Super Lazy Sci Fi Soundtrack 3 - SmplTrek Liven MEGA Korg Volca Keys NTS1

video upload by ChrisLody

https://chrislody.bandcamp.com
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SymetriC...

"The Synth Tray 2 saga continues. It's now grown a little to include a battery bank to power the NTS-1 that you can see tucked under the cables behind the SmlpTrek. This has 2 outputs so it's also able to power my handmade midi thru box now I've made a cable for it, you can see it at the top right. I've also added a Little Bear MC5 mixer which is sat behind the ELZ_1 play. This is really just a temporary fix because I plan to replace it with a Bastl Bestie when I can justify dropping £200 on one.

So a bit about how this is all setup. The SmplTrek is controlling all the midi in this setup with multiple midi tracks set to different channels. The midi out goes to the midi thru splitter box which then connects into the Liven MEGA and Korg Volca Keys. The SmplTrek is also playing the deep pad from the beginning which was sampled out of the ELZ_1 play into it, and the drum loop. When I'm using this in a sofa session I mix the external gear on the Little Bear MC5 and monitor all the audio through the SmplTrek and usually add a little of my send effect to the output, but this time when I recorded it for this video I connected all the separate instrument outputs to my audio interface instead to give me a greater level of control over the final mix.

The Korg Volca connects through the NTS1 in this jam and I'm using the Hammond Eggs Music - Haze reverb. It contains a high pass filter so it's great for making top end pad/string type sounds. I checked this list of available plugins for the NTS1 recently and found loads of new stuff I didn't know about. Mine is absolutely full now :)

I'm using the ELZ_1 play to play the Liven MEGA here and using the LFO set to a speed of zero as a upward pitch bend. The current firmware of the ELZ_1 play has no 'local control off' function which makes it hard to use as a controller and sound module while composing in a setup like this as playing external midi channels also triggers the internal sound engine. I've suggested adding 'local control off' as an option, so fingers crossed for that one.

The MiniDisc player isn't really part of the setup I've been using, but it was nice to see it fit neatly with everything else :) I was planning to record the output down a global track on the SmplTrek, but they're mono so the ambience lost something when I did that, so I resorted to just playing it live and looping the track. The ambient recording is of my home town of Boston, Lincolnshire, UK.

The NTS1 is being used as an insert effect here (the Volca Keys is passing straight through) but once I buy a Bastl Bestie there is a way to use that in a send/return configuration which will be very useful from such a smaller mixer."

Nord Lead 1 & Korg NTS1 Synth Pads (Are Nice!) - Nostalgia Waves - Ambient Music

video by ChrisLody

"This lazy Sunday ambient jam was inspired by a conversation I had with my wife Esme. During less challenging times she likes nothing more than to go to a Skegness arcade and play on the 2 penny coin push machines, something that I have to say I find pretty boring, normally. It occurred to me while we were talking that currently I'd absolutely love to do that, a day out like that would be amazing. It's moments of realisation like that that make me think just how much the world has changed and how it's kind of crept up on me.

The MiniDisc recording therefore is taken from one of those trips to Skegness and was recorded on a crowded beach full of families and children during the an unseasonably warm summers day. I've got quite a lot of these recordings from the era when MiniDisc (A Sony MZ-N710) was still one of the best portable recording options, and the sounds from them always take me right back to when they were recorded with a strong sense of nostalgia. Possibly because I'm anosmic (google it) I think sound is a stronger trigger for memory than for you 'normals' ;)

The Nord Lead (revised original model with 12 voices and memory card slot) and Korg NTS-1 pairing is something I've been meaning to try for a while and I think it's fair to say they are a good match. The Nord Lead has no effects built in, the NTS-1 has the best effects built in! I'm running it through the Space reverb and some Tape Delay with additional reverb added to the Nord and MiniDisc with my Zoom 1201 set to Ambience 8. I did consider adding another layer, but I like the way it's allowed to breath so I left it alone like this."

Volca Sample, Modular, NTS-1 & Liven 8Bit Warps - 576i Acid - Jamuary 17th 2021

ChrisLody

"The Liven 8Bit Warps in this video was kindly supplied by Sonicware

Today I decided to take a break from the sound design job i've been hired to do (yes, really :) to actually make some music.

So for this Jamuary jam I thought it was about time I explored the Liven 8Bits Warps potential to make lofi acid, and a strange lofi acid it makes too :D It's got almost all the right ingredients, a resonant Low Pass filter, a sequencer with pitch slides of a sort (they're actually pitch sweeps but they do the job), and velocity in the place of accents. The only thing it's missing is a filter envelope so the 'Parameter Lock' function fills in for that here which is automation. Values recorded far from each other will slide in a linear fashion rather than jump so some filter sweeps can be made. Plus twiddle the cutoff while the automation plays and it will jump around some more. Also adding Bit Crusher makes it take on a vocal quality that I love. The reverb I've used on it is it's built in reverb

Elsewhere I have a one wire patch on the Korg Volca Modular playing through ensemble, delay and reverb on the NTS-1 for a sort of string sound. The Korg Volca Sample is loaded up with Korg X5 drum samples including a sleigh bell that I threw in for some reason

Today's projected random footage is from my own family and includes cars, horses, planes and some shots of our burned down family business for good measure. Keep an eye out of my VW Beetle. Looks kind of okay from that side but it was completely burned out inside.

This was a bit of a nightmare jam btw, I must have tried about 8-10 times to get it right but I kept blocking the projector or things were out of focus etc, even on this one the reverb is too high at the beginning, ah well, it'll do."

Korg NTS-1 & Liven 8Bit Warps - Boating Lake Ambient - Jamuary 10th 2021

ChrisLody

"The Liven 8Bit Warps in this video was kindly supplied by Sonicware

I'm super late with Jamuary and I suspect I'll be a little busy this year with other music based duties, but I'll try to join in where I can

This jam came about after experimenting with the midi out on the Liven 8Bit warps which sequence external devices, it also accepts audio from external devices though a stereo 3.5mm socket so it seems like a pretty good match for the Korg NTS-1 seeing as it has no sequencer

The 8Bit Warps sends sync, note and CC data from any knob or recorded knob movement, though I couldn't really find any midi CC's that matched up well with the Korg NTS-1 (cutoff for example is a different midi CC) so I stuck to adding a bit of variety by hand to the notes sent from the 8Bit Warps sequencer

The patch playing on the NTS-1 is 'Milk Bottle' from my recent NTS-1 Megademo video. The rest of the audio is synthesized on the 8Bit Warps then recorded and played back from it's built in audio loopers.

The video is some found footage of a boating lake I found on some mini DV tapes in an auction lot"

Korg NTS-1 Megademo - 50 Custom Patches with Downloads

ChrisLody

"The patch sheets from this collection can be downloaded from this link in Patch Sheets/Korg NTS1: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l6c592egul...

Well this was fun, and also took a bit longer than I thought it would which is why I've been a bit absent over Christmas. So after 13 odd years of making YouTube with you lovely people asking me for synth patch details I thought it was time I actually did something about it and start uploading patch collection videos.

Don't ask me why I started with what is probably the most difficult one to start with, the Korg NTS-1. Not only is it's architecture quite restrictive which makes it tough to make varied sounds for, it also has no memory or sensible way to share patches so I've had to develop my own method. Sure it sends midi CC's for most of the controls but there's still quite a lot that would be missing if you just relied on that, so a patch sheet was the answer. Well 2 actually, if the patch uses the Waves oscillator, custom oscillators or effects a second sheet is required. I've made blank sheets available in the downloads section so you can record your own sounds."

Tiny Modular, Tiny Plants - Korg Volca Modular and NTS-1 Jam

ChrisLody

"What do you do if you can't afford a big swanky wall full of modular synth equipment? Get some tiny plants to go with you Volca Modular. Done

Actually these plants belong to my missus and I've been staring at them on the bathroom window sill for a while. The table and chair are her's too. She likes to make stop frame animation so she has a few miniature props kicking about.

Sadly I had to loose the table when it came to the actual jam as it was impracticably wobbly and made it impossible to connect everything up properly. So I moved it onto the, er, floor..? Shame.

In this jam the Volca Modualr is running through the NTS-1 so it can be processed with it's effects. I'm using the flanger, tape delay and hall reverb on this one. I'm using Poly88 as the oscillator for the arp as it allows me to change the octave being played which is not something that's currently possible with the stock oscillators."

Korg NTS-1 Only - Cinematic Drone Music Choir

Published on Apr 22, 2020 ChrisLody

"If any more proof were needed how perfect the Korg NTS-1 is for me a new toy, it makes effortless cinematic drone music. Perfect.

This is a stock NTS-1 with no custom code installed and i'm not even using midi just to show off :) I've cranked up the Riser reverb (which seems to be a reverb and exciter or pitch shift combined) and the Ensemble modulation effect and I'm using a mix of the VPM oscillator (read FM oscillator) the Triangle wave and the Waves oscillator. It's sounds so much like a male voice choir at times its spooky.

If you need to learn how to use the Waves oscillator, see this video I made:" [posted here]

How To Edit Korg NTS-1 'WAVES' Oscillator - Korg NTS1 Tutorial

Published on Apr 21, 2020 ChrisLody

"Just a quick tutorial video on how to edit the Korg NTS-1 'WAVES' oscillator. The WAVES oscillator is a custom oscillator for the NTS-1 that comes pre-installed. It's got a lot more depth than the other oscillator settings but unfortunately the details aren't really covered properly in the manual or anywhere on the net that I can find. So here is my exploration of it. It can be an extremely gritty sounding oscillator, or layered set of waveforms when pushed."

ChrisLody NTS-1 posts

Korg NTS-1 Sounds Immense Over Midi! - No External FX -Warm Up Jam

Published on Apr 18, 2020 ChrisLody

"A new toy arrived in the post today, the Korg Nutekt NTS-1 kit synth! I've been waiting a fair while for this to arrive due to delays with it being released here in the UK, even before the outbreak began, but the wait was worth it.

The first thing I did after I popped it together was to get the USB midi up and running as I do like to explore things with a keyboard attached if at all possible. Turns out the NTS-1 sounds absolutely massive when programmed correctly. It responds to velocity over midi nicely with it being routed directly to volume so getting a bit of expression going is easy. Also here I'm controlling how far the filter envelope opens (or filter sweep as it's known) by changing how legato and staccato my playing is. This is 100% NTS-1 with no external FX, sound great!

Only negative I've discovered so far is USB noise. I need to invest in a ground loop isolator or a minijack to din midi adapter, or both. I'm using Reapers Reafir Subtract setting here to remove the noise in realtime."