Monthly Archives: June 2020

Mini review: Korg Module

Posted on by

Korg have extended their summer apps and software sale. Sale is on starting today (June 24) and ending Wednesday, July 15, 2020.

They finally got me with Korg Module Pro. The backstory…

I installed the free version of Module when I assembled the Korg NTS-1, hoping that it would unlock a few extra instruments in Module. For some reason, nothing unlocked and I gave up. I really wanted to assess the five built-in engines before springing for Module Pro.

Well, shucks, sight to the blind. Last week, I cast my gaze across the studio, coming to rest on the MicroKorg XL. Duh! Why didn’t I reach for the MicroKorg to begin with? After wiring up, the MicroKorg unlocked the electric piano, organ, clav, and string engines. Only one patch each, but certainly enough to get a good taste.

Needless to say, the five engines are pretty darned good. I sprang for Korg Module Pro and the Module Performance Expansion pack. The Module Performance Expansion pack adds more voices, MIDI CC learn and the ability to split and layer.

The ability to layer is very handy as I always find Korg’s acoustic instruments to be a little bit raw on their own. Sure, effects help to dress up the voices, but a soft pad adds warmth to strings and so forth. Orchestration 101.

MIDI CC learn is a bit of a necessity, I discovered. Unexpanded Module Pro responds to specific MIDI CC messages. For example, CC#100 controls organ rotary speaker speed, a rather essential element. To my chagrin, I discovered that the Yamaha MODX, which I am using as a controller, does not send CC message higher than CC#95! What the what? MIDI learn allows you to assign a controller to rotary speaker speed or other Module parameter of interest. [Check the update below for the correct solution!]

I connected the Yamaha MODX to the iPad via Apple Camera Connection Kit and an ancient IK Multimedia iRig 5-pin MIDI interface. Why 5-pin? That’s the other gotcha. I initially connected the MODX to the iPad via USB. Module receive the MIDI OK, but somehow the outgoing audio stream was lost with no signal at the 3.5mm headphone output. [See the update!]

I may look for a different audio/MIDI interface solution as I hate using the 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s not mechanically robust and it’s all too easy to get ear-itating scratchy audio. I don’t want to spend a lot of money and don’t want any solution involving powered hubs and such. I might give the Alesis Control Hub a try or maybe Korg’s own plugKEY. The Control Hub is a legacy product and availability is spotty. The plugKEY is a little more expansive, but is purpose-built for iPad software instruments and is Lightning-only. The Control Hub is USB-B class-compliant.

My only remaining nit is also one of my pet peeves. Software vendors should be forthcoming and specific about voices (patches) available at verious tiers. In the case of Kork Module, the free version has only one unlocked engine — acoustic piano and one patch:

    Acoustic Piano       Natural Grand

When the free version is connected to a Korg synth like the MicroKorg, you get five unlocked engines, one patch per engine:

    Acoustic Piano       Natural Grand
    Electric Piano       Natural Tine EP
    Organ                Simple Organ
    Clav                 Clav CA
    Strings/Choir        Strings

The engine beneath Strings/Choir is really a sample-playback engine and it’s not limited to strings!

Korg Module Pro unlocks many additional patches for the five engines:

    Acoustic Piano
         Natural Grand      Bright Grand
         Dark Grand         Heavy Touch Grand
         Light Touch Grand  Damper Reverb Grand
         Cinema Piano       Mono Attack
         Comp Piano         Upright Piano
         Radio Piano        Honky Tonk
         Flange Piano       Electric Grand
         Chorus E.Grand     AOR E.Grand
         Ac+El Piano        Pad Piano
         Spacy Piano        Strings Piano 1
         Strings Piano 2    Choir Piano
         Twinkle Piano      Stack Piano
     Electric Piano
         Natural Tine EP    Hard Tine EP
         Soft Tine EP       Tremolo EP
         Phaser EP          Chorus EP 
         Boomy Vibe EP      Auto Wah EP
         Deep Mod EP        Distortion EP
         Hybrid EP          Dark Sine EP
         Digital EP         Synthetic EP
         Pad Tine EP        Strings Tine EP
     Organ
         Simple Organ       Dark Organ
         Soul Organ         Jazz Organ
         Memphis Organ      Gospel Organ
         Clean Organ        Bright Organ
         Drive Organ 1      Drive Organ 2
         Full Organ 1       Full Organ 2
         Perc Organ 1       Perc Organ 2
         Perc Organ 3       Perc Organ 4
         Vox Organ 1        Vox Organ 2
     Clav
         Clav CA            Clav CB
         Clav DA            Clav DB
         Wah Clav           Phaser Clav
         Distortion Clav    Mute Clav
         Psychedelic Clav   Clav Guitar
     Sample-playback
         Strings            Slow Strings
         Strings Pad        Analog Strings
         Phase Strings      Flange Pad
         Choir Pad          Vocoder Pad
         Brass Ens          Octave Brass
         Funky Sfz Brass    Hybrid Brass
         Analog Brass       Soft Horn
         Warm Pad           Saw Pad
         Ambient Pad        Bell Pad
         Saw Wave           Chiptune Wave
         Synth Stab         Unison Synth
         Saw Synth          Soft Synth
         Rez Comp           Rez Square
         Synth Clav         Saw Pluck
         Square Pop         Detune Sine
         Digital Bell       Ring Bell

The electric piano is quite nice; the patches provide a wide range of Rhodes tone. The rotary organ patches cover a useful range, too, including a pair of VOX combo organ sounds. The clav is up-to-snuff and the patches cover the usual favorites. The sample-playback sounds are strong on ensemble voices, not so much lead tones or solo instruments.

The Module Performance Expansion pack rounds out the sample-playback sound set with guitars, bass, solo instruments, etc.

    Sample-playback
         Violin             Cello
         Pizzicato          Chamber Strings
         Strings Ensemble   Tremolo Strings
         Romantique Strings Synth Strings
         A Capella Pad      Bubble Choir
         Solo Trumpet       Band Brass
         Fanfare            Horn Ensemble
         Synth Horn         Solo Flute
         Vibrato Flute      Pan Flute
         Alto Saxophone     Tenor Saxophone
         Wind Ensemble      Chamber Orchestra
         Unison Stab        Mono Dark Lead
         Mono Synth Lead    Detune Saw Lead
         Octave Lead        Talking Lead
         Analog Piano       Synth Pad Piano
         Velocity Synth     Synth Pad
         Dark Pad           Snow Pad
         Aurora Pad         Artificial Effect
         Filter Motion      Air Organ
         Vibra-phone        Glockenspiel
         Celesta            Steel Drum
         Tubular Bell       Mysterious Bell
         Vibrato Glass Bell Bell Tower Pad
         Foggy Hills
         Ac. Guitar         Nylon Guitar
         Electric Guitar    Guitar Dist.
         Harp               Sitar
         Ac. Bass           Walking Jazz Bass
         Fretless Bass      Finger Bass
         Mute Pick Bass     Slap Bass
         Fat Pulse Bass     Filter Bass

All of these sounds can be used as layer elements, too. That’s a lot of detail, but it should give you a better sense of the product feature tiers.

Update

After spending more time with Korg Module Pro, I’m happy. The sounds are first rate without much filler or junk. Some of the sounds are inspiring.

Further experiments…

I connected the Yamaha SHS-500 keytar to Korg Module Pro over Bluetooth MIDI. Pairing was a breeze, I couldn’t discern any annoying latency at all. There are a few patches where I dialed up the effect level — par for the course. I can see the SHS-500 plus iPad/Module as a lightweight portable rig. Going wireless would be a real boon for the crazy small spaces that I play in.

I also gave MODX another shot as MIDI controller. Success! The digital audio stream is sent back to MODX on its USB class-compliant audio device. My initial mistake was a head-slapper. Pay attention to the MIDI and audio meters in Module’s upper left corner. At first, I saw MIDI activity and no outgoing audio level. Should have been a big clue. Check and set Module’s OUTPUT LEVEL knob and make sure it’s turned up. Doh!

I resolved the organ rotary speaker speed issue by reading the manual and noting the organ/damper pedal setting. Module receives CC#64 sustain. When the organ/damper pedal setting is “Rotary,” sustain toggles the rotary speaker speed — no MIDI CC learn is necessary.

That’s it! Korg Module Pro 50% off is money well spent.

