Survey: What Labels Would You Put on a “Genre” Knob?
Okay, first, a disclaimer: the fact that the upcoming microKORG XL has a “genre” knob for selecting presets isn’t big news. The original microKORG had genre-selectable presets, too. The beauty of the original, though, was how incoherently these settings were labeled. (Retro, or Hiphop/Vintage, anyone?)
Sometimes, the labels that don’t fit are better than the real ones.
“What type of music do you play?”
“I play VOCODER!”
(From here on out, any time the mention of VOCODER comes up, it shall be in CAPS and ITALICS as will anything else we especially ENJOY. For instance: GRANULAR DISTORTION!)
Sadly, it seems Korg has – well, sort of – made these choices rational. (As rational as they can be, anyway, given “genre” is generally irrational.) I think I misread the label “ROCK/POP” as “POWER POP” – you’ll have to use your imagination. (VINTAGE SYNTH? Does that really say HOUSE/DISCO?) Korg explains:
The first selects the musical genre, while the second defines the instrument category. From the familiar "ROCK / KEYBOARD," the standard "R&B / LEAD," and the distinctive "HIPHOP / BASS," a wide range of presets are instantly available. For the diehard synthesists and sound designers, you can use the three performance edit knobs for fast, effective editing in performance. You’re also free to select and assign your favorite parameters.
No idea what “distinctive” means, but since our job is not selling lots of gear, let’s do something more fun. I suggest we chip in and imagine the Most Awesomest Genre Knob ever. You’ll be free to incorporate this into your Pd and Reaktor patches. It will have silly, awesome names on it that we’ve made up or refer to disparagingly. Get your genre brains going, and submit your ideas, and I’ll run the best answers later this week. You’ll have to print out a sticker to put on your new microKORG XL when it ships in 2009.
Now, if only we could use a “genre” knob on bands at gigs… sorry, Emo band, you’ve now just become Avant-electro-noise!
Send your answers below, or head directly to http://cdm.genreknob.sgizmo.com
45 Comments
Leave a CommentCreate Digital Music » Korg microKORG XL: Little Keys, with Purtier Looks, Vocoder, and Sounds
[...] Oddest decision: The two knobs now select presets instead of just one. One selects bank, the other instrument – okay, fair enough. But the one knob is genre (“ROCK/POPâ€) while the other selects “BASS,†“LEAD,†etc. I think that runs dangerously close to insulting people’s intelligence, which is rarely a good way to reach out to new players. The original microKORG was picked up as a first synth by people because they connected with it emotionally, not because it pandered to them. Clarification: the original microKORG also had a knob with genre labels. Most people ignored it, which I think is probably the right answer. It’s a bit silly, but it’s not a deal-breaker. That said, let’s go have some fun with this idea. [...]
December 3, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
peter
dear god, no chiptune.
December 3, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
teej
ha! awesome post. this knob layout is so laughably stupid. i would try and instead attempt to classify the sounds by character but if this helps people with tiny fingers shred then HIPHOP/VINTAGE your little hearts out!
December 3, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Nomis
What the hell is Electronica anyways?
December 3, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
jonnyfive
But does it have a “talent” knob? I always need to turn that one up…
December 3, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
veeble
We need an “Awesome” knob, for super awesome synth sounds.
December 3, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
jasonmd2020
For the two knobs I nominate BLUEGRASS/BREAKBEAT.
December 3, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Max
Is this knob continuous? Would love to move it half between “Glitch-Hop” and “OSC-Pop”!
December 3, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
crust
I’m think I’m done with Korg for awhile. I’m selling my R3 today and holing up in a dustbowl with my Micron to wear out what’s left of its blank, genreless main knob in time with a skipping Buddha-Machine….
December 3, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
BirdFLU
I’ve got an old drum machine (ELI CompuRhythm 7030) That has some interesting choices such as:
Bolalo
Dodmpa
HabaNeba
I would just use nonsense genres. Remember the Lexicon Vortex effects unit? It had presets like Bleen and Aerosol.
December 3, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
godprobe
FWIW, in the mid-90’s, prior to “Indie” and “Emo”, weezer was described to me as POWER POP. Think of it in contrast to “Alternative” and it makes sense.
December 3, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Bjorn
Acid Dueling Banjo’s!!!
Its a sub-genre of Hillbilly Rave.
Cowboys with glow sticks on E, often seen riding a mechanical spaceship with a saddle.
December 3, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
Adrian Anders
I wonder what the D&B/Breaks category will be like. I imagine it will be a bank full of the “Whomp” sound used by Nu Skool and D&B artists 5 years ago. Doubt it will have much of the complex bass sounds in the style of Si Begg, Tipper, FreQ. Nasty, General MIDI, and the like. God, I never thought I would sound dated dropping those names in a conversation.
Jeez, I don’t know I suppose the next model will have “Dubstep”, “Clownstep”, and “Grime” as genres.
December 3, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Foosnark
AMBIENT DEATH POLKA, to borrow a KVR trope.
December 3, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
Benjamin Ang
We need a knob setting for the bands that say “you can’t classify us as any genre” or which baffle critics… maybe “GENRE BUSTING GENRE / DEFIES DESCRIPTION”
Like BirdFlu says, this reminds me of old Yamaha PortaSounds and Casiotones with the Samba, Tango, Cha-cha, four types of Waltz… Hey, doesn’t the Korg Karma technology do that? There must be a plan to link these all up …
What would the patches in these Genres sound like?
