James Tubbritt known as Sharp to the Korg user community, together with Daz owns http://www.korgforums.com/.
A very helpful platform for OASYANs and those on the way to become one.
blogasys: Sharp, please be so kind and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sharp: I’m 31 years old, Irish and married to a beautiful girl called Christine. I’m also a proud Dad to two little angels aged 7 months and 4 years, (Lana & Faye). I live just outside Waterford City here in Ireland, also known as the sunny south east which is kind of funny really since it rains here all the time. My hobbies are music (obviously), photography, 3D Art, and I love a good movie. I went to School here in Waterford at Mount Sion Christian bothers. I’m a qualified Sheet Metal engineer, with C&C Programming, Radian & CAD. Which I’ve used in places like the Aerospace Industry where I made Jet Engines and also worked as a Lab Technician. So if you ever need your car pimped, I can slap a Jet Engine on the back :-).
Now days I’m living sort of a double life I guess due to the fact that I found it difficult to keep IA-Studio open in the day and support a family. So for the moment I decided to hold off on the full time studio work until I build up a bigger client base. So I run IA-Studio recording bands at night, while also sequecning music for clients, and designing sounds. Also not forgetting KORG Forums as I obviously spend a lot of time online. During the day, I’m a Quality Manager in a soft drinks company where I manage the quality control department. It’s an interesting job as I get to do a lot of data base design, and I also get to use my programming to automate a lot of processes as well as deal with my Staff and keep them busy.
blogasys: How did you start making music and have you been muscilly educated?
Sharp: It’s actually kind of strange really because I clearly remember the day I got started. I was 4 years old and in my first year of school. It was sports day and the team I was on won the tug-of-war game. The prize was a plastic whistle full of chewing gum. Certainly not something you would give a 4 year old now days, but back then it wasn’t a bad thing. Anyway, after eating all the gum, I realised that I could play anything I wanted to on the whistle. Didn’t have to try, I could just do it. So that’s how I got started. My Parents where kind of freaked out by it because I would play along with the Radio or TV in real-time.
When I reached 7 years old, I guess that’s when my music training started as the school I was in had a brass band. I joined up and they thought me how to read and write music there, as well as play all the different instruments. I started off on Cornet, and over the years worked my way up to Bass Trombone where I stayed on that until I left School.
blogasys: Which musician influenced you most and who are you favourite musicians?
Sharp: I’d say that Enya has influenced me the most by far. She just has such an amazing sound, and her minimal approach to musical perfection is a lesson in itself. There is so much to be learned from her, especially in songs like Storms in Africa and Watermark. Watermark easily being my favourite song by her.
As for who would be my favourite musicians.
Enya, Jarre, and Neil from the Pet Shop Boys. The songs “Left to my own devices” and “I’m not scared” are both an education in music themselves. Extremely complex.
blogasys: What kind of music are you listening these days and why?
Sharp: Madonna, the live confessions tour. Christine purchased the Audio CD/ DVD pack for me and after watching the concert. I just can’t stop listening to the audio CD lately. Come to think of it, that’s all I’ve been listening to for the last 4 weeks. She did a version of “Music” with a 70’s style disco feel to it which was really great.
I also like Modonna as I feel there is a lot you can learn from her bass lines, and chord sequences. The song “Sorry” being a good example.
blogasys: Now lets talk about your music, are there any projects you have been working on?
Sharp: There’s actually quite a lot on at the moment. I currently have 2 original bands booked in, 3 solo singers that I will have to sequence backing tracks for, and I’m working on a musical. Not to mention my own projects. I’m in the final stages of finishing my own CD.
blogasys: what inspired you to make your own CD?
Sharp: What inspired me to start writing music for this CD was a mixture of things. The most important to me was the fact that I had spent so much of my life working on music for someone else, I had little to show of my true self. When working for others, I try create what they describe, so I never really look upon anything I write for clients as “me”.
I also had an idea of “One Song A Month” in mind by where I would get a number of people on KORG Forums to sign up to a year long contract, by where we would all agreed to write a one song a month (find the link at the end of this interview). The idea being, we could give each other the support to actually make it to the end, and give advice as we went through the process.
