Korg Kronos: Mastering KARMA level 1 - Tutorial 1

Note: this independently contributed article has not yet been reviewed for accuracy by Karma-Lab.

karma2.jpg

This tutorial is for Korg Kronos Users. It is the same article as the original KARMA 2 Mastering Level 1 ("KARMA Player") for the M3, Oasys and M50 rewritten to match the factory settings of the Kronos. The banks have been changed to match the original banks used and the user directions for the screen pages and tabs have been changed to match those in the Kronos. The only (minor) difference is in Tutorial 2. Part 5. Figuring out which timbres (tracks) are used by KARMA. In the original, one drum kit was played by four timbres, instead of in the Kronos tutorial where three drum kits are played by four timbres.

Scenario

You are completely new to Kronos KARMA and want to master Level 1 ("KARMA Player") using your Kronos. This tutorial is only one of several articles that explain what you need to know to become a Level 1 ("KARMA Player") user. The original document has been split into two tutorials. The first (this one) describes how to use KARMA in Program Mode with a single Module. The second tutorial describes how to use KARMA in Combi Mode with multiple Modules.

For more information on the levels of KARMA usage, see KARMA 2: A beginner's guide.
This tutorial should require 30-60 minutes to work through fully, and it explains all of the important basics of how look at a KARMA performance in a program or combi and figure out what it's doing, and how to control the most useful behaviours of a KARMA performance.