“POST POP”
“CHEESY / ANTHEMIC”
“OLYMPIC THEME SONG”
“BOND MOVIE”
December 3, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
wi_ngo
I think you need to include all of the different possible ‘House’ styles. You might need a whole dedicated knob:
“Deep House”
“Micro House”
“Progressive House”
“Hip House”
“Hard House”
“Electro House”
“Ghetto House”
“Acid House”
Same with “Trance”
“Uplifting Trance”
“Tech Trance”
“Euro-trance”
…you get the idea
December 3, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
lilith
I renamed my MicroKorg preset banks:
Trance ——-> Glowsticks
Techno/House ——-> Furry Boots
Electronica ——-> Laptop
D’n'B/Breaks ——-> Suburban Bass
Hip-Hop/Vintage ——-> Bontempi
Retro ——-> Atari/Nintendo
SE/Hit ——-> Vicks
Vocoder ——-> ROBOT
They are all pretty much descriptive of the sounds within even after I replaced 90% of the presets. Except that “Bontempi” is now mostly pad patches, the original hip-hop presets did sound for the most part like an old home organ to me.
December 3, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
lilith
I LIKE Power Pop!
December 3, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
Candle Nine
I laughed really f’n hard at this:
(From here on out, any time the mention of VOCODER comes up, it shall be in CAPS and ITALICS as will anything else we especially ENJOY. For instance: GRANULAR DISTORTION!)
December 3, 2008 @ 10:43 pm
Dave AA
Perhaps they should be labeled according to the type of user:
NERD/GEEK
NOODLER
DILETTANTE (GUITARIST)
INDIE CHICK
NERD/MUSIC SCHOOL
POSER
etc
December 3, 2008 @ 10:46 pm
Polite
FUTURE
PAST
PRESENT
RETRO FUTURE
FLUX CAPACITOR
VOCODER
December 4, 2008 @ 12:19 am
Marc Arsenault
I’m surprised there is no “Happy Hardcore”
I’ll take the model with Glitch, Broken Beat, Dubstep, Philly Soul, Circuit Bent and Post Punk.
Cheers!
December 4, 2008 @ 2:25 am
sm0hm
Heey, let’s turn the dial to EXPLODE and see what happe- KaBooM!
December 4, 2008 @ 2:30 am
Bobert
I propose the newest Korg synth to have but one knob that crossfades between “SUCKS” and “ROCKS”
or perhaps “MEAT” and “CHEESE”
December 4, 2008 @ 5:11 am
Document 02
Genres on sounds… gosh.
Well, considering genres, a great site I found a few years ago, there ARE some mistakes in it, but then the overall work is still very interesting and worth spending an hour to check out all the styles & history…
http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
December 4, 2008 @ 5:17 am
C
There should only be one knob that goes all the way to ‘11′.
December 4, 2008 @ 6:49 am
Benny
80’s CHEESY POP / KEYTAR
HARD ROCK / BIG HAIR
80’s POP / MULLET
December 4, 2008 @ 8:58 am
Adam smith
According to the esteemed giant of music Duke Ellington there were only ‘two kinds of music good and bad’.So a simple switch should suffice.
By choosing the bad side in this binary equation you will probably have more chance of huge commercial success.
December 4, 2008 @ 9:33 am
Marcel
If I remember correctly, the Hammond Autovaria Rhythm machine had a rhythm setting called, LIVERPOOL.
December 4, 2008 @ 9:37 am
plurgid
My God, I love my microkorg, but that selector really bugs me.
First, as cheesy as everyone says they are, the presets aren’t that bad, and a lot of the time, I just want some quick phatness, and I don’t wanna funk around making my own sounds (though that IS a lot of fun too).
Couldn’t they just have had instrument categories instead of genres? Bass, Lead, Pad, etc, would be a shit load easier to deal with.
just sayin’.
December 4, 2008 @ 9:38 am
Varjohukka
I just link to a php script I once hacked together:
December 4, 2008 @ 10:16 am
Varjohukka
http://viruskc.vi.ohost.de/genre/genre.php
December 4, 2008 @ 10:17 am
jonnyfive
Varjohukka! Your PHP script rulez!
As a side note, some of my favorite knobs were on the original GRUNGE pedal: LOUD FACE ASS and GRUNGE. Needless to say the best sounds were to be had by turning the FACE down and the ASS up…
December 4, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Mad Al
Do they have a label for “pretentious git”?
December 4, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
al
rythmic jizzim
sloth loves chunk
funky chicken
guatemalan dubsteb
jiggy check
and eh
vocoder
December 4, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
jens-oliver
Ãœber Tech Glitch
… yet another genre script: http://www.genre-o-matic.com/
December 5, 2008 @ 9:03 am
Candle Nine
I’m still holding out for Guitarcentershowoffcore
December 5, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
pete
DIRTBAG
WANNABEE
EVH4EVER
STPDGRVS
8BITS4ME
SAWTOOTH
GR80H8
=8O
More presets than that is teh suck.
December 5, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
vvvoid
Needs an Artschool Twaddle setting
December 6, 2008 @ 5:51 am
Darren Landrum
Man, mine pales in comparison to all of these. I submitted “1960s Childrens Electronic.” My lack of creativity really saddens me.
December 6, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
cooptrol
Selectable philosophical schools:
Rationalism
Skepticism
Idealism
Pragmatism
Existencialism
Structuralism
December 8, 2008 @ 8:56 am
A
VÄTH
GORE
JARRE
SCHULZE
WAKEMAN
SCHMIDT
SCHNEIDER
ME
December 9, 2008 @ 4:58 am
SWURD
HMMMMMM I think
Electro/8Bit
Industrial
90’s
DnB/Breaks
December 13, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
godprobe
Eaglewhump
December 23, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
Exitman
bank1, bank2, bank3, bank4…. simple…
December 29, 2008 @ 2:21 am
Leave a comment
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI