Go DEEP on SCENES on Teenage Engineering KO2 EP-133! Workflow, Projects, Groups, Patterns, Scenes!

[@BirdBoss]

Just wanna say this was super helpful to wrap my head around the KO 2, still learning to love it

[@rochefsky]

So happy to hear that - thank you!

[@lorrenaelliott161]

So nice to see new channels popping up with actual content that teaches based on use over time rather than day 1 you tubers who get paid to rush out a summary …. THIS IS SPECTACULARLY HELPFUL 🙏

[@rochefsky]

Thank you!

[@dan_rad]

Now it all clicks! Thank you for this 🙏 I've been going through another tutorial series but they didn't mention how to change bar length, copying and pasting or how to use scenes properly. Now I feel I can have some fun with this thing.

[@rochefsky]

So glad it helped you!!

[@draconianrhythms]

Best tutorial I’ve come across for this - probably makes sense to watch this after you’ve played with one for a few days rather than watching before purchase. Nice one ❤

[@rochefsky]

Thank you! 😊

[@ste_passant]

Great tutorial. Now I’m beginning to grasp the possibilities of this device to do things other tutorials out there don’t touch on.

[@rochefsky]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@mihaidxn]

Thank you for the best ep-133 tutorials you can find on KZbin! Ordered mine today after watching your tutorials and finally understanding how this gadget works.

[@rochefsky]

You’re very welcome! Thanks for the feedback!

[@sauce25]

I asked Reddit about this and they thought I was crazy, thank you for posting this! Kinda crazy it doesn’t have a song mode…yet?

[@rochefsky]

Yeah - no song mode - really performance focused… Was going to post video direct to Reddit but that crowd sometimes demotivates with downvotes LOL

[@ilikeitdark13]

Me too...got kinda "attacked" for asking what is explained in this video.

[@morrritz]

Essential KOII content right here! Thank you.

[@rochefsky]

Thanks!

[@Dalejandro]

Thank you so much for making a concise and easy to follow breakdown. You filled in some gaps I had. Much appreciated

[@rochefsky]

So happy to hear that - thanks!

[@b1ist3rs]

Thank you for this, I was looking for a breakdown of this since I got mine 2 weeks ago. It has been very confusing for me and felt like I’m the only one not understanding fully what exactly was happening. This is the best explanation I’ve seen!

[@rochefsky]

So glad it was helpful!

[@egonwombat8234]

Hey there.. I can only second what has been mentioned here before: this is *by far* the most comprehensive and hands-on tutorial/hands-on of the KOII to date! And even it is per se just a cool af device and so polished and slick in its aesthetics, still I find it *insanely* difficult to wrap my head around and just so unintuitive which is a shame and to me a big red flag and honestly speaking just a sign of very very bad UX! Hopefully they'll be fixing the mentioned issues asap...

[@rochefsky]

Thanks for sharing that! definitely encouraging to hear that you found the video helpful!! Agree on the Ux issues - but have to say, unfortunately, I've seen worse LOL

[@bagoftrix]

This is the best tutorial I’ve seen yet. It all makes sense now. I work with Maschine so the scene/pattern workflow is something I’m familiar with, but now I understand how if works on this device. Thanks!!! They’ll definitely add a scene chaining option down the line I hope, along with quick mutes. It’s weird a performance minded device doesn’t let you mute on the fly. Well you could use the fader. But a button combo would make more sense.

[@rochefsky]

Cool - yeah for me the duplication of patterns was the start of what threw me off… but now I’m in a groove

[@ilikeitdark13]

Damn what a great vidro and so well explained after watching so many others...thank you!

[@rochefsky]

Thanks for the feedback!!

[@wpsam52]

This is a great tutorial. Thanks for doing it.

[@rochefsky]

Glad it was helpful!

[@DustinSince19XX]

Exactly the help i was looking for. Very well made and well explained breakdown. Thanks.

[@rochefsky]

Glad it helped!

[@Knypsterino]

I want to grab my KO II and spend a couple of days at your house to learn everything about this cool machine 😄Thank you for a very helpful video. I am hoping for more tutorials to come 🙏

[@rochefsky]

Definitely more coming!

