Author Archives: ce

Updating the firmware of a Korg prologue

As with the minilogue xd, the prologue updater tool asks to consult the user manual for details how to boot the synth into update mode. Unfortunately, neither the german nor the english manual contain the information required. It’s simple. Just hold the buttons six and eight while powering the synth on and wait until the display reads as “Version Up Mode”. Just upgraded mine from 2.0 to 2.1.

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Korg prologue and minilogue xd – Using liked programs aka favorites

Both synths provide a favorite system. Unfortunately they work differently and are hard to remember in case you only use them every now and then. So here’s a quick reference.

minilogue xd

You can register up to 16 favorites using the panel buttons:

  • Select the program you want to register.
  • Hold the Shift button.
  • Press the button which you’d like to serve as a shortcut to this program for about a second or so.

To recall:

  • Hold the Shift button.
  • Briefly press the button which represents the desired program.

prologue

To “like” or “unlike” a program:

  • Select the program you want to “like”.
  • Press button 4 for about a second or so.

To scroll through liked programs:

  • Ensure button 4 is lit.
  • Turn the Program/Value dial.

To scroll through programs by category:

  • Press button 2 multiple times to select the desired category.
  • Turn the Program/Value dial to scroll through the programs of the selected category.

To return to “normal” scrolling behaviour by program number:

  • Press button 1.
  • Turn the Program/Value dial to scroll through the programs one by one.
  • Press button 1 multiple times to jump forward by 50 program numbers.

The prologue provides further sorting modes and a live set feature. See page 12 of its user manual for details.

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OB-Xd preset location

The OB-Xd, provided by George Reales via discoDSP (and source on GitHub), is an excellent virtual analogue synthesizer emulation. It is not only available as a plugin for several DAWs, but also as a standalone app.

VSTs store individual presets as FXP files, or collections (aka banks) of them as FXB files.

In case you have downloaded an FXB file and want to install it for use in the stand alone app on a Mac, simply place the FXB in
/Users/YourUserName/Documents/discoDSP/OB-Xd/Banks/

Roland Lopes an der Dubois-Orgel in Wissembourg

SAMSUNG CSC

Wie Christian Robischon letzte Woche war heute auch Roland Lopes bereits zum dritten Male in Weißenburg zu hören. Auf ihn freue ich mich jedesmal besonders. Das liegt an an der Auswahl der Stücke, seiner Registrierung, seiner Spielweise und auch daran, dass er gerne Transkriptionen von Werken mitbringt, die man nicht so oft an der Orgel hört. Hatte er am 5. August 2012 und am 30. Juli 2017 noch Transkriptionen von Jean-Babtiste Lully im Gepäck, so gab es heute eine Traskription von Johann-Sebastian Bach und einige von Jean-Philippe Rameau, der nach Lully als der nächste bedeutende französische Barockkomponist gelten darf. Das Programm:

  • Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Fantaisie en sol mineur (BWV 542)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Ouverture (Indes galantes)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Menuets (Indes galantes)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Musette en Quatuor (Platée)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Menuets en trio et en duo (Zoroastre)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Entrée (Boréades)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) – Passacaille (Hippolyte & Aricie)
  • Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Largo de la 3ème sonate pour violon (BWV 1005)
  • Denis Bédard (*1950) – Suite du 1er ton (1993) – Plein Jeu
  • Denis Bédard (*1950) – Suite du 1er ton (1993) – Dialogue
  • Denis Bédard (*1950) – Suite du 1er ton (1993) – Récit
  • Denis Bédard (*1950) – Suite du 1er ton (1993) – Grand Jeu

Christian Robischon an der Dubois-Orgel in Wissembourg

SAMSUNG CSC

Coronabedingt habe ich heuer die beiden ersten Konzerte (Hans-Eugen Ekert am 2020-08-02 und Michel Bouvard & Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard am 2020-08-09) der Vésperales verpasst. Umso mehr habe ich mich darüber gefreut, wie Christian Robischon, der schon am 30. August 2015 und am 26. August 2018 zu hören war, erneut das Potential des Instrumentes zur Geltung brachte. Das Programm:

  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Prélude
  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Tierce en taille
  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Duo
  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Basse de trompette
  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Trio de flûtes
  • Jean Adam Guilain (ca. 1680-1739) – Suite du second ton pour le Magnificat (1706) – Dialogue
  • Jacques Thomelin (ca. 1635–1693) – Fugue sur «Ave Maria Stella» I
  • Jacques Thomelin (ca. 1635–1693) – Fugue sur «Ave Maria Stella» II
  • Jacques Boyvin (1649-1706) – Extraits de la suite du Sème ton – Prélude
  • Jacques Boyvin (1649-1706) – Extraits de la suite du Sème ton – Basse de trompette et dessous de cornet
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni I
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni II
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni III
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni IV
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni V
  • Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) – Magnifikat 6 toni VI
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Extrait du Kyrie de la Messe – Cromorne en taille à 2 parties
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Hymne Veni Creator – Plein Jeu
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Hymne Veni Creator – Fugue à 5
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Hymne Veni Creator – Duo
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Hymne Veni Creator – Récit
  • Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) – Hymne Veni Creator – Dialogue sur les Grands Jeux
  • Michel Corrette (1707-1795) – Final du Magnificat en la majeur

Korg Wavedrum live – Hiromi, Jackson, Smith

Percussionists like the Wavedrum due to its dynamics. Accidentally I stumbled upon a recording of Hiromi’s Trio project, where Steve Smith uses it in a pièce.

The energy the three musicians put into their music is incredible, as is their choreography.

Zynthian, the fun synthesizer

Of course I bought the V4 kit immediately, despite it’s more a project for the cold and dark season.

It took the whole eve yesterday to assemble the hardware, despite the fact I luckily had all the tools required available. Unfortunately it didn’t boot. Though the LEDs on the Raspberry PI and the soundcard lit during startup, the screen just left blank. Today I tried the following:

  • Try a new and more powerful power supply, just in case it was to weak to power all the hardware and the screen (as it happened with another Raspberry PI ages ago). This didn’t solve the issue.
  • Recheck the wireing inside the box. Everything appeared to be fine. Reconnecting the cables didn’t solve the issue.
  • Recheck the firmware image used. Heureka. I used »2020-07-27-zynthianos-buster-lite-armhf-1.0.0.zip«, despite the fact the page clearly states that releases labeled as “RC” should be more stable. I downloaded »2020-05-27-zynthianos-buster-lite-1.0.0-RC2.zip«, flashed it using Etcher and the device did start up immediately.

I connected a MIDI keybed and started Aeolus, a pipe organ emulation, on the device. Everything just worked “out of the box”. Phantastic.

I’ll check wether everything works as expected during the next couple of days. For now, I’m extremely content, thanks to the great work of all the people involved.

Zynthian Update – Raspberry Pi 4

Ages ago I was part of the Linux Audio community, but eventually I was bored by all the fiddling around and left Linux alone. Well, not exactly. For the kids of a relative, I configured a Raspberry Pi with a USB breakout box to use it as a pipe organ emulator. But some time later, they did the same I did – they bought a hardware pipe organ emulation. And I’m still extremely content with the instrument.

The advent of the Raspberry Pi 4, however, again makes the platform interesting for audio processing. And Zynthian, an open source project, upgraded to it. The v4 kit is available for 325 €. Before diving into it, I recommend an amazona.de article for v3 as well as the Zynthian wiki.

Should I buy one of those tempting gadgets? Well, probably :) .

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Corrente Italiana

This Courante, a popular dance during the baroque era, is attributed to Juan Cabanilles (1644-1712). One aspect of performing it is that one can use several registrations for the various parts. There are several recordings, of which I found the following outstanding.

  • Bartomeu Manresa performs on a mallorcan instrument. I love his registration, especially the soft ranks chosen for the second part.
  • Jan Willem Jansen also has chosen a soft registration for the second part.
  • The recording with Michal Jung allows to grab some hints for fingering.
  • Nathan Laube performs on a more modern instrument and plays the piece extremely fluent and with carefully chosen registrations.