A year is a long time, and 12 songs for many is an almost uninamaginable tasks. So as a groupe, things where easier, and overall it brought somthing very good to the KORG comunity.
The title track of my CD “Leanbh Mo Chroi” was written for KORG. I was one of the sound designer who worked for KORG on the Triton Extreme, so I used the Prototype Triton Extreme to write this song as a demo tune for KORG. The orignal version can still be found on www.korg.com. The rest of the tracks where basically just inspired by how I felt at the time of writing the tracks. So it’s all me.
Find a link to Sharp’s website “irishacts” at the end of this interview or under “links” “OASYS user websites”. All tracks of his CD “Leanbh Mo Chroi” can be heard and downloaded for free. For now two examples of his work:
Aoibhinn
Leanbh Mo Chroi - Child of my Heart
blogasys: What is your current musical project?
Sharp: Right now I’m running out of time, so I’ve had to focus all my attention on a musical I have been working on. This has been an ongoing project that has started to get very serious now as my client has received full financial backing from a company. I’m afraid I can’t go into all the details, but basically it’s very likely that the act will reach the stage in England, and I will get to hear a full orchestra play what I sequenced. So I’m looking forward to that. I’m also enjoying the fact that I get to use my roots from my background in the Brass band world I grew up with to score sheet music for my client.
blogasys: what kind of equipment are you using and why did you decide for it?
Sharp: It took me a long time to realise this, but less is more. So I’ve spent a lot of time downsizing my studio setup to 100% usable gear. So basically the following items where chosen because each one brings something different to the mix. Each in their own right unique and very flexible.
KORG OASYS 88
KORG Triton Studio fully loaded.
KORG Wavestation SR
AKAI S50000
KORG Pa1Xpro
Yamaha Tyros 2
Yamaha QY700
Yamaha VL70m
Yamaha WX-5
Sequential Circuits Pro One
A real Trumpet and Guitar.
2 Computers.
Tascam SX-1
Yamaha 01V
TC Helicon Voice Prism Plus.
4 Behringer 9024’s
2X Behringer 2032
2X Mackie HD824
4X Celestion 15″ Road Series
2X Celestion SR1
2X Celestion SR3
I have 1 Rode NT2-A Mic, and this is the main Mic that gets the most use. Excellent value for money, but truthfully, that’s not why I bought it. The day I was shopping, I had 1500 Euro in my pocket to lay down on a single Mic. The music store I went to had a fantastic selection too, but no matter what I tried, I found myself comparing everything to the NT2. In the end I just bought it.
Not being one who cares what “name” is on a Mic or anything for that matter. I also bought 2 T.BONE SCT1100 mics, and 4 T.BONE SC600. Dirty cheap, but holy molly do they sound expensive. I was extremly happy with that purchase, and I’m not ashamed to even mention the fact that I like them considering how little they do cost.
I also have 10 SM-58, and 2 EV Mics (can’t remember the model number), for general usage like drums, and so on. Nothing special here, just good old reliable Mics you can hop off a wall and they will work like new. Vocal are processed through the TC-Helicon Voice Prism Plus, and powered by the Pre-Amps in my Tascam SX-1.
blogasys: what was the reason for you to purchase OASYS?
Sharp: I could make a long list of things, but basically I was starting to become very unhappy with my Triton Studio as I was driving every system flat out, and still not getting the results I wanted. I would quickly run out of effects, and since my sounds are based around my own samples. I found myself waiting a lot of the time for the Triton to load sounds.
Where now, the OASYS loads hundreds of MB in seconds, I have 16 HDR tracks and a huge IFX engine. Karma v2 is also seriously impressive. It’s only when you sit down and really dig in do you get a good feel for what can be achieved with your own music.
blogasys: are there any things you would like to see in OASYS in the near future?
Sharp: Probably the most important one for me would be streaming of samples direct form the hard disk, just like Gigastudio, and with full support of Giga file formats. With so many wonderful sample libraries becoming available, and the almost death of AKAI S3000 format. It seems a shame that such a state of the art workstaiton like OASYS does not support any modern day formats.