[@lukebogacik2793]

Super duper comprehensive! Thank you 🙏🏻

[@rochefsky]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@JohnMcSmith]

Really clear tutorial thanks. Would love to see more around effects on this device, and also linking this device with others to record songs

[@rochefsky]

Yes - effects are likely next - and pairing with other devices is a great call!

[@rochefsky]

Yes - effects are likely next - and pairing with other devices is a great call!

[@1sti]

Top notch tutorial, thanks for taking the time!

[@rochefsky]

My pleasure!

[@scottbaddr4025]

Great content mate, my coder brain likes the way you explain 🙂

[@rochefsky]

Great to hear!

[@mad.operator]

Wow great explanations, thank you! Now I can make a proper beat 👌

[@rochefsky]

Great! Glad it was helpful!

[@Jack655321]

Scenes to me is the song mode. Scene 1 is the intro, scene 2 is the verse, scene 3 is the chorus and so forth. The only thing is that you have to manually advance them, which is literally 2 buttons. I’m a noob to samplers and I don’t think it’s hard at all. If they can find a way to automatically advance the scenes in an update you basically have a song mode where you don’t have to touch anything.

[@rochefsky]

Mostly agree - except that there’s no easy way to change scene order - esp since you have no such thing as “blank scenes” unless you first create them… it’s a hack - but yes, there are always workarounds - and that’s often what makes each device attractive and fun…

[@suninmyeyesyes]

the problem is if you learned on their Pocket Operators, chaining patterns was so simple and quick, and they just threw that workflow out the window completely. Yeah, manually switching scenes "works", except it doesn't work so smoothly, particularly when your pattern lengths are varied from group to group.

[@30centimeter]

Thank you, now I understand what the scenes are for

[@rochefsky]

Great!👍

[@devlintube9610]

Great video man what I’ve been waiting for thank you 🙏🔥

[@rochefsky]

So happy to hear it was helpful!

[@devlintube9610]

Really helpful mate, any track construction vids from the stock would be awesome too. ✌️👏

[@Dune]

I just got this thing and your video is so helpful

[@rochefsky]

So happy to hear that - thank you!

[@BIG1TOWER]

Really nice video. At some point TE will give us scene chaining, they have to but still this thing is so freaking fun.

[@rochefsky]

Totally agree this device has a future with firmware… and Lego stands … 😝😝👍🤩

[@Funkotronimus]

Very helpful, thank you!

[@rochefsky]

You're welcome!

[@gabrielrosario9548]

Great tutorial! I'm still wrapping my head around the whole workflow. I'm having issues with muting groups with the fader though. If I play around muting/unmuting multiple groups they eventually go bananas and one of them doesn't want to be unmuted anymore until I fiddle around a lot. I haven't been committing nor playing with "empty" groups. But so far the workflow has been difficult to grasp.

[@rochefsky]

Yeah I’m finding 1) holding the group button down while using the fader puts it in Level mode, so an easier way to unmute… and 2) instead of muting, I use the SOLO trick on the tracks/groups I don’t want muted (thereby muting those other groups… hold FX Button and the groups you want to SOLO to mute the NON-held groups temporarily… much better for drops and recoveries…

[@gabrielrosario9548]

@@rochefsky Thanks! That makes sense.

[@yarrowcentral]

Thank you for this!!!

[@rochefsky]

No problem 😊

[@cresshead]

Q. what happens if you choose the use pattern 99 as your MUTE (blank) pattern when you commit to the next scene... seeing as there are only 99 pattern and committing a new scene adds the next pattern up... ?

[@rochefsky]

It actually uses the next unused pattern - on that is not used in a scene yet and empty… not sure what it does if there are none left…

[@cresshead]

@@rochefsky ah, yeh that make sense..so they thought of that scenario already! - thanks for taking a look btw.

