Korg Forums

[Lexicolatry]

Good evening all ...

Newbie question here.

Are there any electronica musicians here that use the Kronos 2?

If so, what do you use for the drum patterns?

I'm just getting used to my Kronos having swtiched over from Yamaha, and it's an overwhelming change. I love the machine, but I'm finding drums frustrating. I'd love to learn how everyone else does it.

Cheers,

Eddie

[marc1]

It certainly depends on what kind of electronica you mean. Do you mean a specific genre like dubstep, house or EDM in general?
The stock dance drums are ok, I think, albeit a little dated in some areas imho (maybe). But if you're not happy with them, I can recommend the EDM drums sound library, especially the preprogrammed patterns in sequencer mode.

[Lexicolatry]

Hi Marc.

Thanks for the reply. I write EDM generally, covering different genres. The biggest problem I have with the onboard rhythms is that they're just a straight rhythm - so no fills, intros, breaks, etc.

Sorry for the nooby questions, but is the EDM sound library purchased from the Korg website?

[marc1]

The EDM drums are the exs 14 library in the web shop. You could download the demo version and see if they suit your needs. I seem to recall that the trap drum kit has those typical 808 or 909 hi hat fills. Anyway, you should try them out.

[SanderXpander]

I do my EDM drums with Maschine, Sonar and Ableton on the computer.

[Lexicolatry]

Do you do your drums externally and then put them into the Kronos, Sander?

Do you know of anyone that purely does their drums within the Kronos?
(when I bought the keyboard, I was specifically told that this could be done - it was a selling point!)

I'm not unhappy with the drums or drum sounds - it's just that they run straight through on a single loop for every track and I can't (or can't find a way to) control fills, breaks, etc.

[SanderXpander]

No, sorry if I implied that. I would never do EDM drums on any workstation but that's mostly because I'm more comfortable with the comprehensive toolset of a computer DAW.

[QuiRobinez]

there are several solutions:

1: just add your own drum samples to the kronos, as long as you set them up accordingly the layout of the existing drumsets you can easely add your own drum sounds to the kronos and let it work with the Drum tracks. For instance adding multiple 909 drum sets (with multiple kicks) makes a huge difference to the drum sounds of the kronos. The existing 909 and 808 sets are a little bit weak compared to today standards, but it's really easy to change this way.

2: do your drums with a DAW, it's very easy to do the complete drum programming in your daw and change those patterns at will (for instance in ableton live). You can sync the daw to your kronos, so especially when you have an extra midi controller (like the nanopad or push) you can change your DAW patterns at will when performing with the kronos

3: add an extra hardware drummachine to the kronos, for instance i have added the Roland TR-8 to the kronos in my setup, you can sync it to the kronos and you have full control over your drum patterns and sounds in realtime on the TR-8

4: use KARMA GE's for the drum patterns, if you want to change your drum patterns then you can use a KARMA drum GE for that which has 8 scenes where you can add variations of your drum pattern

5: Split up the drum sound on several channels in a combi, i have the Drumkick in a keyzone on timbre 9, the high hats on timbre 11 and the rest of the drums on timbre 10. Whenever i need to mute the kick, i just mute timbre 9 and there you go. Same applies to the high hats and the rest of the drums. Gives you more performance possibilities this way

6: add your own drum midi patterns, you can import a drum midi pattern and convert that to a drum track.

7: you can use 4 KARMA GE's plus the drumtrack for your song. That way you have a lot of different kind of drum patterns available (or variations) when you play the song.

8: add an ipad with drumloops (like for instance the new garageband live loops feature. Then you have a screen full of drumloops (which you could prepare upfront) and you can activate any drumloop whenever you need it.


These are just a few possibilities you can investigate, of course there are a lot more, but it all depends on how you want to use it and what's convenient for you.

[Lexicolatry]

Many thanks everyone!

And especially QuiRobinez ... you have given me hope that I can get around this.

To be honest, I was quite despondent and starting to think I'd made a very expensive mistake : o / Anyway, your post at least reassures me that I can get around this problem. I have printed out your reply and will work through them when I have to see which one works best.

Cheers : o )

[QuiRobinez]