KVR Audio

tconrardy · Post by **tconrardy** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 7:20 pm

Hi Guys

I was surprised that there is now an excellent review of Atomic on KvR

http://www.kvraudio.com/user_review/3208.html

Thanks glokraw !!!

If anyone else would like to contribute a review, that would be great!

Tim

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:59 am

tconrardy wrote:Hi Guys

I was surprised that there is now an excellent review of Atomic on KvR

http://www.kvraudio.com/user_review/3208.html

Thanks glokraw !!!

If anyone else would like to contribute a review, that would be great!

Tim

It's a wonderful instrument, with capabilities that inspire new thought patterns
and sonic experiments, and like all the AlgoMusic synths, has a surprising range of sounds, with an edge, patina, and character, that make for exciting music. In M42, I use a nice pan-flute soundfont, and Grand piano soundfont with a fat delay, to augment its synth sounds, and one of the great shimmering pads in M51, with a thumping ElectraBass keeping everything jumping. It's way too much fun. Now add in Atomic integrating hardware voices with simplicity, and I need to buy a nice quiet mixer.
Cheers

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:06 pm

I haven't played much with it yet due to conflicting priorities for projects I'm involved in, but I'm eager to have some time to start really using it.
I also have M42/M51 and very much want to integrate the three.
Any tips or ideas on that are welcome.
Thanks for developing these, Tim. I hope to do them justice.

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:19 pm

Musical Gym wrote:I haven't played much with it yet due to conflicting priorities for projects I'm involved in, but I'm eager to have some time to start really using it.
I also have M42/M51 and very much want to integrate the three.
Any tips or ideas on that are welcome.
Thanks for developing these, Tim. I hope to do them justice.

I usually start with 4 sounds, a tempo rythmic element, an underlying sweeping
pad, a counterpoint rythmic element in a different frequency than the first one, and then a lead/melody sound that stands out 'just enough'.

What I'm doing is conceiving a finished product, around 20 songs, the complete Algomusic collection has over 900 presets, so if I am dazzled by only 5% of them,
(edit: not the case, btw

)thats 45 awesome building blocks for just 20 songs, not counting soundfont import, not counting basic envelope/filter/fx edits that can make wonderful differences in short order. (Not to mention sounds from the evil competitors

)

I make a Reaper or Cantabile project file for each group of sounds that work well together, using their names or obvious abbreviations

orionTribal-DbrazelC-CaveQuent.rpp

may look like gibberish to the world, but I instantly
know the sounds, and what music it might work in, because of necessity, I must review my collection of 'keepers' quite often, lest they be overwritten in my skull by the 'next greatest thing'. I alternate capital letters in titles for clarity,
and a - between titles made with two words. There are 5 sounds in my
example, and I keep backing up the collection!

When I get a new synth, I go through the patches and write my favourites in a notebook, so weeks or even years later, if a light comes on

I can open a notebook and save huge time by focussing on what I already liked. I

hate

being organized, but I was left with 3 choices: two of them being

and

So I'm desparately clinging to the other one

Cheers

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:50 am

Sounds involved.
Thanks for sharing.
Hopefully I can glean some wisdom from what you've written.

emdot_ambient · Post by **emdot_ambient** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 4:21 am

I'm really loving it...this song just popped out in a night: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... highlight=

Granted, that's using one of the presets with no manipulation, but it sounded so much like my old JX-3P sequences that I had to use it.

Got another one coming using my own preset...a rather odd pattern: 16 steps with the arp on and triggering the sequencer with the rythm grid. It turned out to cycle through all 16 steps in 4 bars in 5/4 time. Didn't mean to do that, it just happened. That song's going to take a while to get done.

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 8:50 am

Musical Gym wrote:I haven't played much with it yet due to conflicting priorities for projects I'm involved in, but I'm eager to have some time to start really using it.
I also have M42/M51 and very much want to integrate the three.
Any tips or ideas on that are welcome.
Thanks for developing these, Tim. I hope to do them justice.

Here is a quick example. You should be able to mute any 2 of these,
and have the other two compliment each other, rather than having
muddy sounds, or conflicting rythms. When that is reasonably true,
music is easier to tolerate. If we can play notes at both far ends of
the keyboard, as well as a cluster in the middle, without cringing,
then the prospects are looking pretty good

First rythm M42 SEQ Utopia
Pad M51 PAD Quiet Galaxy
Second rythm M51 SEQ Cygnus Cloud
Lead M42 LED Sunflower

Cheers

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 9:41 am

Sounds good.
I'll keep the both ends of the keyboard and cluster in the middle concept in mind. I need to throw midi guitar into it also since I've been resurrecting that as of late.

tconrardy · Post by **tconrardy** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:49 pm

some nice comments here on Atomic usage

BUT

Would anybody else like to take a stab at a review? ( it does not hurt to ask!!)

Timothy Spaceman

bobsled · Post by **bobsled** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:58 pm

glokraw, you made me buy this thing.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Least I know what I'll be working with tonight, thanks to instant gratification AlgoMusic electronic delivery.

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 3:27 am

I'm happy to review it after I get to know it.

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 8:40 am

bobsled wrote:glokraw, you made me buy this thing.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Least I know what I'll be working with tonight, thanks to instant gratification AlgoMusic electronic delivery.

Now that you are assimilated, here is some fun:
Atomic will 'play' these fine free .sf2 drumkits:

http://search.techrepublic.com.com/sear ... house.html
(other formats for samplers, too!)

load one into SaFfron, Paax2 or Paax3, or other soundfont
player, then make a send or receive in your vsthost, and point
Atomic at the soundfont app, turn off the volume on Atomic, and turn on
the Atomic midi out port, completing the send or receive connection

Now when you press a key to play a sequence, Atomic will no doubt play the keys that have the different drums assigned to them. To avoid percussive chaos, shorten a sequence to 8 parts, muting every other beat, use <> as the playing order. A few syncopated 3-finger chords and runs later, and it won't take long to get some nice beats going, I love the Air Kit and Indastria Kit, and its pretty easy to locate where the best drum sounds are mapped, and use the semitone chart in the manual to construct a simple sequence, but one with great precision.

Now you can also control the notes the Atomic synth plays, so when you discover simple chords that often hit nice rythm combos, you just keep the semitone dials at
0, 12, 24 to start, then as you dial in a synth sound you like, add in other semi tones for major/minor influences.

Hope you enjoy the generous drums from pettinhouse, other formats too, if you are used to samplers, no reason Atomic can't play them too!
Cheers

PS: M42 and its demo also play soundfonts, load the default patch, turn off the top synth, go to the mixer, turn channel 2 and the mix dial below it up, but channel one turn off, go to the far left, and click the System button, and a soundfont loader dialogue will appear! Choose one, connect Atomic as desired, and then start adding M42 synth features back in!

tconrardy · Post by **tconrardy** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 4:57 pm

Thanks for the might fine tips glokraw! Now, I gotta try it!!

Tim

Musical Gym · Post by **Musical Gym** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 5:42 pm

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 7:36 pm

Musical Gym wrote:+2

@ Tim +Gym:

Ironically, with Air kit in a bare M42 as described above, set Atomic to the
'Step It Up' Sequence, and pressing most any key plays a slightly different funky beat right out of the box. It had me searching for my old Miles Davis wannabe sunglasses!

The M42 delay and panning controls can add to the fun
The Indastria kit sounds great with Step It Up also

Atomic review