Got an evening to get deeper into sound? Want to get a project started? We’ve been covering all aspects of using Kore in music, bit by bit. Here’s the overview of what we’ve done, which we’re expanding on an ongoing basis.

Using Kore

And, most importantly, I’ve just finished off:
Reference: How to Navigate Kore 2 with Hardware - No Mouse!

When you’re working in the studio or designing sounds, navigating complex parameters with a mouse makes some sense. But when you want to focus on sounds — while playing an instrument in private or (especially) live — you really want hardware control.

Kore 2’s controller does let you do this. The trick is to learn how to navigate different levels of sounds, since you may have different instruments in a performance you want to control. Here’s a quick reference guide to how to do it.

This comes off a little like those old text adventure games. (You’re in a dark dungeon. There are entrances to the LEFT and RIGHT. There are SOUNDS. You can hit the CONTROL button.) But walk through these steps with a performance open, and it’ll make sense — and with a little practice, you can do this quite quickly.

Building instruments and effects in Reaktor is a lot like building your own hardware. But ever wished those fabulous UIs you’ve seen could be used via something other than … ugh … your mouse? View Reaktor with a touchscreen or touch-controlled projection, and it’s an entirely different game. We already knew Tim Exile was a fan of touchscreens, but here’s what it can do in the hands of another Reaktor master.

Above are videos of Metrognome a.k.a Karl White getting down with a custom ensemble on a touchscreen. Karl reveals on the NI forums:

That was a huge undertaking and is one very complex Reaktor mod. I’ll be making more stuff public on the user library once I get the documentation lined up.

In other words, new goodies on the horizon! Here’s a better look at the Intelectualist ensemble (click for the full-sized version):

Live performance granular drum machine. My inspiration was the intelekt in the NI user library and various works by Clist, Program Child, etc.

I like the use of recordable touch-faders in the upper left - looks like an implementation similar to my own Freshmaker macro. If this isn’t exciting enough, here’s a video of Karl working with his ensemble on a wiimote whiteboard - I’ll be keeping an eye out for his work in the user library.

Koregonomics

After moving into a new apartment and being lucky enough to get a (semi) dedicated studio room, I’m finally getting around to rethinking my studio ergonomics.  While my Kore 1 hardware doesn’t really get in the way, I find that there are actually several different spots I’d like to have it in depending on what it’s being used for.

In my current setup, with my 88-key controller perpendicular to my desk, the Kore controller sits at the corner of that L-shape on a collapsible tripod shelf.  It’s fine until I need to spend some time editing user pages for example… then the constant reaching becomes a pain.

My solution will involve placing the keyboard between me and the monitors, with Kore somewhere close to hand - but which slice of the precious desktop real-estate to use?  At the moment I’m thinking of mounting a desk arm with a shelf like the Lindy Notebook-Arm or the slicker Rode PSA-1 (with some sort of shelf attachment of course), but I’m interested in hearing what our readers think.  Have you found the perfect way to slot Kore into your rig?

Help is at hand

If you want to try out reshuffling your hardware but don’t fancy hassle the hassle of rewiring, here’s something that might help.  I’ve been a fan of the free Google Sketchup since I made some attempts at a controller for Live, and recently turned to it again to help with my studio redesign.

This mainly involves designing and building a new desk, and although the desk isn’t yet finished I thought I’d share with you the mockup I made of my Kore 1 interface.  It’s not an exact copy but most of the measurements are accurate to within ~1mm, which should help you judge placement pretty well.

Kore 1 Controller (.skp)

I don’t have the Kore 2 controller so couldn’t make a version of that, although if anyone wants to have a go it shouldn’t be too difficult to modify my file to get the results you’re after.

Sketchup is highly recommended - aside from being very satisying to use, it makes trying out different studio layouts far easier and quicker.  Once you’ve put in some time recreating your main pieces of gear, you can rearrange them any way and as often as you want, with millimetre precision.

Related:  CDM asks: How do you Kore?

When I first received Kore I played with it and read the manual, and within a couple of days I think I got the gist of it. However, there were a couple of things that eluded me. I’ll share them just in case someone else is scratching their heads about the same things.

First thing I wanted to do was create top-level user pages that had only the parameters I wanted to manipulate live. For VSTs and the native effects, this is easy - but what about page-to-page learn for Koresounds in cases where I don’t have the full NI plugin installed? There didn’t seem to be anything in the manual about that.

Need to control external MIDI gear — or for that matter, more advanced multi-timbral plug-ins — inside Kore? Our friend Jonathan Adams Leonard wrote an extensive micro-tutorial in comments, so it made sense to reproduce it in its entirety in case you missed it.

The basic idea: instead of using channel-level parameters as you might in a DAW, in Kore you’ll add MIDI modules as needed to do what you like. That general strategy could be powerful for plug-in use as well as external gear.

A reader pointed me to a thread on the NI forum in which folks have successfully gotten Guitar Rig 3 running on the super-cheap, super-small Eee PC from Asus. You’ll want to run Windows XP rather than Linux, and you need modded graphics drivers so you get a more-usable 1000×600 resolution, but it looks like it works pretty well. Of course, plenty of other laptops would do a better job, but the fact that it’s possible, and the Eee is as small and affordable as it is, is encouraging. (You could actually run Guitar Rig on Linux via WINE, but I think XP is an easier way to go.)

GR3 + Eee on NI Forums
More on the Eee: Asus Eee As Cheap, Tiny Music PC: Guitar Rig 3, Linux Tips on CDMusic.com

I have a healthy respect for dedicated audio hardware, but when it comes to digital, I love computers.