Scores are available via the International Music Score Library Project, IMSLP.

John Bowen Solaris – Preset Bank 8

About 5 years ago I explored the synthesis capabilities of the Solaris by creating several sounds for it. Every now and then, I posted the presets at the user forum. Eventually John included them in the OS as factory preset bank 8. Frankly, I still feel honoured :) .

In case you own one of the later Solaris’, you should have the sounds on board already (Bank 8 program 0 should read as »Softy«). If you don’t, here’s the files I sent to John on Feb 15, 2015.

Solaris Bank 8 – Christoph Eckert – 2015-02-15

Expressive E – Osmose

Korg Z1 controllers

Korg Z1 controllers

The (in)famous lever of a Roland A-50 MIDI Keyboard Controller

The (in)famous lever of a Roland A-50 MIDI Keyboard Controller

Korg Kronos ribbon controller and joystick

Korg Kronos ribbon controller and joystick

Anders als Gitarristen hat man als Keyboarder keinen direkten Einfluss auf die Tonhöhe. Dafür finden sich an Synthesizern üblicherweise Spielhilfen, um Vibrato und Tonhöhenbeugungen vornehmen zu können. Mit den klassischen Rädern bin ich nie richtig warm geworden. Glücklicherweise verfügte mein langjähriges Masterkeyboard (Roland A50) über den Rolandtypischen Jammerhaken. Für Korg ist der Joystick typisch. Die Systhesizer verfügen zudem meist über Aftertouch. Nach dem Anschlag einer Taste kann man durch “Nachdrücken” klangliche Parameter steuern. Die genannten Spielhilfen (außer dem selten zu findenden polyphonen Aftertouch) beeinflussen alle gespielten Töne gleichzeitig. Expressives Spiel einzelner Töne lässt sich damit nicht erreichen. Für die separaten Controller muss man allerdings ohnehin eine Hand von der Tastatur nehmen.

Mit großem Interesse verfolge ich die letzten Jahre Geräte wie beispielsweise von Haken Audio (Continuum Fingerboard und Continuu Mini) oder die Seaboards von Roli.

Expressive E rührt derzeit mittels eines Prototypen die Werbetrommel für ihren neuen, äußerst expressiv spielbaren Synthesizer Osmose. Unter anderen findet sich auch ein Video mit Jordan Rudess. Auch Engadget hat ein Video veröffentlicht. Zum Einsatz kommt hierbei MIDI polyphonic expression (MPE), die einerseits von den Bedienelementen erzeugt und andererseits von der Klangerzeugung auch verarbeitet werden können muss. Dazu passend kommt im Osmose Physical Modeling zum Einsatz.

In den Videos kommt das natürlich toll ‘rüber. Allerdings ist mir klar, dass ich als unterdurchschnittlicher Hobbymusiker sehr lange üben müsste, um vergleichbares aus einem solchen Instrument zu holen. Der “Sofort-Kaufen”-Impuls blieb daher bisher aus. Ich will ja auch morgen noch was auszuprobieren haben :) .

Approaching baroque spanish organ music

Until now, I struggled to get access to baroque spanish organ music. The recrodings I listened to gave me little clue about the spirit of that era.

This very eve I accidentally stumbled upon a recording of the Tiento XXIII por A la mi re (part II, part III, part IV) by Juan Cabanilles (1644-1712) as shared by Olivier Thuault. Jan Willem Jansen also perfomed the piece. Another recording shows Francis Chapelet acting at the console.

Suddenly, I get the link to the Fantasia in e minor by Abraham van den Kerckhoven I’m still struggling with. This work is totally different to his other works I’ve noticed so far, since it is reminiscent of spanish organ music.

A couple of things are special to spanish organs and the music written for those instruments:

  • The instruments often lack a pedal board, and so does the music. As a consequence, the left hand has to do a lot more work.
  • The instruments often just provide one keybed. As a consequence, the ranks are split to two stops, one for the bass portion and one for the discant portion. This way, the left hand can do the accompaniment, while the right hand can play a solo voice, all using one single keybed.
  • A further thing spanish organs often provide is a chamade, reed pipes protruding outwards.

