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We’ve just posted something that we are going to be experimenting with up on You-Tube and wanted to let everyone in on it. It’s a demo for our new Triton Producers Mix and has three audio tracks to check out. Since we have been doing that for many years, that’s not the “new” part. What’s new is that in addition to releasing the MP3 audio demos we have also put together a short video. It’s nothing fancy, just some pictures of the Triton Series and a few extra things mixed it. It was fun and easy putting it together in Apples imovie. We hope you enjoy it!

At several of our vintage synths web pages, it say’s that our sounds are available in WAV file format. Let me explain what’s up with that. I’ll use the Oberheim OB8 as an example.

In this case, the WAV format is different then what you might expect. You can not load these sounds into your software sampler. When you purchase the .wav format, you need a Oberheim OB in order to use the sounds. If you want OB8 sounds for your software sampler then GO HERE.

So, instead of purchasing the data cassette tape,  you get the sounds in a downloadable format. Now you don’t have to wait for the cassette tape to be delivered in the mail. That’s one of the cool things about the internet. You couldn’t do that back in the 80’s!

Once you download, just connect your computer audio output to your synths cassette interface input and you can load in the sounds the same way you would from a cassette tape. The files will open in any program that plays WAV files. You can use your DAW or even iTunes to load the files.

You just need a cable to connect your computer to your synth. It’s a 1/8′ mini plug for the computer and a standard 1/4′ plug for your synth. You can get one at Amazon.

This works the same for any of the 80’s vintage synths which load sounds via the old cassette interface. This includes the Roland Juno 106, Juno 60, Jupiter-6 Jupiter-8, Korg Poly 800, DW6000 and DW8000 .

Yes, we are just about the only sound company left from those early days of midi and have lot’s of cool sounds for those old 80’s synth beasts. The decade of Miami Vice, Van Halen and Big Hair.

Not sure how to download sounds or want to know how e-mail delivery works? It’s quick, simple, and FREE! And best of all, you can have your new sounds today.

Here’s how it works: After you place your order, we e-mail you a password with a web link. Just click on the link and sign in with your info. Then click on the link and download your new sounds. Easy as pie.

If you’re working with a synthesizer, save the files to a Floppy Disk, Smart Media Card, USB Stick, Hard Drive, CD-ROM or whatever format your synth is using for storage. Then you can load in our sounds from your Synths Floppy Drive, CD-ROM or Smart Media Device. If you’re using a digital sampler then just take the new samples and import them into the software program or hardware sampler that you’re working with.

You can also load in the sounds through your synths Midi port by doing a System Exclusive (.syx) data transfer. We include a cool app with your order that lets you load the sounds via Midi.

We also have the synth sounds in standard midi file format (.mid). You can use your sequencer program (Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer etc) to load in the data.

So, there are several ways to load sounds into your synth. Just let us know which synth or sampler you’re working with in the “comments” section of our order form and we will take care of the rest.

Most sounds are available for download delivery. For more info on how to load sounds via midi, check out our “Sysex Made Simple” page. You can also find out more about all our “available formats over here”.

If you have any questions or problems with the e-mail delivery we will be happy to assist. Our customer support rules!

The Patch King has announced the release of Vol #12 – “Producers Mix” for the Korg Triton Series Workstations.

Producers Mix for the Korg Triton series is the culmination of our seven years of programming and over two thousand programs and combis created for one of the most popular and beloved workstations ever released. Our years of experience in working with the Triton really shows in the high quality of this collection. The new soundbank consists of 128 programs and 64 combis all professionally designed to unleash the power of your Triton and is filled with everything you need for your next recording session or live gig.

This new collection brings to all producers of Hip Hop and R&B, Classic Rock, Techno, Soundtrack, House and Dance Music a powerful set of sounds that will inspire and spice up your music whether you want to build your tracks from scratch using the programs or just want to jam along with our fully designed combis. Note that on our MP3 demos that there was no overdubbing or multi tracking. All tracks were recorded live.

This will be our last set of sounds for the Triton series as we will soon be starting work on a new collection of sounds for Korg’s new M3 workstations. Look for our first release sometime this summer. We have enjoyed working with this amazing machine over the past seven years and now feel that it’s time to move on to the next step in the evolution of Korg workstations.

