Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Over in the gear pics thread, drummy kindly requested that I recreate patches from the K2/700s manual located here:
http://www.korganalogue.net/korgother/7 ... gMiniS.pdf

Here is the result(Right click and Save As):
http://67.18.24.4/~murmurbe/music/demos ... llenge.rar

There are going to be differences, no doubt, but primarily in my case, because I have recalibrated the frequency cutoff(Traveler) internal trimpots more to my liking, and because my K2/700s has a pitch Fine Tune for osc2, where some do not. In some cases, I've set up the patch in the diagram, then tweaked it using my best judgement.

I request as a return to the favor, that you K2/700s owners out there, with the ability to record, give links to a demo or two of what you use it for.

I finally got my MOTU 896 set up, but I don't have any programs to record with, unless there is an automatically included program on the Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) that can record for me. As a result, I can't record my K-2! Sorry Solderman. Thanks a lot for the upload. Much appreciated. I'll let you know how close I am, mine also has a fine tune. If you can tell me where those three sliders are and where your knob is (modulator 1, 2, duet, etc.), and which switches are on (effect, sustain long, travel vibrato), that would be great as well.

I believe everything but the Fine Tune is labeled in the patch diagram(left side on each, page 4).
The K1/700 patches all have the effect switch off. All I can say about the effect section settings is I got them as close to the diagram as possible with the exception of Saxophone. I never could get that one to sound even decent. For Fine Tune, I just tried to reduce beating for Duet and used my best judgment for Mod.

Okay, the test:



Cheese Zone


Accordian - sounds the same to me.

Bagpipe - Mine sounds nothing like a bagpipe, and does not sound much like yours. I like your bagpipe track though.

Bird - Mine sounds like a hummingbird, it doesn't sound like yours.

Clarinet - Sounds similar.

Electric Bass - Not sure, but I think they sound pretty similar.

Flute - Mine sounds more like a real flute.

Harpsichord - Sounds just like yours.

Human Voice - Mine sounds nothing like a human voice, or your demo. It sounds very synthetic and more "electronic" than yours.

Oboe - Not the same as yours, but kind of similar.

Syntha-Sound - Sounds pretty much the same as yours. I feel like it's slightly different, but I think that's just me.

Trombone - Mine sounds like a much "electrified" version of yours, not nearly as warm at all.

Violin - Mine sounds pretty close to yours, except in my opinion, mine sounds slightly more like a real violin. Not that it sounds close to a violin.

Whistle - Mine sounds exactly like yours, no question.



Mixed Bag


Brass Ensemble - Doesn't sound much like yours, mine sounds like c**p.

Chimes - Mine sounds REAL electronic, much more than yours, you can kind of tell yours are chimes. Mine just sound like butt.

Combat - Mine does not sound as distinctive as yours when hitting the key rapidly, mine sounds more or less like one key press. However, with the sustain switch off and the key is pressed down, it does sound kind of like a muffled, distant machine gun firing. Or a helicopter.

Noise Sound With a Scale - Sounds just like yours.

Parallel Thirds & Fifths - Sounds close to yours, although something seems a little off, not quite sure what.

Saxophone - Mine sounds kind of like yours, except with the Effects switch off, not on. Yours sounds much more realistic. I can't believe you think it doesn't sound decent. I personally think yours sounds pretty real.

Steam Locomotive - Mine sounds like yours, but yours sounds more punchy or something.

Temple Bell - Mine sounds absofreakinglutely nothing like yours. Mine sounds REALLY electronic and although there's a bell sound, there is this other sound that drowns it out. This is also with the Fine slider all the way down. Wow, terrible.

Waves - Apparently, you did not do this one. This one sounds like it's raining hard outside. Or general white noise.



Okay. Here is my conclusion. The Cheese Zone section was pretty similar, there were some differences, but not too many. The Mixed Bag section however, was mostly WAY off from what they were supposed to sound like, and what yours sounded like. The only ones that sounded similar were the ones with the Noise on. I also double checked each of my patches just in case. Again, I apologize for not being able to record. Hmmm...

Oh man, this was fun.
I think the big difference with the chimes, temple bell and Brass might lie in how I originally calibrated the scaling for osc2 and fiddled with Fine Tune for the patch. A few of these differences are likely due to variants in envelope and filter settings.

Saxophone is ok, I suppose, I guess I just listen to too much Coltrane to be more charitable. Yeah I can't figure out about the flute and violin.

All in all, it appears the fine folks at Keio Organ back in 1974 knew how to make their own variety of cheese. I need to take a crack at some good sounding stuff now, as the K2/700s definately can make great sounds.

Solderman wrote:Oh man, this was fun.
I think the big difference with the chimes, temple bell and Brass might lie in how I originally calibrated the scaling for osc2 and fiddled with Fine Tune for the patch. A few of these differences are likely due to variants in envelope and filter settings.

Saxophone is ok, I suppose, I guess I just listen to too much Coltrane to be more charitable. Yeah I can't figure out about the flute and violin.

All in all, it appears the fine folks at Keio Organ back in 1974 knew how to make their own variety of cheese. I need to take a crack at some good sounding stuff now, as the K2/700s definately can make great sounds.

Definitely. In my opinion, yours seems to sound warmer, mine has all this electronic sounding stuff. Maybe it's the way my other settings were, I dunno. I think I like yours more than mine though.

I'll definitely re-do all the patches once I get recording set up and upload the tracks so you can A/B like I did.

As promised, here are some demos of my own patches, including hi-res photos(Right-click and Save As):
http://67.18.24.4/~murmurbe/music/demos ... -demos.rar

All except ResoBass were done today, February 17th. Similarly, all done today used the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, with several different settings, to warm things up a bit. Resobass used a digital panning delay.

The K2/700s osc2 Coarse Tune has a range of 16',8' and 4'. I used the lower two, and they can be seen in the photos. Travel Vibrato on "HalfBrassLead" is slowest LFO rate available.

Notice the feedback sounding distortion on the leads as they fade out. My K2/700s only does this when the volume is up, but doesn't seem to get squared off until the sound fades.

Wonderful. Thanks Solderman. Apparently, you have a K-2 and not a 700s. Not that it's a big deal. But that means we have the same synth! It also means all of the patches should have sounded the same...