[@usernameunknown69]

Super useful thank you so much

[@rochefsky]

You are welcome! 😊

[@etyrnal]

I wish this thing had the ability to take a sample, and sort of workshop it, and allow us to "sample' it into a new slot. Say add distortion, filtering, chorus and reverb... or have a sample buffer that can allow you to keep altering the sound and recommitting it back into that sample buffer, until you finally have the sound how you like, then write it to an actual sample slot. It would be fun to be able to do simple resamples. also wish each group could be assigned a different FX. or it would be cool if the NON master FX were a chain, and you could change order, and you could decide where into the chain each group would be injected into... So, if you had a chain that was Dist>Dly>CHor>Rev if you sent goup A to the FX You could inject the sound of group A in at Dist - the start of the chain, or at Chor skipping Dist, or inject to Rev That would be more flexible than just having one single FX for EVERYTHING. This thing is amazing tho. Most fun piece of musical Kit i've played with in aeons. Also would have been cool of it had a micro SD slot. I though i was being clever by mass-converting a whole folder of samples to 8bit 22KHz... but the sample tool turned all of my 92KB samples into 340K samples. I'd LOVE to be able to fiill this thing with very low-fi samples. It would be cool if there was an OVBERALL system sample rate. i.e. if you set the over all system to full quality it would conform all samples in memory to the 4XKhz 18bit samples, but if you switched the WHOLE system to say 8bit 22KHz, then ALL of the 64MB would be cleared, and the sample tool would see that and convert all uploaded samples to 8bit 22KHz... i don't know how that would affect the audio engine tho. since the machine already has some time-stretch algorithm in it's functions, it would also be cool if they could add a granular synth to it. even if the synth didn't run as a synth, but would allow you to run any internal sample thru a granular resample-thru-FX-and-granularization back into a sample slot - then we could make amazing PADS and stuff. I understand the environment SAMPLE based, but it would be amazing to be able to use the FX, filters and granular processing to create new samples [not in realtime, but just to create new samples]

[@rochefsky]

Wow that’s some overhaul of features you’re suggesting! I like it! 😁 I did see one person uploading all their samples at double time to save 50% of the memory required and then pitching them back down on the KOII to get them back to original tempo and pitch which also added some down-sampling “grit” (which sounded quite cool). The Yamaha SeqTrak has less sample slots on device but does have a resampling mode btw

[@48king24]

Thanks ! Great tutorial….

[@rochefsky]

Thanks!

[@highlanderes]

I still miss the KO pattern chaining. So simple and effective.

[@mdjperez09]

Hello, I have a question, I notice that when you commit to the second scene your loop measures double, how did you do this?

[@rochefsky]

Number of bars is pattern-based, so the commit itself won’t change anything - it’ll just duplicate the underlying patterns… if it looks like it doubled in the video it was probably due to a video edit or I changed groups (aka patterns) to a longer pattern.

[@suninmyeyesyes]

do you recall what scale your system was in for this demo?

[@rochefsky]

Eeek I don’t remember, but I’ll take a listen later and figure it out. Likely a minor scale… and one of my pet peeves is that the scale is global and not project based - not optimal

[@ABHGape]

Just got my device and have been following along to this video. Quick question: when I commit a scene, mine does not go from scene 1 to 2, like in the video, it goes from 1 to like 18 or 19. Is there a setting I can change to make it commit from scene 1 to 2?

[@rochefsky]

I suspect you have scenes created - #2 through #17 or #18... Delete those and you should see the next commit go to #2 (the next non-existent scene)... The way to tell is just traverse all the scene holding MAIN and clicking "+" until it won't go any more... Commit will always create the next number after the last one you can navigate to.

[@cwc5180]

i don't know if i just missed it but how do i change the setting so it lets me finish the bar before moving onto the next scene? also thank you so much for making this video!

[@rochefsky]

In System settings… Shift-Erase to get to system settings… Plus key until you get to SEQ… Enter Button… Plus key until you get to SCN… Enter Button … Plus key to select BAR 😊

[@cwc5180]

@@rochefsky works perfectly, thank you so much!

[@etyrnal]

Can you just use pattern 99 for mutes? So, instead of B6, use B99... then next time you commit, won't B loo for the LOWEST empty pattern? i.e. when you commit such that all groups go to pattern 6, since you used B99 in the B group, when you commit again, won't B roll to B6 (the lowest empty scene since it can't go past B99) ??

