Making Mono Synths Polyphonic with the K.O. II

[@Bloom_Music]

See the link in the description for a free synth sample pack, including all of the examples from this video!

[@Mothhole]

Hey @Bloom_music, I really dig your selection of synth sounds (plus, v. sick beats--) Thank you for your informative presentation.

[@FreshhGraffz]

where are u man, please make more videos!

[@goodnightosaka]

11:35 is one of the most deadmau5 things I've ever heard. Love it

[@Bloom_Music]

Good ear! All of these MIDI loops are from the Deadmau5 Chimaera pack. 🙂

[@colourbasscolourbassweapon2135]

@@Bloom_Music i'm getting a old Akai S900 smapler tbh no cap

[@trancodingertranscodinger387]

Your videos production quality is so good. It is just fun to watch. You are my go to for sound education now. Thanks for the effort and time you are putting in those videos. Keep em coming!

[@Sockeater]

Great collection you have. Thanks for sharing. I cant believe that sound at 10:40 came from the KO! Amazing.

[@Dmyra]

omg right. blew my mind. i love that freaking melodic concept. such a strange emotion!

[@mutmut02_]

Thanks for your KO2 videos. Production value is incredible, and the sounds you're getting out of this machine are just incredible. Your vids were the final straw for me and I bought a unit. Thanks again and take care !

[@ChumpyDumps]

I love the focus on pitch samples down in this video. Its one of my favorite things to do on a sampler and thats really where each sampler showcases its unique character from one to the next. As much as people seem to enjoy dunking on this $300 budget sampler, its actually oozing with character compared to some of the more sterile samplers that have more features.

[@palegobit]

Fantastic video! Very well produced as per usual. Your eye for detail, flow and storytelling for these types of videos is impeccable. I liked the K.O. II from the beginning, but your series of videos on the device has really opened my eyes for its true potential. Gear aside, and much more importantly, you continue to inspire and educate me musically in such a fun and pedagogical way. Thank you, sir. I am truly grateful for your time, for the effort you put in and how generously you share your talent with us all.

[@Bloom_Music]

Well, this comment made my day! Thanks!

[@jjtaylor1073]

Fire video. Add this to the list of awesome reasons /quirks that you can get out of this $300 device. The grandmother sounds beautiful play polyphonically. Hopefully they update the KO to where you can sample the incoming audio along with the input fx, these sampling techniques are going to be even better if they ever do so.

[@VirtualModular]

Polyphonic modulation and effects are the best thing about VCV for me. I think Bitwig has that capability too. Good idea to get the same effect with sampling stuff, particularly if you don't want to use software.

[@pongtrometer]

Thanks so much, great tips, especially like the one about increasing the LFO rate

[@relative_vie]

bro is goat. no thrills no bs. just quality

[@mrmarplemusic]

It's so funny, I mostly use the ko2 as a drum sequencer because the tr8s, digitakt thingies have way too much menu diving for live gigs with more instruments attached. Seeing how communities like yours are making synths polyphonic and creating new textured sounds feels awesome. If this would be possible with live re-sampling together with some latch functionality - OmG

[@lordundhimself1310]

Dude, very cool concept. I love my multisamples, but you made me appreciate pitch sampling again

[@ghost-yj3xg]

this feels more like a "How To Sound Like Brian Eno" video then anything, especially with the pads at 12:20

[@alexedev]

epic sound at 11:35 here, I am sold!

[@HelicopterDown]

I love how you kept switching synths, such an awesome collection!

[@MrSynthmania]

You made my day. Thanks for putting me back to my roots when I got my Akai S1100. Yesterday I bought the K.O.II.

[@Jubei700]

Thankyou for the sample pack, these and your explanations have changed my approach to using the KO ii

[@K24U76]

It really was a cool video. Thank you for this. I have a lot of analog synths and I have a KO2 too, but I didn’t even think about sampling my synthesizers.

[@electrosonicnebula]

Exactly! The polyphonic immediacy is what makes it killer. Of course they should have implemented resampling, scene chaining, reverse, and a couple of LoFi modes but still. I'll be sampling in mono from KZbin and a cassette player at double speed. Absolutely brilliant machine even if it cost 100 dollars more. Great examples of warm pads from great analog machines. Love Grandma, Perfourmer, and Mopho.