Copyright © 2020 Paul J. Drongowski

COVID-19: Washington State June 24

Posted on by

Here is my COVD-19 update taking us through June 24, 2020. Data are taken from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and the University of Washington Virology Lab (UW). The DOH data are complete through June 16, 2020 and that is what is shown here. [Click images to enlarge.]

Washington State Positivity Rate (DOH, June 16, 2020)
Washington State Positivity Rate (UW, June 24, 2020)

We’re seeing a small uptick which is probably due to the BLM protests in Seattle (early June) and the worsening situation in Yakima County. My daily tracker indicates a roughly 5% positivity rate that is consistent with the charts above.

The recently announced NY/NJ/CT travel quarantine initially included Washington State. That really surprised me and sent me diving into the data. However, it appears that the NY/NJ/CT authorities reacted to a temporary “condition” in the data. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the DOH did a massive update recently, taking seriology tests out of the daily testing statistics. I took a numerical tour of the hottest states recently and was appalled at the inconsistency and shortcomings in reporting. (CDC? Hello? Anybody home?) Confusion is somewhat understandable.

Please mask up — P.J. Drongowski

What did you do in self-isolation?

Posted on by

Yes, this site still does music! 🙂

Several weeks ago, I decided to record the church tunes that I enjoy playing. It’s best to start with favorites, as most of you know how you come to detest a track after playing it over, and over, and over again during production. Energy quickly dissipates when micro-editing MIDI events or digital audio…

Before getting into production notes, here are links to the final tracks (all MP3). The goal was to crank out a new tune each week and send it to the folks in our music ministry. Some tunes are a little more polished than others. Please consider them “demo quality.”

Without going too far into the technical weeds, the primary sound source is Yamaha Genos™ and the primary vocalist is my spouse Fran. With the Mill Creek Chorale on hiatus — aren’t we all? — I was happy that she could contribute and have fun, too.

Production notes

So, how did all of this go down?

These demoes show off the Yamaha Genos as a sound source and production tool. I had two main subgoals:

  1. Learn how to record a demo with Genos in either audio or MIDI format.
  2. Learn how to mix down with Steinberg Cubase Artist and try out a few of the freebie plug-ins that I’ve collected.

By and large, Genos and Cubase were the main production tools although I back-slid into SONAR on a few occasions for MIDI editing. Old habits die hard. Workflow was not strictly linear from Genos to Cubase. In a few cases. MIDI and/or audio (stereo 16-bit 44,100 WAV) were slung back and forth between tools.

Yamaha Genos

Genos is the sound source with one big exception: drawbar organ. When you hear B-3, you’re hearing Yamaha MODX through an Electro-Harmonix Lester K. I wanted to hear Lester K in musical context. It sits in a song pretty well and has more guts than the Yamaha MODX Leslie simulator. By itself, though, Lester K has some high-end swirliness in the upper drawbars, but in a track, it seems to mesh. You be the judge.

Emphasis was on speed. Get the tracks down quickly and finish a song each week ASAP. The Beatles used to call this recording “on heat.” Even so, it’s amazing how modern technology will drag you into the dank chasm of production minutiae. Don’t you just love hearing the same three measures fifty times while tweaking and tweezing. Not.

All vocals were recorded directly to Genos using its microphone input. Full backing and raw vocal tracks were exported to Cubase via WAV. Everything was processed and mixed in Cubase. The final mix was exported from Cubase as WAV, and then trimmed and converted to MP3 using Sound Forge Audio Studio.

Our God Is Here This was the first demo in the series and the process doesn’t get any simpler than this. All was recorded into Genos Audio Multi Recording. Find a beat, turn it on, lay down the organ part. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan for the ending, which is quite ragged. The organ is Genos in this case (not MODX). Kinda plain, huh? The bass is an overdub.

Audio Multi Recording is a nicely done sound-on-sound recorder a la Les Paul, minus tape hiss. There are two stereo tracks: main and sub. You can record directly to either main or sub, and bounce (sub+main) to main. There are options for punch in and overdub. Audio Multi Recording provides WAV import and export, functionality which eventually got a true work-out.