Tutorial 1

Part 1 - Mastering playback and real-time control of a single-module performance

The Latch function,Chord Recognition and the Note Series, and Trigger Zones

  1. On your KRONOS, go to program I-B030 Tiny Tine E.Piano.
  2. In the control surface section of the KRONOS (where the knobs and sliders are on the left of the display screen), activate the KARMA ON/OFF button and the LATCH button. (Press the buttons so they are lit.)
  3. Now play some notes/chords on the right half of your keyboard anywhere above C4. It sounds like nothing special; just the notes that you're playing.
  4. Now play a chord on the left half of your keyboard anywhere below C4 and let go of the keyboard. KARMA analyzes these trigger notes and immediately starts playing a comping pattern based on the trigger notes.
  5. This comping pattern is based on two things:
    • A note series that is constructed in real-time based on the notes you play (and the velocities of those notes). For example, if you play a C7 chord, the C, E, G, and Bb notes are repeated and extended and filtered into an entire series of notes, based on a set of Note Series parameters in the GE. As one simple example, these four notes might be repeated again one octave higher and then the next octave higher, to create a note series comprising three sets of chord tones spanning three octaves.
    • Many hundreds of algorithmic GE parameters that tell the KARMA engine in your keyboard how to manipulate the pool of available notes in the note series.
  6. When you play a different chord (or even individual notes), the note series is re-built with each new set of trigger notes. If the rebuilt note series is different from before, the comping pattern you're hearing would sound different because the parameters would be acting on an entirely different set of notes and velocities. Note that not every GE is set up to shape its note series based on chord recognition, but the GE we're using in this tutorial is. The default chord recognition feature of KARMA is called Chord Scan and will even interpret single notes and 2-note intervals into chords. Some GEs can be set up to use an alternative form of chord recognition called Smart Scan, which is described in detail in Tutorial 2.
    • Likewise, if you were to change any of the parameters in the GE, the comping pattern would sound different because although the note series is the same, the KARMA engine would manipulate them differently than you are hearing now.
    • It's important at this point to explain that not all KARMA GEs use a note series. For example, some GEs instead use a combination of up to three different recorded 4-bar patterns of up to 7 notes each (which can be sliced and diced in many ways). Drum GEs are created using recorded note patterns like this, and you can also create non-drum GEs using this type of recorded patterns too.
  7. Now de-activate the LATCH button. Notice how the KARMA pattern stops?
  8. Press and hold a chord down below C4 for a few moments and then let go. Hear how the KARMA pattern plays but only while you are holding the chord down?
  9. Now hold down a few different chords and some single notes too (all below C4). See how the KARMA pattern "feels" the same but actually chooses slightly different notes from the note series to be in key with the chord tonalities that you're choosing?
    • Let's examine what's going on here:
      • The LATCH button tells the KARMA engine to keep playing its pattern even after you let go of the keyboard
      • The KARMA engine can accurately analyze the chord that you are playing (or can tell when you are playing only single notes) and uses this chordal information to influence how the note series is built from the trigger notes of your chord. (In the GE we're working with in this tutorial, single notes are treated as the root of a major triad for the purpose of building the note series.)
    • At this point, it's worth mentioning that there is no way to "see" the note series being used in a GE in your keyboard itself. You can only see the note series if you have the KARMA Software for your keyboard model.
  10. Let's look a bit more closely at the chord analysis and how this particular GE is using that information to create the note series:
    1. Play a C major triad (C E G) and listen to the KARMA pattern.
    2. Now play a C minor triad (C Eb G) and listen to the KARMA pattern. See how the tonality of the pattern changes to a minor tonality?
    3. Now play a Cm7 chord (C Eb G Bb). See how the KARMA pattern doesn't change at all? It's exactly the same as when you played a C minor triad.
    4. Now play a C5 (just C and G). We're back to the same riff as when you played a C major triad.
    5. Now play a C7 chord (C E G Bb). Also try C G Bb and even just C Bb. Now the pattern has a dominant tonality, and it's the same in three of these cases.
    6. Now play a Csus4 chord (just C and F), then play a Csus7 chord (C F Bb). The KARMA pattern now has a suspended tonality, but it's the same whether you're adding the b7 or not.
    7. Now play a Cdim triad (C Eb Gb) and then a Cm7b5 chord (C Eb Gb Bb). See how the KARMA pattern now has a diminished tonality, but it's the same whether the b7 is there or not?
      • So what's going on here? Essentially, the Note Series parameters of this particular GE is programmed to build a note series comprising only major/minor/sus/dom/dim chord tones, ignoring the 7th tone in major, minor, suspended, and 7b5 chords.
      • Other KARMA GEs might not ignore the 7th note for major and minor and sus and 7b5 chords (for example, the pattern might sound different for a Cm versus a CM7 chord). Still other GEs might not really care about the chord tones at all, and simply trigger from the lowest note in the chord that you're playing. And so on.
      • The point here is that while the KARMA engine recognizes the chord that you're playing, what it does with that information depends on how the GE is programmed.
  11. While we're on the subject of chord recognition, go to the PROGRAM P0 : Play/KARMA GE tab in the KRONOS's display. This area lists the chord that KARMA thinks you are playing.
    • Go to the PROGRAM P7 : KARMA GE Setup/ Key Zones tab and change the Top value from G9 to C4 and notice how in the key zone area the blue line changes to a green line extending from C-1 to C4 with a thin red line at the top end dropping down to C4 on the keyboard on the screen. The green line indicates that the key zone is being edited. Touch the screen on the GE select program name. The green line will change back to a blue line and the thin red line will disappear. The notes under the blue line are in the trigger zone.
    • Any notes played outside the trigger zone will not start KARMA. You will also notice that any noted played above C4 when KARMA is activated will not sound either.
    • On the same screen check the box next to Thru Out Zone and you will find that the notes above C4 now sound when they are played but do not have any effect on the KARMA module.
    • If you go back to the PROGRAM PO : Play/KARMA GE tab you will see that the changes to the Key Trigger Zone you made in the KARMA GE Setup/ Key Zones tab are reflected in the blue line under the keyboard on the screen.
    • Now play some single notes (slowly) with your left hand below C4 and watch the chord-recognition area of the display. See how this GE interprets all your single notes as being a simple major triad rooted by the note that you're playing?
    • Now play some chords with your right hand above C4. Notice how the chord display in the screen doesn't change? this is because you're outside of the trigger zone for this program's KARMA module. KARMA isn't paying attention to what you play outside the trigger zone.
  12. This brings us to the subject of trigger zones and how to recognize them. This is especially useful for understanding the behaviour of multi-module KARMA performances, because quite often each module has different trigger zones on the keyboard.
    1. You should still be on the PROGRAM PO: Play/KARMA GE. Look at the little keyboard image near the top of the screen. See the blue line that extends only across the left side of the keyboard image? This represents the trigger zone for KARMA module A (notice the red "A" at the left of the keyboard image?)
    2. In these keyboard images, the C key right in the middle represents C4. If you look close, you can see that the blue line stops right under C4, so this means the KARMA module will respond to any note played from C4 down.
    3. If it's too hard to squint at these keyboard images to figure out what the zone boundaries are, there's an easier way. Go to page PROGRAM P7: KARMA GE Setup/ Key Zones.
    4. You now see the same keyboard image at the top, and the blue line representing the trigger zone. Touch the check box for the Top value and notice that the line above the image of the keyboard turns green and the red line that drops down to the higher end of the keyboard. Do the same for the Bottom value (change it to C2) and you will see a red line dropping down to the lower end of the keyboard. The Bottom and Top fields show you the exact keys at the top and bottom of the trigger zone.