After that, I’d like to see the Sequencer getting that well overdue makeover. For someone like me who has since the days of the M1 being sequencing on nothing other than KORG sequencers. I work extremely quickly with the on-board sequencer, however, because of this, I’m also left well out of the loop on what software sequencers have to offer. Which is a lot. It would be nice to see some of those advanced features finding their way into OASYS.
blogasys: you are programming sounds which are available online - can you tell us a little bit about forthcoming OASYS sounds?
Sharp: Yeah, I’m deep in development of a new sample library that when finished will be many times the size of anything I’ve previously released before. With so much sample memory now being available compared to a Triton Series workstation, I now have the opportunity to take a title like Vocal Assault much further and greatly expand on the number of human voice sounds, as well as expanding all this into many new area’s where Vocal Assault could not go.
So, while Vocal Assault was primarily a library based around the human voice. This new library will go much further. This is something I’m very excited about. My heart is in the right place too for this project because I’m not worried about the development costs, which so far have been great. I’m doing this to prove to myself at this point that I can. So when completed, this will be “ME” and my best work. I want it to be like this because due to the limited compatibility of KORG’s PCG file format with their other workstation coming out as this could very well be the last large scale project I complete. It just makes more sense to develop sounds on a much smaller scale and sell them individually rather than developing expensive complete libraries.
blogasys: What was the reason for you to start with korgforums.com and are there any things that are exceeding your positive and negative expectations?
Sharp: Ok, this is going to be a long one. An interesting one, and no doubt a trip down memory lane for all of our Advanced members. The people who have been with us from the beginning.
There is a LOT of history here, so lets go back to the very beginning. A time when I didn’t even know Daz, and there was no real on-line home for a KORG community.
Like any good story starts. A long long time ago in a galaxy far away, whoops I mean server, not galaxy, started a low-tech forum called Tritonica where many of the advanced members of the KORG Forums of today first meet and became friends. This little community was popular and eventually as the number grew, so did the need for a proper forum. Two guys got together and setup a place called Triton Central (TC). Which was very successful in it’s day and eventually grew into a large community.
Like all good stories, you have your good and your bad. And in this case there where a few members of the TC forum who would argue with anyone, and pretty much just spend all their time stirring up as much trouble as possible. Eventually this started spill out all over the forum and sadly the quality of the content greatly dropped due to the advanced members being put off actually helping people. Unbelievably, due to what seemed to be forum policy, this was allowed to continue.
I was probably one of the most active members on the forum, and even I started to lose all faith and less inclined in supporting the community.
In the real world, I was getting ready to build a recording studio here in Ireland, and I had a lot of plans, so I setup a website called Irish Acts Recording Studio www.irishacts.com . I used this portal to host a very large download section, and even back in the day, it was the largest KORG related download section there was. This coexisted along side TC, and was at the time never in conflict.
But then, I wanted to get a very basic forum working, if that’s what you would even call it by today’s standards because I was getting annoyed by the argunig on TC, and I had my own ideas on how things should be run. But there where CGI Script problems I couldn’t figure out (not my thing) at the time as so I posted a message into a KORG Yahoo group looking for help.
And a guy called Daz “the one and only, now my partner in crime :-)” replied and offered to help. So, we got talking and hit it off straight away. We had so much in coming it was scary, and so I handed over access to IA (Irish Acts) to him to take a look at the problem. Daz then just blinked (the wizard that he is with this kind of thing) and sorted everything out. And so the first basic forum was operational.
While the download section was a roaring success and doing well, the forum was so basic that Daz made a few suggestions, and eventually installed our first proper forum. YaBB !!.
The timing couldn’t have been better either.
This is technically the start of it all, the big bang, the beginning, the birth of IA’s KORG community. Because of how well Daz and I hit it off, and our idea’s on how things should be run, added to the fact that there was serious unrest over on TC. IA started to grow quickly and get a name as a forum where people could find respect as well as advanced technical support. Because of the respect and the way things where run, the community has always been very close, and at this time of it’s development, it grew at an unbelievable rate as word spread.
Still, it wasn’t plain sailing. Success = demands on resources, and considering the limited resources of a community that is run free from advertisements, and I was just paying the bill for out of my own pocket. It wasn’t too long before IA outgrew it’s home. This was to happen twice more before one of the most threatening incidents would come along that would threaten the existence of our community.