Audio Multi Recording keeps digital audio in a persistent project. A project resides in the internal Genos 60GB user solid-state drive and is always ready. The project remembers audio and mix settings without requiring explicit save and load user operations. That makes for a clean workflow. Export is the way to get digital audio into a WAV file and it mixes the main and sub on the way to WAV. In order to export a solo vocal track from sub, one needs to dial down the main and then wait while Genos writes the WAV file in real time. I wish there was a simple, direct fast export to WAV supporting both main to WAV and sub to WAV.

In The Day Of The Lord I quickly realized that I do need to think ahead and assemble a basic skeleton on which I could build a tune. (Duh!) In this case, Toontrack EZDrummer provided the drum patterns which I pulled together in Cubase. Genos played the MIDI drum track while I recorded the flute as a melodic guide and layered in the bass and organ — all recorded as audio. We then did a few vocal takes to Genos. I transferred all of the Genos audio as WAV into Cubase for the final mix. Vocal processing typically was light: a little pitch correction, EQ, and maybe double tracking. A touch of reverb (Cubase Revelation) blends everything together here.

Stop By, Lord This tune makes use of the Genos rhythm accompaniment consisting of main patterns and one-bar fills. I recorded a basic guide track in MIDI using the “BigBandBallad” style as the drummer. This meant switching the main and fill patterns with my left hand while playing the melody with my right hand. I layered in the piano, bass and horns, discarding the guide melody along the way. I added the B-3 organ (MODX through Lester K) in an audio pass. Everything was recorded and produced on Genos since we didn’t record vocals.

Psalm 95 If Today “If Today” makes full use of the Genos arranger features. I played the basic accompaniment track using the “Sunny Reggae” style. Whoever built that style, it must have been a labor of love and it fits this song quite well. I vocoded my voice. Both the accompaniment and vocal tracks where exported to Cubase for final assembly and mix down. I had a lot of fun adding dub effects and tons of reverb, Long live King Tubby!

Rise Up With Him “Rise Up” was recorded to MIDI, again using the Genos rhythm accompaniment as the drummer. The electric piano went down first followed by the bass. The B-3 organ is MODX through Lester K. Backing and vocal audio were exported to Cubase for final mix down. Overall, a pretty simple demo to pull together.

O Sacred Head I recorded the MIDI for this tune a long time ago — in the early 2000s on a Roland XP-60. The guitar picking was carefully edited and assembled (years ago!) from Twiddly Bits. I imported the XP-60 MIDI into Cakewalk, choosing Genos voices and effects. The Genos result versus the original XP-60 is amazing. Fran encouraged me to leave it as an instrumental.

This Is The Day This psalm is long out-of-print. A few years agao, I transfered a scruffy copy of the piano score into Sibelius. So, to kickstart this tune, I exported MIDI from Sibelius, restructured the sections, and humanized the piano as much as possible. I tried to keep the accompaniment simple adding just bass and horns. Once again, the backing and vocal tracks were mixed in Cubase. This demo is a good example of Arturia’s Plate-140 reverb — a freebie that Arturia gave away during the Christmas holiday. I love it.

Lead Me, Lord Another simple turn-on-the-beat-box, sound-on-sound production. Everything was recorded to Genos with the backing and vocal tracks exported to Cubase. (Another example of Plate-140, BTW.) The vocal harmony was generated by a TC Helicon Play Electric added in real time. Recording and production was dirt simple although it took a while to get the TC Helicon configured.

Alleluia! Love Is Alive This was the penultimate demo in the series. The basic track is a stripped down Genos “6-8PopBallad” style. Yamaha tends to over-orchestrate styles, so I kept drum, bass and guitars, tossing the rest. Instead of playing the basic track, I created the accompaniment using chord step-record. This MIDI Multi Recording feature lets a musician enter chords and sections from a lead sheet, quickly creating the song skeleton. You can even try different styles if you haven’t chosen one already. Once the skeleton is set, you expand the chord track into MIDI events, thereby obtaining the full backing track in a Standard MIDI File (SMF).

I added the Celtic violin by playing it into a free MIDI track. Using Sonar, I tweaked the tempo in the full MIDI song in order to add energy as the song progressively builds to the end. Finally, with the MIDI finished, I froze the backing tracking to WAV audio. The backing and vocal tracks were mixed down in Cubase with a little automation here and there to add vocal depth and double tracking.

