Korg Digital Synth Racks/Sound Modules

I like to use the vocoder. USB would have been nice. Price paid: $1000 USD UTILIZATION Pretty simple to use. At least once you have a Cubase Patch file. SOUNDS The basses and drums are excellent. OVERALL OPINION Not very well built. Mine is having problems with the audio at the moment. I use the basses and drums a lot more than I should. I really like the sound of the basses and drums on the expansion boards too. Originally posted on FutureProducers.com Posted by: SaltyDawg ( 8-, 2005)

This is a all-around music production module. You have multiple pianos, electric keyboards, synths, pads, strings, bass, etc..... This thing goes all the way with a 88 key midi board, which is really sweet. You get all the things you would expect, pitch, mod, sustain as well as effects controls (I plugged a M-audio axiom board in it and all the faders let you change all sorts of things, attack, sustain, envelope...). As for connections, it has midi in/out/thru, stereo audio out, and a computer host jack all on the back, and a headphone jack on the front panel. This thing has hundreds of sounds (It has 100 sounds in the program section and 100 sounds in the multi section), and 2 separate effects engines with 47 effects. This is an older sound module, so I would say the "style" is a hard thing to label. I used this for dance, electronica stuff mainly. If you want sounds that are more interesting than realistic, than this unit would work for you. I never used it with a computer, but I believe it is only able to produce sounds from the midi signal coming from the computer. It has 64 Polyphony. UTILIZATION The general config/setup is very simple. Plug in a keyboard with a midi cord, select a patch from either the program mode or the multi mode, and play. Real simple. As for the editing, you definitely need to read the manual, at least I did, and I never really did to much with it. I have switched mainly to computer programs and find them a lot easier to use. The manual is really nice and very thorough. It will answer all your questions, and after browsing through it, you will probably see that this unit will do more than you thought. SOUNDS The sounds were fun at first, I used them on a few tracks, but overall, they are not very realistic and lack a lot of warmth and tone. The unit is over 10 years old so you can't expect to much. The effects are the same way. Nothing really jumped out at me as being "real." Again, if you are into sounds that don't sound real, but rather interesting (Beck uses a lot of sounds and samples that actually kinda suck tone/realistic wise, but in there own way, sound cool...if you know what I mean). I actually used a patch from this unit on the very beginning of the first track on my bands debut album and after a little EQ and reverb (computer plug-ins) it sounded great. The expressiveness seems fine. The touch sensitivity seemed right on par with my much newer Korg TR. Same with the aftertouch. There were a few patches that were really interesting. There is this mandolin tremolo patch that I really liked as well as the patch I used on my album called "first snow." What did I hate? The acoustic piano patches, they all SUCK!!! OVERALL OPINION I had this unit for a year and a half. I actually just sold it on ebay to help pay for my new laptop. The best thing about this unit is its mass amount of interesting sounds. I would run it through some Moogerfooger pedals I have and get some very cool sounds (in all reality though, anything sounds cool out of those pedals). What I didn't like about it is its lack of realistic sound, especially the Pianos. I also had a Roland JV 1010 that came out about the same time. The Roland has a lot more sounds (around 1000) and a lot of them sounded better, but again the pianos were really bad. These go used for around $150. Not a bad price, but I would recommend saving up a little more money a buying something made in this decade, it will surely give you better quality patches. I actually got mine for $50 locally and sold it on ebay for $126, so if that deal came around again, sure. But no, I would not pay full price for this unit again.