Producers Mix is compatible with all Korg Tritons including the Triton Classic, Triton Studio, Triton Extreme, Triton LE and Triton Rack.

More info, soundlists and MP3 demos Over HERE!

In a twenty four hour news cycle where I read that the Doomsday Clock had been moved forward two minutes, the Carteret Islands in the remote south pacific were the first victims of the rising sea due to global warming and the New York radio station icon WNEW has officially bit the dust, I felt I had to say something.

Yeah, things have changed.

Anyone who grew up in the New York area during the 60’s and 70’s is probably as sad as I am to hear the news about “NEW”. Not that it’s really news at this point since the radio station that we all knew and loved has not existed for many years now. This is just the final nail in the coffin of what used to be the vibrant NY radio scene.

Who could forget that rainy Saturday afternoon in 1974 when John Lennon popped in on Dennis Elsas and stayed for the afternoon playing DJ. Or when Lennon was gunned down only six years later on that dark day in December. I stayed up for three days straight listening to “NEW” and recording what they played into an old reel to reel tape recorder. I still have the tapes, but refuse to listen to them. Too depressing. It’s the only time I can remember Scott Muni crying on the air.

When Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland or The Beatles released Abbey Road, “NEW” would play the whole record from start to finish without any commercials. You won’t see that anymore. They didn’t just play great music. I used to wake up early on Sunday mornings when they used to broadcast the lectures from the great philosopher Alan Watts.

Everyone was listening. The only time the radio was not on is when we were either playing the records that we just bought or playing music in our garage bands trying to copy that great sound that we heard on the records. Many a time I could remember walking into school in the morning and my friends would come up to me and say “did you hear what they were playing on “NEW” last night? Yeah, I heard. I used to go to sleep with the radio on.

Many of the old “NEW” crew has migrated over to WFUV which I guess is a positive thing. I still like listening to Pete Fornatale and Vince Scelsa on Saturdays. Too bad they and the classic rock format are only a small part of what is on the WFUV program schedule. Even so, things are just not the same. Maybe it’s me, but I just don’t feel the same excitement that I used to feel when I would turn on the radio back in the day and never knew what great song I would hear next.

Just did a search as google for WNEW and found lot’s of interesting stuff. Here is one with lot’s of cool old picts. Good memories.

We wanted to clarify what sounds to order and which format to choose when placing an order. It’s understandable with the large number of products and the many formats available, there is bound to be some confusion.

There are two main sections of our web site. The “Patch” Section and the “Sample City” Section. The Patch section has new sounds for your synthesizer and  the Sample City section has new sounds for your sampler.

Before placing an order, please note the various “formats” available. There are several different formats, so take a look at the options available before ordering. Check out the page which fills you in on the different options. You can find it “OVER HERE”.

Also note that our order form has a “comments” section, where you can list the synthesizer or sampler that your working with. Please include that along with any other info about your computer set up. That will help us avoid mistakes when processing your order and make sure that you get the right sounds.

If you need any more info, just Email Us  a brief description of your set up along with your questions.

Many vintage digital samplers use SCSI ports (pronounced “scuzzy) in order to connect them to external devices such as CD-ROM, Zip or Hard Drive. SCSI stands for “Small Computer System Interface”. Since the advent of the USB and Firewire protocols SCSI has long since been discontinued, but is still popular with musicians using older equipment. We are one of the few companies where you an still get a SCSI CD-ROM or ZIP Drive. All our drives have been refurbished and come with a one year warranty.

If you have purchased a drive from us, here are a few tips about working with our SCSI CD-ROM or ZIP Drives:

1- Do not connect or disconnect the CD or ZIP drive when your sampler is turned on. Make sure to connect everything first and then turn on your sampler.

2- The CD-ROM or ZIP drive is set to a “SCSI Channel”. In the SCSI chain you can connect up to eight different devices. Each device must be on a different SCSI channel in order for everything to work properly. In other words, if you have both a CD-ROM drive and a ZIP drive your CD drive must be on a different SCSI channel then your zip drive. Our CD and Zip drives usually get set to channel four, five or six, however SCSI devices can usually be set to channels “zero through seven”.