Conclusions?

The preceding discussion is already a lot to absorb and to process. I’ll take a step back in a future post and try to summarize. All the best to ya.

Copyright © 2020 Paul J. Drongowski

COVID-19: Washington June 6

Posted on by

Here is my latest update for the COVID-19 positivity rate in Washington State. The Department of Health (DOH) data are relatively complete through June 6, 2020 and the University of Washington Virology Lab (UW) data are complete through June 14. [Click images to enlarge.]

Washington State daily positivity rate (DOH, June 6, 2020)
Washington State daily positivity rate (UW, June 14, 2020)

The DOH rate was roughly 5% at the beginning of June. The UW rate is slightly lower, around 3%. The UW rate and my daily tracker do not indicate a rise due to the recent protests in Seattle (King County). I hope the rate remains low or declines further.

Washington State has added considerable test capacity in recent days. During most of May, the State performed about 4,000 to 5,000 tests per day. Now, the State is performing about 10,000 tests per day. The UW dashboard shows a big increase in their test capacity.

Although the situation in King and Snohomish Counties has improved, a few counties in eastern Washington — most notably, Yakima County — are deteriorating.

Mobility

INRIX is a traffic management company which bases its analysis on road sensors and vehicle data. As a public service, INRIX posts an analysis for nationwide vehicle travel data to assist the COVID-19 fight. I recommend visiting the INRIX COVID-19 pages. You will find several informative tables like the one below, plus a national heat map depicting the change in travel at a few snapshot dates (April 11, May 24, May 29).

Traffic volume hit a lull in early April and has been steadily increasing in many parts of the United States. Travel is still lower in certain urban centers, especially those which were hardest hit by COVID-19. Rural travel has come roaring back.

INRIX has heat maps for key urban centers. So, if you want to see how your city is doing, be sure to visit their pages. The Seattle area heat map shows higher traffic, which is consistent with my personal (anecdotal) observations.

Stay healthy — P.J. Drongowski

COVID-19: Washington State May 26

Posted on by

The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and the University of Washington Virology Laboratory have done some data cleaning in recent weeks. I decided to bite the bullet and import the latest data from both sites. I also updated my spreadsheet — changes that were long overdue. [Click images to enlarge.]

Washington State Daily Positivity Rate (DOH, May 26, 2020)

The DOH positivity has taken a definite upswing during the last week. Folks are getting antsy and highway traffic is noticeably heavier. The morning traffic report is back to yellow and red trouble spots on the local highways. Mobility has definitely increased as we will probably see in the next report from the Institute for Disease Modeling.

It will be 10 to 14 days before we see the effect of protests in the Seattle area. Large gatherings of people are definitely spreader events.

Washington State Daily Positivity Rate (UW, June 3, 2020)

The data from UW had a localized bump. This may be the result of contact tracing within a cluster. I wish the UW site was a little more informative, but interpretation is really DOH’s job.

I still see and hear local media reporting observations like “The number of cases dropped dramatically yesterday.” Raw case counts are relatively meaningless unless the number of tests are taken into account. That’s why I’m tracking the daily positivity rate — the percentage of positive test results for each day.

Here’s an example to show what I mean. Testing (and reporting) dips over the weekend. The number of weekend (Saturday and Sunday) tests is typically less than half of weekday tests. Here are the mostly values reported in the media

               Cumulative                  Daily
       --------------------------   ----------------------
Date   Positive  Negative   Tests   Positive  Tests  Rate
-----  --------  --------  ------   --------  -----  -----
Jun 1     22157    346642  368799        180   3527  5.10%
Jun 2     22484    354843  377327        327   8528  3.83%

The first three columns are the cumulative metrics published by DOH. The last three columns are the number of positive tests, tests performed and positivity rate for each day. The date is the reporting date, so June 1 (Monday) covers the preceding Sunday.

Please note how fewer tests are performed on Sunday than Monday. Sure, the number of raw positive cases on Sunday is dramatically lower Monday. However, the positivity rate is higher for Sunday is actually higher. Yep, the local news station was touting the Sunday number! This is fundamental numeracy, people.

Please stay healthy — P.J. Drongowski