Which was our HOST who pretty much took all the hosting fees, pulled the plug and did a runner with over 1 million USD in fees from all it’s clients.
Not to let something as detrimental as this get us down, we decided to turn this around and make a good thing out of this. The IA community was huge, but for the future development of the forum, we felt that the name IA was preventing it from being all it could. Bearing in mind that IA is my Stuido’s name, and the KORG community was created more out of a need of the people and the way we ran things. We decided that it was now time to make the move an take the KORG community out from the protection of the IA name and give it it’s own name. Sort of bring it all to the next level so to speak. And so we agreed on a name and KORG Forums was born.
As always, Daz is the technical admin. He’s the one that keeps the entire community on-line and deals with all the technical issues, which is an insane amount of work. Popularity of a community brings unwanted attention from spam bots for starters. But someone does have to pay the bills. This is kind of my area since I’ve been the one doing this out of my pocket up untill now, as well as having a backseat and been a public face to IA / KF where Daz does all the real work
As so because of the new costs, and the size of the comunity, this is where the true spirit of the community comes in. It’s with great pleasure I can say that KF is still advertisement free, and now supported entirely by the members of the forum through a donation button we added for a few weeks upon the launch of the KORG Forums name. A button that only needs to return once every few years, and I’m sure will be supported long into the future as we continue grow as a community.
Was it all worth it ?
Yeah baby. KF has a life of it’s own and will continue to grow no matter what the future holds. Unless the earth is hit by a big asteroid that is
Although it is summer time some more interviews are in work. A new kind of interview hopefully can be added to this blog within the next weeks. One hint for those who do not like to read - this new feature can be pretty nice for you.
Being in Fremont / CA I used the time to take some pictures. The panorama view of Golden Gate is just one small example.
As I could not make it for a coffee to St. Barbara, although being only five hours away by car, Dan and I decided to chat a little bit online. Time passed by to soon and after one hour we had to interrupt a chat I enjoyed a lot.
Dan was so kind to offer me his availability for an interview. Of course I will use this oppurtunity and as we both are quite busy these days we decided to meet for it in the not so far future. Thus - watch this space.
These days people tend to do everything on their own. Not the wrong thing… in general. What this has to do with the above picture? Find out here.
Andreas Ecker, of whom you can find an interview here, I met in German keyboards forum. Since then a very nice and creative collaboration has evolved, not to mention the hundreds of e-mails we sent each other. The complete story, although available in German only, you can find at Musician’s Life.
One of the first results of our collaboration is a track called “halla heij” in which Eberhard Geitz, of whom you can find an interview here as well, played the solo. This solo was played on an OASYS and was derived from one of the STR-1 factory programs. Sorry that again I forgot which one it was, but Eberhard alias “Ebse” posted this information at korgforums.com some time ago.
After we recorded all the tracks by using the one or other synthesizer I received the wav files to make a mix. Together with the vocals of Jaqueline and a fretless bass played by Otto it was then my “job” to mix them. Fortunately the quality of PlugIns is very good and therefore I worked only within MOTU’s dp and used UAudio’s Plug-Ins. That is how it sounded without using any compression or EQ for Mastering.
As I could not do the mix any better I realised that my knowledge and experience reached a point where I had to choose someone external for doing the final treatment. That´s how Larry entered the game. Larry whom I know for some time once made a mix for an old version of “blue darkness”. So I asked him whether he is interested in Mastering “halla heij” and what he thinks about the mix. His feedback was positive enough so I uploaded the above version as 24bit / 48kHz .wav file.
What he exactly did is not a secret, it is just that I do not know. The track is now brighter but not to bright as some of the electronic percussion sounds are quite strong, eg the HiHat. It is louder but still dynamic and the bottom is to me better defined. But please find out on yourself, here is the result:
mastered version of “halla heij”
You can see Larry’s studio on the photos, and if you interested in the equipment he is using then it is most likely worth to visit the following Mastering Equipment List page. Meanwhile he added an Euphonics console to his studio. Now it seems that limited space is becoming a problem and a move to another place is necessary.