All digital samplers that have SCSI ports have a parameter inside them that lets you set the SCSI channel in order to connect them to external devices. Remember that your sampler must be on the same SCSI channel as your CD, ZIP or Hard Drive. It’s done a little differently on every sampler so we can’t get too specific on exactly how that’s done with every one. Best to check your owners manuel or contact the manufacture for details.

Here is an example on how it’s done with the original Akai MPC2000:

A- Select Shift and Disk.

B- Change “device” from floppy to SCSI channel using the data wheel. Keep scrolling with the wheel until you see one of our programs pop up in the MPC’s screen. The drive is probably on channel 4, 5 or 6. Once your connected to can scroll though the programs and pick the one that you want to load.

C- Our program sets are broken up into “partitions”. Each partition usually has 12 or 13  programs on it. To get from one partition to the next, just change from partition A to partitions B, C or D. Go to “part” and use the data wheel to switch partitions.

Each of our Millennium Zip/CD Disks has 50 programs. Each program has multiple samples in it and the samples are mapped out across the MPC’s pads for you. We recommend you load the sounds as a “program” (.pgm). You can also load in the sounds as individual samples and create your own custom programs.

If you need any more info please contact us via phone or e-mail.

If you found this page from a search engine and are interested in purchasing a SCSI CD-ROM or ZIP drive just CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO..

That’s right. We get a lot of calls and e-mail from synth owners in a panic because they just turned on their keyboard or module and all the sounds are gone. They want to replace them as soon as possible for that gig on the weekend or tonight’s recording session.

Many of them ask…..”What Happened”???

What happened was that their synth’s “Internal Battery” died. That’s right… All hardware synths come with a battery that is inside the casing. Most have “Lithium Battery’s” similar to a cell phone or digital camera. Those little round ones that are about the size of a U.S. nickle. They are designed to last about ten years and when they die whatever you have in your synth’s memory is wiped out.

It’s great if you have your data backed up. Of course if you don’t then your in trouble, so make sure you back up your sounds. However, even if you do have your data backed up you will have to replace the battery or else the synth will not hold the data in it’s memory. As soon as you turn off the synth everything gets wiped out again.

What you have to do is open up the synth and take the casing off so you can get inside and replace the battery. That can usually be done pretty easily with just a philips screw driver. Some synths are easier to get inside then other ‘s so if your not quite sure about how that works then best to call a service tech who can go in and do it for you. In general it’s a fairly simple job that you can probably handle without having to pay a tech to do it for you.

Once you have the synth’s casing off then look around for that little nickle shaped lithium battery that I talked about. Simple remove it and then look for the model number that should be on the face of the battery. If the model number is not on the battery then contact the company who manufactures the synth (if they are still in business) and ask them what it is. You can also try doing a search on google or any internet search engine. You never know what your gonna find on that!

The good news it that it’s usually pretty easy to get a replacement battery for most synths. Places like Radio Shack, J&R music or many computer stores carry a wide selection of lithium battery’s. They only cost a few dollars so you can be back up and running without having to go too deep into your pockets.

Once you’ve replaced your battery and put the casing back on then just load everything back in and you will be back in business. Many newer synths can be “re-initilized” from the synths front panel which will get you back to the factory settings. Check your owners manuel to see if your synth can do that.

If for one reason or another you have not backed up your stuff then contact us and we will try to help you out. We have a large inventory of patch data from many vintage synths going back nearly twenty five years and there is a good chance that we have a great collection of sounds that you can use to get you going again. It may not be the same data that you originally had, but it will certainly get you back on track and there is a good chance that you will find a big improvement over to what you had in there originally. After all it’s from “The Patch King”!!!!

The morel of the story is “BACK UP YOUR DATA”. You never know when your synth’s battery is going to die and best to be prepared. There are several ways to back up your stuff depending on your synth. Vintage synths produced during the 70’s and early 80’s usually did it to a data cassette tape although with the advent of MIDI in the mid 80’s that all changed and the newer synths let you use “sysex – system exclusive”. That store’s the sounds on your computer hard drive. More info on how to save and load sounds via midi can be found at another article we have put together called SYSEX MADE SIMPLE. Be sure to check that out if your interested in saving your sounds on your synths hard drive.