I’m glad I found the recording of Olivier Thuault, since it will help me to fine tune my interpretation of Kerckhoven’s fantasia.

Die restaurierte Wilhelm-Orgel in Kaufungen

Am Sonntag hatten wir in der Kaufunger Stiftskirche die Gelegenheit, der Wiederinbetriebnahme des Instrumentes von Georg Peter Wilhelm (1733-1806) beizuwohnen. Das Instrument ist insofern interessant, da die Erbauung in die Übergangszeit vom Barock zur Klassik fällt. Die Disposition weist noch barocke Züge auf, die Intonation empfand ich allerdings als deutlich obertonärmer als ich es von barocken Instrumenten gewohnt bin. Die Posaune im Pedal ist wahrscheinlich die zurückhaltendste, die ich jemals gehört habe.

Nach Gottesdienst und Besichtigungsmöglichkeit spielte am Abend Gerhard Weinberger ein Konzert. Mit den wiederholt hängenbleibenden Tasten kam er genauso souverän zurecht wie mit der umfangreichen Literatur. Hier das Programm:

  1. Georg Muffat (1653-1704) – Toccata tertia
  2. Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780) – Fantasia a gusto italiano
  3. Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780) – Fantasia sopra »Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele«
  4. Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780) – Präludium und Fuge C-Dur
  5. Ernst Ludwig Gerber (1746-1780) – Drei Choraltrios über »Liebster Jesu, wie sind hier«
  6. Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) – Drei Variationen D-Dur
  7. Johann Carl Friedrich Rellstab (1759-1813) – Sonata D-Dur – Allegro pomposo – Andantino – Allegro è Grave
  8. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Pièce d’Orgue (BWV 572)
  9. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – »Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn«
  10. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – »Aus der Tiefe rufe ich« (BWV 745)
  11. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – »Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten« (BWV 691a)
  12. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Passacaglia und Fuge c-Moll (BWV 582)
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Setting up Korg’s logue SDK

At least during the last decade, Korg became a company which constantly generates “Products that customers love™”. From Legacy collection over Kronos to Minilogue, further to the famous Prologue and finally the Minilogue xd, Korg keeps the market busy.

The recent Minilogue xd borrows an outstanding feature from the Prologues. Users can write their very own custom oscillators and effets. To accomplish that, Korg provides the logue SDK via Github.

It is provided “as is”, with no further support, and is not easy to setup. Fortunately Grischa Ekart provides a couple of tutorial videos, the very first one sharing the essentials to get the SDK up and running. From his video, I’ve extracted the crucial steps:

  • Create a folder where you want to place your SDK. Open a terminal window there.
  • git clone https://github.com/korginc/logue-sdk.git
  • cd logue-sdk/
  • git submodule update –init
  • cd tools
  • cd gcc
  • ./get_gcc_osx.sh

I got an error message, which did not harm the further process at the moment:
./get_gcc_osx.sh: line 92: popd: directory stack empty

  • cd ..
  • cd logue-cli
  • ./get_logue_cli_osx.sh

I got two error messages, which did not harn the further process at the moment:

./get_logue_cli_osx.sh: line 35: pushd: /Users/ce/Development/Korg: No such file or directory
./get_logue_cli_osx.sh: line 98: popd: directory stack empty

  • cd ./logue-cli-osx-0.07-2b/
  • ./logue-cli
    • The logue-cli is not necessarily required, since one can transfer the files to the minilogue xd via the graphical librarian.

  • cd ..
  • cd ..
  • cd ..
  • cd platform
  • cd minilogue-xd
  • cd demos
  • cd waves
  • make
  • ls waves.waves.mnlgxdunit

The resulting file waves.mnlgxdunit is a Zip-archive. In my case, the Minilogue xd did not accept this file:

I fixed this by lowering the API version in manifest.json:

  • Change “api” : “1.1-0” to “api” : “1.0-0”
  • Save and close
  • make

Now the file is accepted by the Minilogue xd and works as expected :) .

Thanks a whole bunch to Grischa Ekart for figuring the necessary steps out.