Part 2 - Linking KARMA to the Drum Track

Go back to the PROGRAM P7 : KARMA Trigger page. We're going to explain what Link to Drum Trk means, because it's easy to misconstrue what this is really doing.

For this particular program we're playing with, the KARMA module is not linked to the Drum Track. Intuitively, you might think that if we link the module to the Drum Track, then KARMA will always stay on the beat with the Drum Track. Unfortunately, this is not what "linking to the Drum Track" does.

  • It's useful to point out here that in many multi-module KARMA performances (in other words, KARMA in a combi), one of the four KARMA modules is often playing a Drum pattern and using a Drum program. So KARMA itself is playing a "drum track" for the combi. This drum module naturally stays in perfect time with whatever KARMA is doing, because it's controlled by the KARMA engine. If you retrigger KARMA mid-beat, the drum module retriggers too and always plays in perfect sync with the other three KARMA modules.
  • But in a single-module KARMA performance (in other words, KARMA in a program), the KARMA module is almost never a drum sound. If you want a drum beat, you have to activate the KRONOS's Drum Track.
  • The KRONOS's Drum Track is completely separate from the KARMA engine. Once you start the Drum Track, it just merrily chugs along until you stop it, and it doesn't know about or care about what KARMA is doing. Likewise, KARMA doesn't know or care about the Drum Track.
  • The point here is that if both KARMA and the Drum Track are running together, it's up to you to play your notes or chords in the KARMA trigger zone in perfect time with the Drum Track. If you trigger KARMA out of sync with the Drum Track, then things will start sounding really horrible. It takes practice to play KARMA really well alongside the Drum Track.

Let's see this interaction between KARMA and the Drum Track in action. First we shall set up the drum track.

  1. From the PROGRAME P1 : Basic/Vector page go to the Drum Track tab. In Drum Pattern select P001: Pop and Ballad (All) in the programme drop down list. Then in Drum Track Parameters select U-AA106 Studio Standard Kit from the drop down menu. This will give you an easy drum beat to listen to when comparing the Drum Track to the playing of the KARMA module.
  2. Activate the KARMA and LATCH buttons, and also activate the DRUM TRACK On/Off button.
  3. Now play a note in the trigger zone. KARMA and the Drum Track start together in perfect sync.
  4. Now try to play some other notes in the trigger zone out of sync with the Drum Track beat. You should be able to quickly get KARMA and the Drum Track playing out of sync with each other.
  5. Now try to trigger a note or chord on the downbeat of the Drum Track. You should be able to get KARMA playing in sync with the Drum Track again. The trick is to recognize the downbeat and retrigger on the downbeat.
  6. Turn off the Drum Track and notice how KARMA keeps playing. This time, listen to the KARMA pattern and try to recognize the downbeat in the KARMA pattern. Turn on the Drum Track again and play a note or chord on the downbeat of the KARMA pattern. Again, the trick is to recognize the downbeat of the KARMA pattern to ensure that you can bring in the Drum Track in sync.