If you need any more info please contact us and we will be happy to help you out.

We get a lot of questions about how to “Key-Map” our AIFF and WAV files so we thought we would fill you in at the “Midi Tips” section.

Two of the most popular formats in which most sound companies (including us) save their digital samples is the “AIFF and WAV” formats. AIFF (.aif, .aiff) stands for “Audio Interchange File Format” and was developed by Apple for storage of sounds on the Mac. Windows WAVE: (.wav) format was created by Microsoft and IBM, and it has become a popular standard in saving sounds on the PC. WAV sounds will also work on the Mac, but AIFF will not work with windows PC’s.

Almost all of todays music digital hardware and software samplers can read AIFF and WAV files, but before you can actually make music with them you need to know a few simple things.

AIFF and WAV files are individual samples that must first be set up as “programs” before you can create songs with them. In other words, each AIFF or WAV sample is a different musical note. The samples must be “key mapped” across the keyboard so you will be able to play all 12 notes in a typical octave or all 88 notes over the entire keyboard. Each sampler does this a little differently so we won’t get into the exact steps on how it’s done, but here are a few general tips that should help get you started.

For most instruments we usually sample in “Root” and “5th” of the scale and give you several C’s and G’s to work with. We then sample the same notes across several differnt octaves (C1,G1,C2,G2 and so on). We usually sample five octaves which then fill’s in a typical 61 note keyboard. In most cases that is all that’s needed. If we sampled every single note then the file sizes would be so large that they would not be able to fit in many samplers. Even with todays software samplers which have tons of sampling RAM, it would be a great waste of space and take longer to download if we sampled ever single note. Instruments like an acoustic piano require you sample more notes, but in most cases just sampling the Root and 5th’s are enough to create a realistic sound for instruments such as basses, leads, pads and strings.

Key Mapping also allows you to set up your own custom drum kits where you can (let’s say) put your Kick drum on C, snare on D, hi hat on E and crash cymbal on F. You could also put that kick drum on the C and stretch out the sample using key mapping to have it play across a complete octave (12 notes) by itself. Each note then becomes a different pitched kick drum and if you do that and play two or three notes at the same time you get a super phat kick! You can also key-map two or three different kick drums on that one C to create a fatter kick drum. It all depends on how you want to set up your drum sounds.

To key-map the C and G sounds into your sampler follow these steps:

1. Take the C’s and the G’s and match them to the notes on your keyboard. Start with C1 and map out all the C’s across the range of the keyboard.
You may have to tune the notes up one octave depending if your using a 88 note or a 61 note keyboard.
2. With all the C’s keymap (stretch) the low note down to Bb and the high note up to E. Each sampler does this a bit differently so check your owners manuel on how this is done on yours.
3. With all the G’s keymap the low note down to F and the high note up to A.

That will fill in all the notes over your keyboard and enable you to play songs. If you had a “E” in the mix then you would not have to stretch the C’s and G’s as far. The more notes provided, the less stretching you need to do to fill in the whole keyboard.

In general AIFF and WAV files need to be tweaked in order to get the right sound. The files are just the starting point and it’s really up to you do get the programming together to make a “patch”. Adjustments in the envelopes “release section” and filters “cutoff switch” are sure to pop up in most files (just to name a couple). You should also add effects and modulation to complement the sound of the wavs.

AIFF and WAV files take a bit of programming in order to get the sound the way you want it. We give you a great starting point in being able to create a great “patch” and with a little practice your can do the rest. If you need any additional tips to help you along please contact us and we will be glad to assist.

Now that you know all about key-mapping check out our “downloadable AIFF and WAV files” Over Here. Order online and Download Sounds today!

Join Proton as he plays “Music From The Caribbean”. Featuring the music of Jamaica’s “Mikey General” and “Milton Blake” along with Barbados’s “Magnet Man”. Also featured are a couple of Kid Nepro mixes called “Reg-Rock” which Proton describes as a “Blend of Reggae and Rock Music”.

We are now developing The Patch King Podcast to become a showcase for bands looking to get their music heard by an international audience. Anyone interested in submitting their music can contact us HERE. We are also very interested in any songs that you have produced using any Kid Nepro sound patches or digital samples so please contact us if you have any music that you would like us to hear.

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