As this blog’s name is blogASYS here is the mastered virtual guitar solo played bei Eberhard Geitz aka Ebse on his OASYS:
mastered version - STR-1 guitar played by Mr. Geitz
So in case if you have any problems with a mix or you want to look for someone doing the mastering, mix-box.de could be the right place for it.
Of course you could do everything on your own, and there are many people out there getting good, not to say, excellent results. But giving the track to someone who has not been involved so far brings you several advantages, of which experience together with knowledge how to use the right equipment are to me the most important. And in these days were people are connected all over the world it it is just a simple upload and at least one download to and from a ftp server. If you compare the costs for high end equipment (hard- or software) to the one for external mastering then I guess it is worth a thought.
But to complete the collaboration story. Now that the track is finished Michael Stiedl as usual, was so kind to take up an idea.. or a photo and made a cover for the CD. For those who do not know him and like this blog, Michael is the one who helped… is helping me a lot with this blog.
blogasys: Arend, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
AG: I was born in 1963 and living in a small village in the Netherlands. From when I was 15 I lived three years in a boarding school, the International School Beverweerd. After that I had plans to make my living as a musician, a drummer, but my education on the conservatory as a drummer didn´t work out. So I started working as professional caregiver at the Amerberg, a home for youngsters with behavioral problems and victims of child abuse and neglect. Since then I worked in the child care and professional child custody. At the moment I am working in the Psycho trauma centre for children and their parents at the university medical centre of Utrecht. I am also teaching students.
Music has always be my number one hobby. I was raised in a musical family, family members are classical schooled, no pop, rock or jazz at my parents place. My brother is one of the directors working as a professional balance engineer for classical productions at Polyhymnia http://www.polyhymnia.com/. My sister is a classical pianist and she is a music teacher and a singer. My father was a film director. I had a will of my own and …and started to play drums when I was about 12.
blogasys: You are a member of musicalgroup “De Amerberg” - what kind of music are you playing and can you tell us a bit about the group?
AG: We, started the group with the chief of the Amerberg, Jan van Dijkhuizen (find link at the end of this interview). We did music and theatre productions with members of the staff and the boys and girls who lived there. We did a project for Christmas called the Christmas Story in the early ninties. The music I wrote was entirely done with the 01/Wfd using the internal sequencer.
Later on, about ten years ago more people from outside joined the group. We started with rearranging the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar in 1994 and performed it in several theatres in 1996. I recorded everything again in the sequencer of the 01/W, it was a hell of a job. I choose that way of working because I could carry my instrument with me to different places. Later we arranged “Hair” and performed it in 2002. I used again the 01 and the Roland jv 2080, all in the internal sequencer.
Hair performed in 2002
In 2003 we started with musical Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat also from Loyd and Webber. We performed it in 2005 and 2006. It was an old dream because I firstly performed that musical at Beverweerd on the drums. I had changed the 01/w for the Karma music workstation. And the red beast was fantastic. Although I was arranging existed music I could still use Karma GEs. What a wonderful experience. And I did the whole project again in the internal sequencer together with the Roland 2080.
It was a success and the art director, Jan wanted to make a so called “musical all in” night with songs from all kind of musicals, the ones we played and a lot more. We decided that he uses orchestral tapes for this project, because doing about 40 songs arranging in the sequencer would have cost me at least another two or three years.
Working the way I did the past years was like taken music lessons. I had to listen carefully what happened in all those different musicals and tracks. I didn´t use writing music sheets, I found everything out listening by ear. It forced me to study music I would never play myself when I am playing for fun. And off course I learned a lot about using the different synthesizers.
The group is still rehearsing and is giving some small concerts. Planning to perform with this project in 2008 in the theatre. I am not involved in this latest project. Times for rearranging existed stuff is over…. I felt like composing and writing my own peaces of music again.
blogasys: Is there any project you are currently working on?