So now let's see what the Link to Drum Trk checkbox does.

  1. Turn off the Drum Track and turn off KARMA too.
  2. Go to PROGRAM P7 : KARMA Trigger page and touch the Link to Drum Trk box to select it. Turn KARMA back on and play something down in the trigger zone. Nothing happens!
  3. Now turn the Drum Track back on and play something in the trigger zone. KARMA and the Drum Track start up together in perfect sync.
  4. Now turn off the Drum Track. Notice how KARMA stops too?
  5. So you might be wondering "Why is this useful? KARMA and the Drum Track start in perfect sync even when KARMA isn't linked to the Drum Track, so what's the point?" Well, the real point of linking KARMA to the Drum Track is to make it so that you can stop both KARMA and the Drum Track at the same time with a single button press (turning off the DRUM TRACK button). That's it.

Part 3 - Scenes and how to make smooth scene transitions

  1. Uncheck the Link to Drum Trk. The KARMA and LATCH buttons should still be on; if not, turn them on.
  2. Play a single key down below C4 and let go of the keyboard. You should be hearing the KARMA pattern playing again. We're going to let this pattern run while we learn about KARMA scenes.
  3. Go to PROGRAM PO : Play page and select the Control Surface tab. You should be seeing switches and sliders represented on the screen. To select the KARMA control surface touch the RT/KARMA tab on the left of the screen, (if you are not already there). You will see a graphic representation on the screen of the switches and sliders for the Realtime Control section of the KRONOS control surface. You can also jump to this screen by pressing the RT KNOBS / KARMA button on the KRONOS to the left of the sliders.
  4. You're now seeing a graphic representation of the KARMA switches and sliders, but more importantly, you're seeing 8 SCENE "buttons" in the upper half of the screen. This is a very easy and useful way to jump among all 8 scenes on the Korg KRONOS, as well as using the upper row of buttons on the Control Section of the Keyboard.
  5. While KARMA is playing, touch several of the other scene buttons on the screen and listen to the results. Be sure to touch some of them in the middle of the KARMA pattern, rather than on the downbeat of the KARMA pattern. Notice how the pattern plays to the end of the bar in the KARMA playback when you jump around between scenes. This is because the Scene Change Quantise Window in the Scene tab PROGRAM P7 : KARMA GE RTP Scenes tab is set to 1 bar.
  6. You can change the timing for when the module switches to a new scene by changing the value in the drop down menu of the Scene Change Quantize Window. In the Quantize Window field touch the > button and choose 1/16 Note from the list.
  7. Go back to the PROGRAM P0 : Play page again (you should still be on the Control Surface tab there), and jump around the various KARMA scenes now (especially try switching scenes in the middle of the pattern being played—not on the downbeat). See how there are gaps in playback now, and all scene changes occur perfectly on the next 16th note of each pattern?
  8. By this time you might have noticed that scenes 5 through 8 sound exactly like scene 1. Only 2, 3, and 4 are different.

Let's explain what's going on here:

  • What is a scene? Why does it make the module sound different?
    • A KARMA scene is just a "snapshot" of the state of the 8 switches and 8 sliders in a KARMA performance.
    • You can easily change any of the 8 scenes in a KARMA performance. Just go to a scene that you don't like the sound of and mess around with the switches and sliders until you get a sound for that scene that you like. Repeat this process for all the scenes that you want to change. When you're finished, just save the program and you now have your own custom scenes ready for use.
  • Why are some scenes no different from other scenes?
    • In this program we're using for the tutorial, scenes 5-8 are identical to scene 1. This is simply because the sound designer who created this program felt that four scenes was enough to give you some ideas and intentionally left four scenes undefined so that you could use those "slots" to create some of your own scenes. This is actually somewhat common in programs. Combis, on the other hand, tend to have all 8 scenes fully developed by the sound designers.
  • Why the audible "gaps" when I switch scenes in some KARMA performances?
    • In early versions of KARMA 2 as implemented on the OASYS and M3, there was no Scene Quantize Window parameter. The default Quantize Window was a sixteenth note. This meant a scene change could occur on any sixteenth note in a pattern, and as you saw, the different rhythm timing of the scenes in this program ended up creating very noticable "gaps" unless you switched scenes right after the last sixteenth note of a pattern (just before the downbeat).
    • But in more recent versions of KARMA 2, the Scene Quantize Window values were added (1 Bar, 2, Bars, and 4 Bars etc.), which create much more smooth transitions between scenes, as you saw. However, many Korg-produced programs and combis still have the original default sixteenth note settings, which is very short and can produce these noticeable gaps when you change scenes.
      • Note: All of the KARMA-fied Combi Sound Sets produced by Karma-Lab generally use a setting of one bar for the Scene Change Quantize Window, allowing you to trigger it ahead of time and have it end up changing smoothly on the downbeat.
    • The point of all this is that you should get used to checking the Quantize Window of a program or combi and changing it to 1 Bar or more if you feel like you're hearing gaps or "roughness" when you switch between KARMA scenes. And if you need to rely on certain combis/programs for live performance, it's a good idea to save new copies of them to user bank slots after changing their Quantize Window to 1 bar or more. This way you won't be caught by surprise by a rough scene change onstage.

Part 4 - Figuring out the behaviour of KARMA switches and sliders

If you've hacked around with the KARMA switches and sliders in the control surface you've probably been confused by several things:

  • Some switches and sliders don't seem to change the sound at all
  • The labels for the switches and sliders are cryptic and there doesn't seem to be any mention of many of them if you've tried looking for descriptions of what they do in the Parameter Guide for your keyboard.

Fear not! There is method behind this seeming madness and this section of the tutorial will make you an expert at figuring out these sliders and switches.

