Music: "Sunrise" on Korg EMX

YouTube via AlchemistShaman.

"http://Alchemy-Illuminated.com

This is a meditative trance song I made on the Korg Electribe MX. The video is extremely boring, but I'll be updating it later. The song could use a little more work, but I always get bored and move on to the next one.

I uploaded the wrong version of this song to my website, and I lost the original when my hard drive crashed, but now I found it again hiding on my website server, so now you can download it for free, and it sounds much better in full quality because the sounds move from one ear to the other:

http://Alchemy-Illuminated.com/Docume...

All of the sound effects are diminished since YouTube reformats the video to have mono sound instead of left and right stereo, and I uploaded this video before I knew how to bypass that and keep high quality stereo.

And for those people who don't know -- the EMX is a synthesizer and every note and sound you hear in this video had to be made and recorded by me. None of these are presets or samples -- the video only shows me turning on the drum parts and the phrases, but before hand I had to actually play the music on the EMX and record it and program the drum parts. So it takes a lot of work and talent. All you people who play the keyboard synthesizers and say we EMX mixers ain't making music are wrong! We make music just like you do, but it's even more complicated! And even though the EMX allows you to load pre-made MIDI maps, most of us don't cheat and we play our own music and make our own MIDI maps from scratch.

99% of the electronic/techno music you hear these days is most likely made from preset MIDI maps, and the "musician" or Dj is basically a *fake*.

I'll have a tutorial video posted eventually which shows how to make a song from scratch for people who just bought the EMX. That will show you how complex programming this box actually is. But it does become very easy once you get accustomed to the controls, and very addictive. Yet there are so many ways to shape the sounds of the instruments, I tend to get lost for hours just playing around with the enormous universe of sounds.

Download the manual for the EMX to see everything it can do:

http://alchemy-illuminated.com/Docume..."

Music: "Elixir" on Korg EMX


"Another trance/meditative song I made on the Korg EMX.

You can download it at my website (sounds much better)
http://Alchemy-Illuminated.com

And you can download the free book on making the elixir:
http://alchemy-illuminated.com/docume..."

song "Elixir" - breakdown of instruments used


"I made this video in response to all the people who have a Korg EMX, and were wondering how I made this song without using anything but the EMX (no external instruments or computer software synths).

The video shows me turning on each instrument, and then I show the screen on the EMX so you can see exactly which instrument it is. I didn't show which effects I applied to the instruments, or how I played the tune to make the pattern for each one, because that would have taken way too long.

Basically this video just breaks the song down into it's parts, so you can better understand how each instrument sounds without all the others running at the same time. A lot of the instruments have a reverb effect applied, especially the drum parts. And I changed the pitch on most of the drum parts to make them sound much different then they do by default.

You may notice at the beginning of the video when I'm trying to show the names of the different instruments used in the synth parts section, I don't change the selection properly so the first 3 instruments have the same name. But later on as I go through all the synth parts again, you can see what each one is named and which number it is on the EMX.

And for those people who have never used an EMX synthesizer, I must stress that none of these patterns are presets. So each time you see me select an instrument part and you hear it playing by itself, that isn't a preset pattern. I had to first adjust the sound of the instrument to make it a completely new instrument, then play the music on the keyboard to make the pattern itself, then adjust the way the notes sound as the pattern progresses. When I eventually have a tutorial video showing a song from start to finish you will be able to fully appreciate the amount of programming that goes into making a single song on the EMX. And at first it's very bewildering and you think it will be impossible to remember how to do all the steps it takes just to make one pattern, but after using it for a while, you remember everything and can quickly move through the process of creating a song with ease.

When you complete a song using this synthesizer, it's very satisfying because you made it 100% from scratch. Most of the dance/electronica music you hear on the radio or TV is made using preset patterns, pre-made samples, and pre-made MIDI maps for the instruments and all the "artist" does is select which patterns and melodies he likes for his song, and some of them don't even play the keyboard at all; they just put together pieces of someone else's work, and then call it their own. All their friends and family think they're so talented in making music, but in reality they would be nothing without their pre-made patterns and samples made by real musicians.

And unfortunately since this Korg Electribe synthesizer does come loaded with pre-made patterns to demonstrate it's full range of capabilities, some people on Youtube actually use those patterns and tweak the sound just a little bit, then claim the song as their own. In the back of the manual that comes with the EMX, there is a full list of all the preset pattern songs, with full credit given to each professional musician who composed those pieces of music. And those people's names should be placed right there in the video description whenever some wanna-be Dj uploads a video of himself using their pre-made patterns and calling it his own. But this is youtube, and it's full of jackasses.

Download the song from my website (it sounds much better):
http://Alchemy-Illuminated.com"

Inside the EMX


"Ever wonder what your EMX looks like on the inside? In this video I actually open the EMX and take a look around. I was hoping to upgrade it with the Studio Essentials ROM board they show on the Korg website as an accessory for the Korg."