[@ryanstevens3822]

holy shit dude, rewatched your mavis and hologram and you should be a top tier synthtuber, damnable algo. hope you review more stuf fin the future and please stay critical

[@willnewsome4566]

Another splendid, informative, inspiring video. Thanks very much!

[@iShredStreets]

Good stuff, again! You're making me love the K.O. II more.

[@Andreas1683]

WAOW!! THANK YOU!! This was so helpful man!! please do more with the KO-ii, as I believe you have the mind to really be creative with this sampler. I feel like the KO-ii can become anything in your hands! Thank you for a good video!! SHARED ON SOCIALS!

[@trostadam]

Great little piece! Awesome technique!

[@thierrylebrun7795]

A lot of clever thoughts on samples, i’m try to keep those in mind. thank you!!

[@ArturoXI]

This is amazing! Thank you for these videos, I can’t stop watching them - learning so much. Would you ever consider doing a tutorial from scratch on the KOII? I’d pay for that - from setting up to using each knob and feature. I’d be your first student! I’ve been wanting to learn how to play and make my own music. I’m an 80’s baby, big fan of electronic synthesizer music and such. Seriously- reach out if that would ever be a possibility. Thank you! Subscribed!

[@paullee3660]

This is a good tutorial on lo-fi sampling. Worth a subscription.

[@Clarity-808]

Thanks for the sound files! ❤

[@mksln]

Wonderful video and sample collection! Thank you for making it! And this technique is great not just for the KO but I think will work great for other size limited, polychromatic samplers like my picoTracker 👍

[@matthewwilson3673]

Great idea to use with dreadbox typhon and their other synths that are mono, great analog sounds

[@Bloom_Music]

No doubt, Dreadbox synths sound so good, I’m sure they would sound amazing polyphonic. I need to try this with an Erebus!

[@anthonyayers9405]

Great video, really enjoying this on my KO II. Can you talk about your compositions? I really love the one at 10:38 and I am kind of mystified at your voicings. Also, are you layering tracks here? I hear differences in the high and low end melodies that seem more like EQ and FX than just downsampling. Am I wrong? Keep going! Love your stuff!

[@Bloom_Music]

All of the melodies and arps in this video are from the Deadmau5 Chimaera midi pack. I usually compose my own music in my videos, but I ran short on time in this one and got lazy. 🙂 And no multitracking, all of these are single pass recordings. I am using the built in effects of the K.O. II in some cases, but the difference in tone between the high and low notes is purely down to the sampling engine and the way it pitches!

[@megloton]

Jeez man what a fucking great video. So enlightening, really appreciate this!

[@daniel_mana]

Thanks for this videos!!!!

[@monodux]

This is absolutely brilliant. I might turn my 404 into a sample synth now! Thanks for all this great info.

[@Bloom_Music]

Unfortunately, the 404 cannot do this. The chromatic mode is pretty limited and the pitch down range is less than an octave. To get the same results as the K.O. II, you need to be able to pitch down 2-3 octaves. You can still do it, but you’ll have a very limited range of notes to play from and it won’t have nearly as much character!

[@monodux]

Oh well. I’ll have to work with those limitations I suppose. I find limitations are usually a good thing for me.🤓

[@tiergartenmusic]

Fantastic! Thank you.

[@Nubedesprolija]

Thanks bro. I see your video and i buy my KO II this week. The example of the 4:27 take me back to my childhood playing DK on my gameboy

[@Vxt667]

Thank you for the knowledge

[@ottergrove]

Just in time. The backup and restore functions were added in latest firmware update!

[@klumpmeister2000]

I’d love to see you do a Moog Grandmother after seeing this and your Minifreak video!

[@davidgrigorian2090]

Hey Donald these videos are really fantastic and inspiring. I would love to to see a video showing how you went from importing the samples onto the KO2 to arriving at the example melodies for each sample. Iv been struggling to get anything similar when using your samples on my KO2. Thanks again for these great videos.

[@Bloom_Music]

I probably won't have time to make a video on it, but if you're using the samples I provided, you'll have to make some changes to get the same sounds as in the video. In pretty much all of the examples I've made adjustments to the envelope settings and then I also used the K.O. II's reverb or delay on most of the patches. Try increasing the release time and adding some delay to see if that gets you closer! Also, turn the pitch down an octave in the Sound menu and also play a couple octaves down on your keyboard since I intentionally sampled these sounds at a high octave.

[@davidgrigorian2090]

thank you@@Bloom_Music that did the trick.

