice. There are likely other ways (I'm still thinking about the Step Sequencer "Start Step" parameter, and also thinking about LFO and Env reset parameters)....but this solution is pretty straight forward (read: easy), and works a charm. Let me know your thoughts!

[QuiRobinez]

this is great stuff RonF !

in theory this was exactly what i was trying to achieve. I'm going to check this with some of my dubstep programs to see if it works the way i want it to work, but i think you are on to something, and i'm sure that when we got some experience with this technique the next step would be adding the AMS mixer in this proces. When i think of it i can imagine that especially the quantitize function of the ams mixer can do some really exiting stuff for this area.

I'm going to experiment with your suggestions in the next couple of days and when i have an example ready then i will post a demo of it online.

funny that you mentioned the start step parameter of the common step sequencer, i was experimenting with that too

on a side note, this stuff shows how deep the functionality goes of the kronos. it's almost like playing on a modular system with clock dividers and sequencers and other exiting stuff.