[@rochefsky]

Sounded like a wonderful idea - but I just tried it - and it wraps back around to the next available pattern!! I had A99 in Scene09 and when I committed, it made Scene10 with A12 (which in my case was the next empty and unassigned A pattern in this project… oh well…

[@etyrnal]

@@rochefsky that's a bummer. at least it can be done manually. if you set b99 to be your mute pattern then you could do your commit and then in the next commit you can manually set it to the correct pattern and then each commit after that it would work fine. you should only have to manually fix it after each B99.

[@rochefsky]

@@etyrnal ​​⁠yup! That’s what I do today, only I pick an empty patterns not so far out there… but 99 would be easier to remember ;)

[@etyrnal]

@@rochefsky what's the highest sequence number you've gotten up to so far in your most complicated creation?

[@rochefsky]

@@etyrnal Pattern number? probably in the 20s.... Scenes more like 10-15 at most... but honestly I haven't had dedicated composing time in a while

[@stillsbyjann]

returned mine. had fun for one day - the workflow seems nice in the first hours, but if you want to dig just a sip deeper, its too inaccurate or sloppy in a way - the sample tool is an okay idea but I dont want to use the PC when I jam. the direction of the KO is cool but not my cup of tea. Hope the Lofi-12 XT suits my needs better

[@rochefsky]

Gotcha - curious about the Lofi 12-XT - might check it out too, although I do vibe with the KO II so far!

[@stillsbyjann]

@@rochefsky yeah I see that you really like the KO System, really cool to see and great you did that clip to explain that to those who don't have that Overview or XP with quirky Sequencers or old Sequencer Systems ^^

[@CrankyGinger]

So can you take your projects(song) and export to MP3? That way you can share with others and listen to it etc.... Great video!! Thanks!

[@rochefsky]

You can - just record out from the Audio/headphone jack into something that can export the MP3 format… I think even QuickTime can do that, but certainly Ableton or other DAWs

[@CrankyGinger]

​@@rochefsky Awesome!! I'm curious to see if I can get a signal through my djRev5 to record through Serato. I do this with my Roli Lumi keyboard. USB C to laptop and it picks it up. Thanks again! Mat

[@highlanderes]

Awesome. Ah, that setting for only changing scene after a bar is finished playing, should be default if it is not.

[@SkyshifterBass]

I really hope you can use effects on a pure scene basis in a future firmware update

[@rochefsky]

I’m actually hoping for pattern-based or group-based, or at least 2 effect send busses

[@brainspoke]

superb vid :)

[@rochefsky]

Thanks! Really glad it was helpful!

[@sdf2973]

16:19 How do you do the system setting for no immediate change of the scene?

[@rochefsky]

Shift+Erase to get to system settings - then plus button - to get to SEQ then SCN then set it to BAR (the alternative setting is TIC)

[@sdf2973]

@@rochefsky found it thanks. The higlighting was a bit confusing for me.I thought non-blinking means already selected... but turns out it is the non-selected option.

[@Lofilegacybeats]

But you can not play patterns from pattern AO1 and AO2 at the same time but if you had a second KO 2 which I plan on doing . And sync them you can have 8 banks you know what you can do imagine

[@rochefsky]

Now you’re talkin! Ha - but once you’re in that $600 range….. Digitakt SP404 etc etc

[@devlintube9610]

Is there a way to stop fx being applied to all scenes?

[@rochefsky]

Not easily... You can record an FX SEND FADER AUTOMATION on the pattern in the scene you want the effects to apply to... but that is really tedious... and 2nd drawback is that you have to end the automation at the right place where you want other patterns in that group to pick up the fader level - so end at 0 or 100 usually depending if you want NO FX or 100 FX... ALSO - I find I have to think in patterns rather than scenes - as the scene itself is just a reflection of the patterns being played in it... (no other data is stored with the scene apparently except for the patterns being played in it.)