AG: As I mentioned, I am composing for a new music project which lies far ahead of us. There is a story and a script but it is all in an early stadium. The story is about a old Dutch legend with all the elements from early fairytales. The struggle between good and bad, betrayal, love and evil, wizards, kings and knights etc. The musicalgroup is rehearsing the “musical all in” and I am writing and exploring the oasys, editing sounds etc. Writing the music is my department, lyrics, singing and the art direction etc is mainly taken care off by others. Composing the music is what I am concentrated on. The starting point differs. Sometimes I start with a combi with karma running. At the end I change sounds and arrangements. But I quite often start with playing the piano sound. That´s why I am glad I bought the 88. I am also exploring the Oasys and practicing. I am not a good piano player, I teaches it myself. And I had to get used to the weighted keys of the Oasys 88 after playing years with light synth keys and light touch of the digital Roland piano HP2000. But I am learning and making progress. Here are some audio examples, rough ideas…
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
After I have created enough rough material, we will start polishing, editing and mastering. But maybe some of my songs will go their own way, film scoring is also a thing I am dreaming of.
Making music for me can be a form of total relaxing, sometimes a kind of meditation. Totally gone from my daily life with all the traumas and painful situations.
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: How did you start making music and are keyboards you main instruments?
AG: My older sister was playing classical piano from early childhood. I didn´t like playing the piano back then. There was always classical music at my home. Lots of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. I couldn´t appreciate it at that time, although I love it right now. I started playing the drums after a few years hitting with pens and pencils at the tables playing along with records. Started with the beatles and all kind of rock and roll. Then my parents gave me a drum set and I took drum lessons. My drum teacher learned me all kind of jazz and jazz rock techniques. I took about 7 years of lessons. At the boarding school I started playing guitar, took some lessons and I also started playing a bit of piano. Later on after I failed at the conservatory (jazz) with the drums, (to little playing experience in different bands),I stopped playing when I moved to a apartment, it was to noisy. As an alternative I bought a Fender Rhodes piano, a mark 1, 76 keys. Although I loved the Rhodes sound, the piano didn´t sound as nice as the older suitcase version of my drum teacher. Later on, in 1986, I sold the Rhodes piano and bought the Roland HP 2000, the one with the SA synthese. I was impressed by the (famous) electric piano 1 and piano 3 which you can hear on many (Elton John) records. I never heard such a electric piano again. Then I bought a Roland MKS-50 which I sold not long after buying. Didn´t like it that much.
My true encounter with synths was with the Korg T3. What a beauty that was. Later I sold it and bought the korg 01/W, which I really liked because of its warm sounds, especially the string sounds. I used it with the HP2000. I didn´t like the feeling of the key bed of the Roland. I expanded my little setup with the Roland JV2080 with 8 boards in it. I had mixed feelings about it. It had lots of beautiful sounds and a user friendly layout, but I always felt the sounds were a bit thin and cold compared to the Korg sounds. Pure subjective I am aware of. And then I purchased the Korg KARMA and I was overwhelmed by the innovations since the 01/W. I loved the KARMA function. The sounds were fantastic too, although I missed some of my sounds of the 01/W. And then the Oasys came out……
blogasys: Which music and musicians did influence you most and why?
AG: I think listening to a lot of classical music in my childhood which had influenced me. When I was about 11 or 12 I discovered the Beatles. Later on I became a big fan of Queen. It started with Bohemian Rhapsody. I went to concerts of them and I loved there shows. Back then they wrote on their albums, they didn´t use synthesizers! Later on I liked some great bands and artists of the seventies and eighties, like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Billy Joel, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, Alan Parsons, the Police and Gino Vanelli, Santana, Stevie Wonder, Randy Newman. As a rock band I loved Styx and Boston. And lots of Jazz music. I am not complete.
blogasys: What kind of music do you here today?
AG: I am still hanging in the early ages…. I am a big fan of Sting. I also listen to Radiohead, Muse, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Lots of Jazz. I never had much with the house, techno and dance scene. But I discovered Bjork, Goldfrapp, and Boards of Canada I think they are very good. And nowadays I listen a lot to classical music. Especially Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Brahms and I am really into all the symphonies of Mahler, they are fantastic.
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: Can you give us some insight about the equipment you are using and why you decided for it?
