For this third tutorial, we are going to program a classic dance/trance lead.
This will sound like this:
Tutorial objective
In this tutorial, you should learn to:
1. program a classic “dance/trance lead”
2. make a chain of two different effects
3. use LFO & others AMS source to modulate parameters
4. to use the screen as an AMS to modulate parameters
Oscillators
1. Hit the “Prog” buton to put your Korg M3 into “Program” mode.
2. Select bank F or G
3. Using the dial, find an “empty” program (intitled “InitProg”)
4 Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P1 Basic/DT/Ctrls”.
5. Ensures that the “Program Basic” tab is selected and check “Double Oscillator” Mode.
6. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P2 OSC/Pitch”
7. Ensures that the “OSC1 Basic” tab is selected
8. Use the sample “0668 : Saw-EXB”
9. Assign “-10” to the “Tune” parameter
10. Select the “OSC2 Basic” tab
11. Use the sample “0668 : Saw-EXB”
12. Assign “+10” to the “Tune” parameter and “-1” to the “Octave” parameter :
Now, you should have a first oscillator with a saw wave and a second one with a square wave at one octave below. Both oscillators are slightly detuned.
You can hear the result here :
| Important: you can save you work at any time by clicking on the “down arrow” located in the upper right part of the screen and selecting the “Write Program” option. |
Filters
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P3-1 Filter1”.
2. Select a Low Pass filter, with 60 frequency cut off and set the resonance parameter to 65
For this sound, I did not use any filter enveloppe, if you wand, once the program will be finished, feel free to add one.
3. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P3-2 Filter2”.
4. Select a Low Pass filter, with 60 frequency cut off and set the resonance parameter to 65.
Now you can hear the result here :
Amplifier
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P4 Amp/Eq”.
2. Ensure the “Amp1/Driver1” tab is selected.
3. Raise the “Drive” effect to 20 and the “Low Boost” also to 20.
4. Select the “Amp 1/EG” tab and enter the following settings:
| Level | Start : 0 | Attack : 99 | Break : 70 | Sustain : 70 |
| Time | Attack: 0 | Decay : 40 | Slope : 40 | Release : 15 |
| Curve | Attack :0L | Decay : 6 | Slope : 6 | Rel :6 |
5. Select the “Amp2/Driver2” tab.
6. Raise the “Drive” effect to 20 and the “Low Boost” also to 20.
7. Select the “Amp 2/EG” tab and enter the following settings:
| Level | Start : 0 | Attack : 99 | Break : 70 | Sustain : 70 |
| Time | Attack: 0 | Decay : 40 | Slope : 40 | Release : 15 |
| Curve | Attack :0L | Decay : 6 | Slope : 6 | Rel :6 |
You can hear the sound here.
Ok for the moment the sound is quite ugly, let’s add some effect to make it better.
Effect
For this typical sound, a delay synchronized with the song tempo is necessary and some reverb can also be added.
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P8 IFX”.
2. Ensure the “Routing” tab is selected.
3. In the “Bus (IFX/Output) Select” option, select “IFX1” to route the sound through the IFX rather than directly to the output
4. Select the “IFX/Setup” tab.
5. For the first effect, select “065: Stereo BPM Delay”.
6. In the “Chain To” option, select “IFX2” to route the delay output to the next effect and do not forget to check the checkbox in the “chain” column.
7. For the second effect, select “070: Reverb Hall”.
8. Select the “IFX1” tab.
9. Adjust the parameters as shown in the following picture.
10. Do not forget to switch the effect on by pushing the on/off button on the upper part of the screen (close to the effect name).
Here are some file recorded with the sound you should get at this point of the tutorial:
11. Select the “IFX2” tab.
12. Adjust the parameters as shown in the following picture.
13. Do not forget to switch the effect on by pushing the on/off button on the upper part of the screen (close to the effect name).
Here are some file recorded with both effects :
Modulate this !
The basic sound is now ready.
Filter Cutoff modulation
With this kind of sound, you may want to play with the filter cutoff & resonance. These two parameters may be tuned manually using the slider 1 & 2 when the “Real Time Control” button is lit.
But now, we are going to automate this filter opening using a triangle LFO.
As the LFO will be used on each filter, we are going to use the “common LFO”.
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P5 LFO”.
2. Select the “Common LFO” tab.
3. Select a “Triangle” waveform.
4. As we may want the LFO frequency to be synchronized with the song tempo, check the “MIDI/Tempo Sync.” Checkbox
5. Select “Whole”(semibreve) as a base note and 2 times to have a full LFO cycle in 2 bars (you may adjust this later to fit your needs).
6. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P3-1 Filter 1”.
7. Select the “lfo Mod.” tab.
8. In the “Common LFO” part, at the bottom of the screen, chose “SldrMod5:#17” as an AMS (Alternate Modulation Source). Unfortunately, with this AMS, the zero is achieved when the slider is located on the middle. This is not very convenient for real time control. It would be preferable to have 0 values at the bottom. So if we want to apply a +20 LFO modulation controlled by the slider, we need to offset the LFO modulation by a constant +20.
9. In the AMS section, use a “+20” Intensity to A for both the Common LFO and the AMS source (see screenshot).
If you want, you may change these values to reduce/enhance the effect.
Let’s do the same thing with the second filter:
10. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P3-2 Filter 2”.
11. Select the “lfo Mod.” tab.
12. In the “Common LFO” part, at the bottom of the screen, chose “SldrMod5[+]” as an AMS (Alternate Modulation Source).
13. In both the Common LFO and the AMS section, use a “+20” Intensity to A.
Here are some sound file of the resulting sound:
No LFO :
Slider n°5 Half position :
Slider n°5 upright position:
Some chords :
Simple chorus controlled by the joystick
We may use the joystick along the Y axis to add a “chorus” to our sound. To do this we are going to modulate the pitch using a sine wave produced by an LFO. As the common LFO is already used for the filter cutoff modulation, we are going to use one LFO per oscillator but with the same tuning.
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P5 LFO”.
2. Select the “OSC1 LFO1.” tab.
3. Chose a “Sine” waveform.
4. As we may want the LFO frequency to be synchronized with the song tempo, check the “MIDI/Tempo Sync.” Checkbox
5. Select “Semiquarter”(1/16) as a base note and 1 times.
6. Select the “OSC2 LFO1.” tab.
7. Chose a “Sine” waveform.
8. As we may want the LFO frequency to be synchronized with the song tempo, check the “MIDI/Tempo Sync.” Checkbox
9. Select “Semiquarter”(1/16) as a base note and 1 times.
10. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P2 OSC/Pitch”.
11. Select the “OSC1 Pitch” tab.
12. In the LFO 1/2 tab, apply a “+0.5” to the JS+Y parameter of the LFO 1 section. With this parameter, when the joystick is pushed, the oscillator pitch will be modulated by the sine wave generated by the LFO1.
13. Select the “OSC2 Pitch” tab.
14. In the LFO 1/2 tab, apply a “-0.5” to the JS+Y parameter. Thus when using the joystick, the oscillators will be detuned. Using opposite values for each oscillators produced a kind of “chorus” effect whereas using the same value produces a vibrato effect.
Here is a sound file of the result:
You may also change the pitch bench range to 2 octave :
1. Select “OSC1 Pitch” tab.
2. Apply “+12” to the “JS(+X)” parameter (upper part of the screen).
3. Apply “-12” to the “JS(-X)” parameter.
4. Select “OSC2 Pitch” tab.
5. Apply “+12” to the “JS(+X)” parameter (upper part of the screen).
6. Apply “-12” to the “JS(-X)” parameter.
Kaos-pad like modulation of the filter
At last, let us recall that the filter cut off and resonance can, by default, be modulated using the silders n°1 and n°2. But the Korg M3 has a tactile screen that can be used as a controller when the “X-Y mode” button is lit. So we may want to use this to control the filter cutoff & resonance. The main advantage is that in the “X-Y” mode, the applied “motion” can be recorded. In this way, you may “draw” your LFO shape on the screen.
1. Hit the “Page Select” button and then select “P2 Basic/DT/Ctrls”.
2. Select the “X-Y setup” tab.
3. In the “X-Y” CC Control part (bottom part of the screen), assign “Positive” to the “X-Mode” control. Thus the left part of the screen will completely close the filter and the right part will completely open it.
4. Assign “Positive” to the “Y-Mode” control. Thus the bottom part of the screen will remove the filter resonance and the upper part of the screen will correspond to maximum resonance.
5. Assign the “+X” parameter to midi control change “CC#74” which correspond to the filter cutoff.
6. Assign the “+Y” parameter to midi control change “CC#71” which correspond to the filter resonance.
Conclusion
We have programmed a classic dance/trance lead. You should have learn how to modulate different parameters using different sources. You may also try to use a filter EG that fits your need, you may also use other waveforms instead of the classic triangle one.
Hope you will have fun with this program.