[@devlintube9610]

Hi there and shame not what I’d hoped for, but really appreciate the helpful reply and explanations. Many thanks 👏👍

[@Whoonthird]

When I have committed a scene, and hit the minus button to get to 1.1.1, the last tap triggers a sample to play. Does that happen with you?

[@rochefsky]

So… when you traverse the bars with plus/minus, it will play whatever notes are on the beat you go to - so it’s probably playing the sample you have on 1.1.1

[@Whoonthird]

@@rochefsky Thank you my Brother. I thought it was a glitch. What happens is that I try to get to the beginning of the beat which 1.1.1 and the only way I know how to get there is by hitting the minus button. Thank you!!! Happy New Year

[@rochefsky]

Shift+Minus is the shortcut to get to 1.1.1

[@DelainoBarris]

How do you delete a Project?

[@rochefsky]

Remember that erasing a project will also remove all the sounds from the groups…. So I rarely do that (I have pretty consistent tastes in sounds and would rather start with what’s there and add/remove individual sounds)… but, that said…. (From the manual:) To ERASE A PROJECT - hold MAIN + ERASE + the pad containing the project you wish to erase…. teenage.engineering/guides/ep-133/play-and-record#9.6-erase-undo

[@DelainoBarris]

@@rochefsky thank you. I didn’t think about it erasing the sounds. I guess it’s best to just erase the patterns.

[@leekew-moss8969]

Wow - that whole copying and pasting of patterns is going to fry my mind. I think for now I'll stick with using pattern numbers that match the scene numbers and just jump between scenes when performing my songs - it gets way too complex for me.

[@rochefsky]

100% - I’m actually finding that to be the most straightforward - and there’s one other workflow I’m finding helpful that I might do a video on - which is building a set of core patterns in the first few scenes, then using those mixed up however I need in subsequent scenes that I can use to perform a song for recording in sequence…

[@leekew-moss8969]

yes @@rochefsky . I was doing that the other day and didn't quite work out where new scenes are placed in the stack. If I have 4 scenes and I edit scene 2 and 'commit' it - do you know if the new scene is just added as scene 5 or is it slotted in after the one I am editing i.e it becomes scene 3?. Quite a quick one to work out I guess if your scenes are different enough from each other to tell the difference.

[@rochefsky]

Definitely goes to the next NON-OCCUPIED scene… so in your example, Scene 5

[@tiredboi8326]

can anybody help a brotha out? let’s say i’m on group a, scene 1. when i select a sound to use for a bass line or whatever it may be, every group a. in every scene changes to the sound i picked for group a.

[@tiredboi8326]

how do i change this? i don’t want them to all be synced like that and idk how to undo whatever i did haha.

[@rochefsky]

Scenes are just combinations of patterns… so if you use the same pattern in multiple scenes, and change the sound in that pattern, every scene where that pattern was used will change. So to check this, go to each scene and hold each group button to check what pattern is there. To change the pattern in a scene, you just need to go to that scene and navigate to the new pattern… it changes just like that. If you need to duplicate a current pattern to change a sound in just one scene - use the COPY and PASTE commands (Shift-C and Shift-D)

[@tiredboi8326]

@@rochefsky dude i’m so lost. i’ve been using my op-1 for years but this ko II is giving me trouble haha. so i created a scene in scene 1, then i went in and added a scene 2 and a scene 3. im trying to change the lead in scene 3, but when i switch to a different sound, ALL the leads change. it wasn’t doing this before last night and i can’t figure out what i clicked to sync it up like this.

[@tiredboi8326]

@@rochefsky thank you a ton for trying to explain haha 🫂

[@marctronixx]

​@@rochefsky and if you save/commit this scene with the pattern change, the next scene will have this new pattern as the main one it will now play correct? so let's say you copy pattern 1 to pattern 2. then hit commit -- so now in the new scene, pattern 2 is the one that plays BUT.!!!! pattern one is still there so all one needs to do to get back to the original pattern is to just "minus" back to pattern 1 correct? so lets say i commit this --- now the next scene will have BOTH pattern 1 and pattern 2 yes? make sense what im asking?

[@MediaproducerCH]

very useful, and well explained. thanks

[@rochefsky]

Glad it was helpful!