[@ryanhursh6322]

Great video, sounds incredible. This is exactly what I love my OP-1 Field for. Are there benefits of the KOII over the Field in this specific use case?

[@Bloom_Music]

I’m not very familiar with the OP-1, so I’m not sure if there are any benefits to the K.O. II (other than the price difference, of course 🙂).

[@100DollarHeadache]

What I like to do when sampling a synth sound is to leave the source synth's volume envelope as on/off without any attack, and have the sampler provide the volume envelope.

[@Bloom_Music]

Yes, this is a good method. However, it can also be interesting to include the attack and release in the sample so that when you play it back each note has different envelope timing. This can result in a more complex sound. It would be like modulating the attack/release times with key follow on a "normal" synth. Just depends on the vibe you are going for!

[@100DollarHeadache]

@@Bloom_MusicI actually like sampling the entire patch, volume envelope and all, if I'm only sampling one note and then pitching down to seek out aliasing on my Mirage.

[@crumlink]

amazing information!

[@ShortP1089]

great video!

[@daaveed1323]

Your videos are so informative. Thank you!

[@josephnwilson]

Would you recommend the Minifreak and T.K. II then to someone as their first synth setup? I LOVE the classic sounds you got out of the Mini. And it seems to be super versatile and something I could grow with. And I love the lofi sounds you’re making with it + K.O. Plus some drum functionality sounds fun.

[@Bloom_Music]

I will always recommend the MiniFreak! It is one of my favorite all time synths. Huge sonic palette and sounds wonderful! My only concern with it being your first is that the oscillator section is non-traditional vs. typical subtractive synthesis, so the learning curve may be a little higher. If that does not concern you, I say go for it! As far as the K.O. II, it really depends on what you're looking for in this setup. It sounds amazing, but is a fairly limited device. If you're looking for something to be the centerpiece of your setup, you may want to look at the more expensive, more capable devices like MPC or Maschine. But if you're just wanting something that can you can make some cool samples with, while also providing some beats, it's perfect!

[@josephnwilson]

@@Bloom_Music Thank you for the reply! It's so very much appreciated. Super helpful.

[@cresshead]

excellent

[@NiamorH]

5:45 I understand you had to find examples to show the differences in behaviour between sampling and synthesis, but just to make sure, you can circumvent this monophonic LFO behaviour in the settings right? With Key Sync set to Voice in the LFO section. In combination with Keyboard Tracking set to modulate LFO frequency in a virtual patch.

[@Bloom_Music]

You are correct. Assuming your synth has per voice LFOs, you could patch it as you described to get the same effect.

[@harveytherobot]

I don’t know if you’re a Star Wars fan, but at the 8:05 mark, that LFO totally sounded like the probe droid used to interrogate Princess Leia in A New Hope!

[@Unifono2012]

great video

[@gnargrove]

Thanks!

[@Bloom_Music]

My first Super Thanks! I appreciate it!

[@sarundayo]

To recap: when sampling pitch higher and faster, then lower it down on the KO2. Got it boss! 👍

[@thestatpow5]

That is not at all what this video is about.

[@beenmicrophone5817]

if this could have a looper option for unlimited sustain then this could be an amazing rompler too, see jd900 being stiill prized for string patches by composers

[@twinstereo]

Would you happen to know if you could get the same results with koala or the sp404mk2

[@adrianwyss2616]

Now ..❤ i know why i got a 133ko2 … because i got allready a Mini-Freak & since 3 years a Microfreak …😅😅😅 i just learn to use the Ko2 I got it at 13.9.24 …

[@bengsynthmusic]

The bright keys in the intro is an Oberheim in my guess...?

[@Bloom_Music]

JX-03 🙂

[@Mothhole]

Are the 13.7MB unedited/ not repitched?

[@freequaintseas1852]

Holy shit

[@legomyfego]

Awesome video! this unlocks so many new possibilities!

[@EyeseeEgo]

I don’t see your email but you’re awesome.

[@creativecollection4357]

❤👏👏👏👏👏

[@matszh]

I wish that it supported sustain pedal via midi though…

[@axelcodr]

I like your old format videos without talking more enjoyable! Totally different. Will you return to old format ever??

[@Bloom_Music]

For sure, I’ll continue to release no talking versions of my videos. I just didn’t do it for the K.O. II series because random sample examples without context could be pretty confusing.

[@deadgrafixcom]

Impressive little box!! Great samples, and a very insightful video - thanks!