AG: Compared to a lot of guys and girls on the forums I am a minimalist… Well, I sold the JV 2080, the korg KARMA, my HP2000 and 01/W, and I am using just the Oasys. I am aware of that I own a minimal setup, but it works for me. I only sometimes miss the Roland SA synthesis, so I will look after the module of that one, the Roland MKS 20. I have always liked hardware. I experimented with a computer bases system, but it didn´t satisfy me enough. I am not a purist but it just feels good to lay down my hands on real instruments. And with Windows there were lots of technical problems there had to be solved and it kept me away from making music. But I realize that you can, for example by using a software sequencer with soft synths make a lot of beautiful music. But I was still searching an instrument with midi and audio integration, quality sounds and instruments and then I saw those videos from Stephen Kay at Karma-Lab with the Oasys. I was blown away….
blogasys: what was the reason for you to purchase OASYS?
AG: There was no good reason from my point of view not go for it, except the money…! It had all the right sounds in a fantastic HD-1 engine and EXinstruments. I finally had my warm strings again, the ones I missed since the good old 01/W. Even my waveshaper is back (as a insert effect). The KARMA 2 engine was another reason for wanting the instrument. What can I say about it, it is such a musical system. Very misunderstood. All the sounds you can create, lots of freedom and possibilities. if you take your time. And that´s with other parts of the Oasys too. Like all the things you can accomplish with the wave sequences for example. I just started exploring that department.
The integration of all the different parts, EXis, effects, karma, the sampling and midi and audio sequencing on a high end level makes it the ideal instrument for me. And you can tweak almost everything to your own needs, so I have years ahead of making music and exploring.
And those ex instruments are fantastic. I don´t read a lot about those ones, but they are quit unique. I love especially the AL-1, CX3, and the mouth watering STR-1, you can create some really weird stuff with that one. Sounds I never heard before. The LAC-1 is also great but I must admit I am a bit stuck with programming the MS20. It´s not an easy one, but that´s ok with me… some day I will master that one too. But some tutorials would be most helpful….
And no shit with drivers and messing up computer systems. Turn the power on, find some sounds and start playing. And when I have some inspiration I just put the Enter and Record knobs on and I am in record mode… All the knobs and sliders, the huge touch screen is giving you a large amount of control over this complex instrument.
I knew, when I first saw the videos and the specs of course, that I wanted one. And I thought I could never afford it, but I put all my senses to it and with a some luck I managed to get one in September 2005, some lucky bastard I am. To bad I need a job to make a living, this thing needs more of my spare time. Besides the other family and a jealous wife. Life is not always easy owning the big O, just be warned.
At this place I should mention the two forums, Karma Lab and the Korg Forums with input from lots of people including Dan and Jerry from Korg USA.. At karma lab Stephen Kay and many others doing a hell of good job by supporting every member having questions, from beginner to more experienced. His job and efforts, with his KARMA, gave me lots of trust in buying the O. I never saw the instrument in real time before buying..
I do write too little cause writing in English cost me so much time, but I am a great consumer of all the posts I must admit… At the Korg Forums Daz, Sharp and others offering also a real friendly, open and professional atmosphere. There is so much information you can find in those two places. The support is hearth warming in a western society where we sometimes forget about sharing among others…..
No complains? Ok, I got one. I am playing the beast in my bedroom. Yes my three kids occupying some rooms… And late at night when everything and every one is quit in the house in those final hours I am playing really softly and I am irritating cause I can hear the fan whispering inside… I know it is a detail, but still…. .
Wishes for the future? That´s another question….
Joseph and the Amazing Colour Dreamcoat performed in 2005 and 2006
blogasys: what are your favorite sounds and what does OASYS do best in your opinion?
AG: That´s a difficult one because I use different sounds in different projects and times and moods. There are so many different possibilities, they are endless. It´s impossible to manage and explore all the sounds in a short amount of time. Off course you can scratch the surface but then you don´t do justice to the sounds.
At the moment I am exploring the STR-1 and AL-1 more and more. Especially with the STR-1 you can make the weirdest sound landscapes. What a synthesizer. I don´t use it much for plying real plucked string sounds although it can do it pretty well. I use it for making creepy evolving pad sounds. With the vector joystick you can create nice effects, with all kind of little sounds burbling at the background, or more radical. I always start editing the sounds from existing ones, hardly ever from scratch. Some examples of edited existing sounds. You can find them in the user E bank and you can hear all the details best with headphones…
Celtic Harp: I love that sound at the background, how you describe it, a kind of scrape. It uses one STR-1 programm
First Sunrise: I love all the evolving sounds. It uses STR-1 and AL-1.