  1. Make sure that you're back on page PROGRAM P0 : Play, on the Control Surface tab, and that KARMA is on and latched and playing scene 1.
  2. You see a graphic representation of the switches and sliders, with some labels describing each one.
  3. Move a few sliders and press a few buttons to change the sound of the pattern in scene 1. Notice that the physical scene 1 button on the control surface starts flashing the moment you make your first change to the switches and sliders.
  4. Pop-quiz time: How do you get all the sliders and switches back to their original settings? One way is to hold down the RESET CONTROLS button at the top right of the control surface while you press the **KARMA button at the left of the sliders. This resets all of the switches and sliders for all of the scenes back to their original values saved in the program.
  5. Pop-quiz #2: How do you reset only a few sliders and buttons back to their original value without resetting every scene entirely? In KRONOS there two ways to do this. Firstly go to the PROGRAM P0 : Play : KARMA GE tab. You see the same switches and sliders as in the Control Surface tab, but notice how there is some text beneath each switch and slider? This text tells you the original value of the switch/slider, for the currently-selected scene. You can use this information to move only some of the switches and sliders back to their original setting. Secondly you can also hold down the RESET CONTROLS button at the top right of the control surface while you touch any of the sliders and switches and you will see that they 'jump' back to the original value on the screen. This is very useful to reset a single scene (hold RESET CONTROLS button and press a scene button) rather than resetting everything.
  6. Remember how scenes 5-8 didn't seem to be any different from scene 1? That's because the designer of this program only created 4 different scenes for it. So let's make our own scenes 5&6:
    1. Select scene 5 and play with the switches and sliders until you come up with something that sounds good. Remember to use the previously-described techniques to revert things if you end up with something that sounds bad.
    2. Do the same thing for scene 6.
    3. Once you're happy with the sound of your new scenes 5 and 6, save the program to a new user bank slot.
  7. So far so good, but you might not be content with just blindly experimenting with switches and sliders until you luck-out and get a good-sounding pattern. Maybe you want to actually know what each switch and slider is doing to the sound. This requires doing some reading to learn about the 13 possible RTC Models used for KARMA GEs.
    1. Go to the PROGRAM P: 7 KARMA GE Setup / Key Zones tab and look at the RTC Model field on the right of the Module A section. See how it says CL1 - Comp/Lead 1? This is the name of the GE's RTC model. (You can also see the RTC model name on the PROGRAM P : 0 KARMA GE tab to the top right of the screen).
    2. Open the following link in a new browser window (so you can keep reading this article too). This link takes you to a section of the Karma-Lab wiki that describes all the RTC models. Once you're there, click the link for CL1 - Comp/Lead 1 RTC model:
    3. The information in these RTC Model articles that is most useful for a Level 1 ("KARMA Player") KARMA user are the two colour-coded tables at the top of each article, and the third table that provides a general description of each slider and switch.
      • The colour-coding tells you what major aspects of the "feel" of a KARMA GE will be changed by certain groupings of switches and sliders. For example, Note Generation switches and sliders will all somehow change the notes played by the GE, while Melodic Repeat switches and sliders will all somehow change the way that the chosen notes are repeated.
      • The third table gives a "plain English" description of how each slider and switch generally affects the sound of the GE.
  8. One last thing to understand about the sliders and switches in an RTC model: many of them have a noticeable effect all by themselves, but some only have an effect when used in tandem with another slider or switch. So if a slider doesn't seem to do anything, it usually means you have to turn on some switch first. And conversely, if a switch doesn't seem to do anything when you turn it on, it usually means that all the switch does is to activate one or more sliders. Let's see this in action:
    1. Go back to the KARMA GE tab of the P0:Play page.
    2. Switch 1 is currently off. Turn it on and hear a very noticable change to the sound (the sound changes from polyphonic to monophonic). Turn Switch 1 back on.
    3. Toggle switches 2-5 and you'll see they all have a very noticeable effect. Set them back to their original state (remember, the text beneath each switch tells you its original state).
    4. Now toggle switches 6-8 and you'll see that doing so has no effect at all on the sound. So the trick is to figure out which other switch or slider each of these switches are tied to.
    5. For switch 6, notice how it's labeled Bnd Dir, and when you press it, the SW6 field just above the row of switches has the more verbose label Bend Direction? There are only two other switches/sliders that also have Bnd (Bend) in their labels, so chances are very good that switch 6 is somehow tied to one or both of these other controls.
      1. Turn switch 5 on and you start hearing bendy effects on the sound. Toggle switch 6 now and you hear a very noticeable change in the feel of the bends.
      2. Now turn switch 5 off but leave switch 6 on. Now move slider 6 (BndSta%) up and down. You hear no change to the sound of the GE. So switch 6 only modifies the behavior of switch 5.
      3. When you tried slider 6 in the previous step, nothing happened. So which switch "activates" this slider? It's not switch 6, as you found out in the previous step. Turn switch 6 off, turn switch 5 back on, and move slider 6 up and down. Now you hear a change in the sound, so switch 5 is what "activates" slider 6.
    6. For switches 7 and 8, see how their labels both start with Rpt (Repeat)? and how sliders 7 and 8 also both start with Rpt too? This tells us that switches 7 and 8 and sliders 7 and 8 are all somehow related.
      1. So lets find out what switch 7 is tied to. Turn switch 7 on and then turn switch 8 on. No change in sound, so you might be tempted to think they're not tied to each other, but in fact they are, as you'll see in a moment.
      2. Turn switch 8 off and leave switch 7 on. Now move slider 8 up and down. No change in sound, so you might be tempted to think switch 7 and slider 8 aren't tied to each other, but in fact they are.
      3. Now move slider 7 up and down. Now you're hearing a significant change.
      4. With slider 7 somewhere above the lowest (000) position, turn switch 8 on and off a few times. The change in the sound is subtle, but it's there if you listen for it.
      5. Now move slider 8 up and down and again you'll hear a significant change in the sound. What's happening here is that switches 7 and 8, and sliders 7 and 8 are all tied together as one unit. Switch 7 enables the entire grouping (turns on the "Melodic Repeat" aspects of the GE). Slider 7 must be a non-zero value to actually create some repeats, and it creates more repeat repetitions as you move the slider higher. Once some repeats are actually playing, switch 8 changes the volume decay envelope of the repeats. And slider 8 transposes the notes selected for the repeats.
    7. The point of all this is to remember that each RTC Model will probably have some groupings of switches and sliders that are interrelated like this, but these groupings will differ from model to model. A converse point that is equally important to remember is that all GEs that share the same RTC model will all work essentially the same way. For example, all GEs that use the CL1 -Comp/Lead 1 RTC model like the one we've been using for this tutorial will (mostly) all have these Bend groupings and Repeat groupings, and they'll all work pretty much the same way in every GE.

