Forgive my ignorance...!

[davidj]

Hey all,

 

I need some help! I'm dabbling into synths for the first time and I recently picked up a Alesis Micron a few months ago. I'm really digging some of the sounds that I can pull out of this thing. My bandmates have taken notice of this as well and it has already made a big impact on some of our songs. The problem is that I'm a bass player and when I switch over to the keyboard...my basslines are lost. I've learned to split the keyboard but the bass pre-sets on this thing sound like {censored}. Not a very natural sounding bass guitar sound. I know that you can sample sounds onto this thing but what do I need and how do I do that?? I know that it probably involves some sort of Midi interface but I know zero about this. I have a computer so could I plug my bass into the computer and run a midi out to the keyboard?? Would this work??

 

I also have the Arturia Mini-Moog software and some sounds that I have created on that can not be emulated by the Micron (at least I don't know how to). How would I go about getting those on to my Micron? Once again excuse my ignorance. I'm just a plug and play kinda guy and all of this is waaaay confusing to me! Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

 

-David

[Umbra]

I don't think you can sample and your not going to get an accurate bass guitar out of it. You can get pretty close but it would take a fair amount of playing skill to emulate a real bass anyway unless you don't care about getting the expression out of the micron that you can out of a bass.

 

You should be able to get sounds similar to the mini out of the micron just not exact. Best way to start is to duplicate a lot of the settings in the micron that are in the mini, then you'll have to learn what everything does to get closer.

 

A micron is not a very good plug and play type synth, it requires you to learn a little bit about what all the settings do.

[Yoozer]

Let's clear a bit of that ignorance up then . Oh yes, if your songs get better - more power to you!

Originally posted by davidj I know that you can sample sounds onto this thing

No, you cannot. The external inputs are meant to put sounds through - you can effectively use it as a huge stompbox. If you've browsed through the presets, you may have noticed that some don't make any sound. You could try to hook up a discman to the inputs and then see what happens if you play and tweak the knobs a bit.

but what do I need and how do I do that?? I know that it probably involves some sort of Midi interface but I know zero about this.

MIDI is not audio, so that wouldn't help you.

 

I have a computer so could I plug my bass into the computer and run a midi out to the keyboard?? Would this work??

No, no. Your bass makes sound. Sound is the result. MIDI is like notes or tabs - it tells you what to play, but it doesn't make sound out of itself.

 

You could however run your bass through the Micron itself - split the keyboard, let one patch play continuously, set oscillator volume to zero and ext. input volume to maximum.

 

I also have the Arturia Mini-Moog software and some sounds that I have created on that can not be emulated by the Micron (at least I don't know how to). How would I go about getting those on to my Micron?

Not. You'd have to take a laptop or your entire computer with you to every gig. You can only use the Micron to tell the Minimoog what to play.

 

However, a lot of things on a Minimoog match with the Micron - 3 oscillators, 1 lowpassfilter, 2 envelopes, 1 LFO - there's a lot of sounds you could re-build. They wouldn't sound 100% similar but they'd be alike.