XyloSpace: I like the metallic sounds with the hiss. Just one STR-1 program
White Light Pad: Just one STR-1 program only 2 effects and no karma and all those scary sounds moving in the background… what a beauty of a synth…
Somehow I am attracted to all kind of Pad sounds and mysterious and creepy fields of sounds. I create those often.
I am new to the sampling department but I think you can make pretty weird sounds by using the sampling function in Program and combination mode. And use the slice function put over some Karma stuff, and sample it again with different FX and so on…
The best thing for me is that the Oasys is combining lots of different things at the same time. Put different ex instruments together with the HD-1 programs, wavesequences and samples, in a combi, and it just works. You like it, then record it in the Midi sequencer. Running out of tracks? Sample it or record it in the harddiskrecorder. You can achieve pretty complex things without loosing time and creativity.
blogasys: are there any things you would like to see in OASYS in the near future?
AG: I would like to see a major sequencer update, with at least the cue list , a higher resolution, easier way to select and copy and paste tracks and events. A Karma editor within the Oasys. I would love to be able to use the Karma output to manipulate all the scenes and sliders when I am in overdub mode. Since the red Karma I was hoping they fixed that one…
In the red Karma I was using the MOSS board. I miss the brass modeling sounds and VPM model. I hope to find those ones in future EX instruments. And of course totally new EX instruments with unique new sounds. And I hope in the future that Korg brings out new samples, combis, effects, Karma GEs and there is one more thing I would like to see, a way to fully edit a program in Combi and Sequence mode. But at the moment I think it stays to quite at Korg …. We´ll see what happens after the launch of the M3….
Wie Sie vielleicht gesehen haben, war dieser blog offline. Meine Beweggründe im Detail zu posten ginge zu weit, würde alte Wunden aufreißen, na ja und wäre wahrscheinlich ein weiteres Mal „zu dramatisch“ und somit keine Grundlage für ein „professional relationship“. Wobei… hm? Welches professionelle „Relationship“, sind Ankündigungen und Blabla alleine schon Teile eines solchen?
Warum ist dieser blog nun doch wieder online? Zum einen weil ich vom äußerst positiven Echo überrascht war und zum anderen eine Vielzahl an Besuchern zumindest die bestehenden Interviews gerne wieder hier sehen würden.
Leider hat sich beim Einspielen des Backups herausgestellt, dass die Umlaute sowie scharfes “s” und bestimmte Satzzeichen durch ein eigenwilliges, schwarz hinterlegtes Fragezeichen ersetzt wurden. Wenn es meine Zeit zulässt, werde ich die entsprechenden Texte in den kommenden Wochen korrigieren. Weiters fehlt Arend’s Interview, das in Bälde ebenfalls wieder online verfügbar sein wird.
Ich möchte nun aber die Gelegenheit nutzen um all denjenigen Usern zu danken, die mit Ihrer Bereitschaft für ein Interview zur Verfügung zu stehen, diesen blog unterstützt haben. Selbstredend bedanke ich mich auch bei Ihnen, den Besuchern. Wie es hier weitergehen wird, werden die nächsten Wochen und Monate zeigen. Die Webadresse bleibt gleich, der „Content“ wird vermutlich einen anderen Weg einschlagen, den ich offen gestanden derzeit selbst noch nicht kenne.
Als persönliches Resümee bleibt nicht zuletzt die Tatsache einige neue Leute kennen gelernt zu haben, mit deren Wegen sich „in vivo“ der meinige wohl kaum gekreuzt hätte. So sind Freundschaften und Kollaborationen entstanden… und das alleine war es wert. Persönlich hat mir dieser blog aber auch noch, weit banaler, etwas weiteres gebracht. Denn in 25 Jahren hatte sich bei mir als Korg User (MS-20, Mono/Poly, T-1, Prophecy, Z-1 und nun eben OASYS) ein gewisses Image dieser Firma gebildet von dem mittlerweile nicht viel übrig geblieben ist - eine durchaus wichtige Erfahrung.
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Golden Gate in front of San Francisco
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