Kentron Control Freak Profiles
Kentron Control Freak Profiles
Imagine
being able to quickly edit the parameters of your DSS-1 using dedicated hardware
sliders and buttons, just like a classic analog synth. Fortunately, the
DSS-1 does support MIDI sysex control of all its parameters, so a control
surface device that supports MIDI sysex (not just CC#s) would in fact be
able to control the DSS-1. Unfortunately, however, there is no factory
or third-party support for the DSS-1 for any control surface devices currently on the
market.
For those of you that own the 8-slider Kentron Control Freak Original, your prayers are answered. Download below the Control Freak profiles that I created for the DSS-1. The zip file contains 9 programs for the Control Freak that make up the complete DSS-1 profile - which includes all Program Parameter settings. The 9 individual files are .MID files that you can load into the Control Freak using any standard MIDI sysex utility (alternatively, you can use the Control Freak editor which is available at the Kenton web site). These program files will also work with the 16-slider Control Freak Studio Edition. Also included in the zip file is a printable HTML file displaying grids of all the setups, and which parameters the Control Freak's sliders and buttons control. Moving between programs on the Control Freak (e.g. between each 8-slider setup) is as easy as a slight twist of the data knob, provided that you loaded the 9 profiles into consecutively numbered slots in the Control Freak. This obviously isn't as nice as having all of the DSS-1's controls in front of you at once, but 8 sliders and buttons at a time sure beats having to deal with the single editing slider on the DSS-1's own control panel.
It should be noted here that the DSS-1's own LCD
screen will not display real-time updates as you control it using a device
like the Control Freak. To monitor what you're doing, view the Control
Freak's own LCD screen as you move the sliders. Also, if you hold a note
down on the DSS-1 while moving a slider on the Control Freak, you will
hear "MIDI stuttering" noise coming from the DSS-1's outputs. Unfortunately,
this makes a device like the Control Freak less useful for real-time tweaking
effects on the DSS-1, but quite useful as a device to simply make programming
new sounds easier. (Apparently, Korg synths with LED numerical displays,
like the DW-8000, do not suffer this "MIDI stuttering" problem.)