Part 5 - Swapping out the GE used in the KARMA module

  1. Go to the PROGRAM P0: Play: KARMA GE tab, and make sure that KARMA is on and latched. Play a chord on the LH side of the keyboard to get this KARMA module playing a pattern.
  2. Touch the drop down menu next to the red "Module A". A GE category browser appears, much like a program or combi category browser.
  3. Select several different GE categories and try a few GEs from each category. See how you instantly hear a sample of each new GE?
  4. Let's settle on the 02 Harmonic (Poly) category and GE 0363: E.Piano Riff in this category, which sound interesting and meshes well with the sound of this program. Touch OK to return to the KARMA GE tab.
  5. Notice that the RTC Model of this module has now changed? It used to be CL1 - Comp/Lead, but now it's DM1 - Drum Melodic. Why did this happen?
  6. Go to the KARMA GE tab. If you compare the labels of the switches and sliders on the screen now versus the ones you saw a while ago when working through Part 4 of this tutorial, you'll see that they're all quite different now. This is because the DM1 RTC model is set up very differently from the CL1 RTC model, because a Drum-Melodic GE is doing very different things than a Harmonic (Poly) GE, so the most useful parameters to control in real-time are also very different.
  7. If you look closely at the labels beneath each slider and switch (the labels that tell you the default value of each switch and slider in every scene), you'll notice that they do not match the current settings of each slider and switch. This is because you have not yet saved the program now that you've changed its KARMA GE.
  8. Save this program to a new location—don't overwrite the original. See how the labels now match the actual settings? Remember to always save your program after selecting a different GE, before you start playing with the switches and sliders to see what all the variations sound like. If you forget to do this, you won't know the original default values that were imported with the GE.
  9. Speaking of which, it's worth mentioning here that you can import a GE without also importing its default RTC model, if you have a good reason to do so. But this is generally not a good idea.
    1. Go back to the KARMA GE tab.
    2. See how text next to the Load GE Options button at the top of the screen says "Auto RTC Setup" and "UseRTCM/ResetScenes"? Touch the Load GE Options button to see the corresponding options.
      • The Auto RTC Setup option and its two checkboxes essentially wipe out everything about your old GE and its RTC model, and they bring everything that is stored in the new GE, including the RTC model that was originally created for that GE by its sound designer.
      • The Clear RTC Setup brings in the new GE and it completely clears out your current switch and slider positions, labels, and assignments to the underlying GE RTP and Perf RTP parameters. This is good for advanced KARMA users that might want to set up the switches and sliders completely from scratch after bringing in a new GE.
      • The Keep RTC Setup brings in the new GE but it keeps the old switch and slider positions, labels, and underlying assignments. This is almost never a good idea to use unless you're a very adept KARMA user and know exactly what you're doing and why this might save you time or give you the effects you want. The primary reason it's not a good idea is that the resulting switch and slider labels might give you no real indication of what the switches and sliders are actually doing in the new GE.
  10. Now that you have a new GE that sounds good with this program, and you've saved the program once to set the proper default settings text on the KARMA GE tab you can go to each scene and play with the sliders and switches until you have 8 scenes that you like, then save the program again.
  11. Compare your new version of this program with the original U-C030 Tiny Tine E.Piano program. They sound very different now, don't they? Because the KARMA "feel" is so different, these two programs are useful for completely different applications. You have effectively created an entirely new program simply by swapping out the original GE for only one of more than 2000 system default GEs. Pretty powerful stuff, eh? It gets even more powerful when you do this type of GE-swapping in combis, which have not one, but four KARMA modules. Which brings us to… the next tutorial.
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License