Korg Drum Machine (ELECTRIBE2BL)

This thing is insanely versatile. Samples in in mono or stereo, sounds great and has a ton of bass, has virtual synths that are capable of all kinds of sounds + recorded motion parameters / LFO modulation etc ... Can serve as a competent drum machine while also sequencing multiple MIDI instruments and playing back samples you've mangled onboard, and can do so with surprisingly intricate pattern chaining (and polyrhythms etc) and fun playback controls (like global effects and step jumps, part mutes and effects on the x-y pad) for live performance tweaks.Only real gripes: the back lights can be annoying in a dark space (like an airplane) and the battery life and sample memory aren't fantastic.

I have owned the Electribe-m for a very long time, and it's always been a great box to make grooves. Back in the "day" I'd build multi-part grooves across several patterns then record them with Acid Pro (pre-Sony) and create full width arrangements in software.So I was excited by this new iteration of "electribe" on the horizon, and I waited until after the Christmas 'few and far between' sightings to place my order. The vendor was great by the way (thank you Sam Ash), but this review is of the hardware. I saw that the polyphony was 24 voices -- a far cry better than my trusty old "m" unit, and the engine was reportedly based on the KingKorg engine, which sound pretty good in the demos I've heard.I'm not a DJ, I use my old "m" for composition, and I was thinking I might take this new box live in addition to using it for production, but I have found a few limitations with my workflow context, and found a few solutions which I'll outline below.First, even though I'm only beginning to scratch the surface of the machine, I've already run into voices with longer decay times being cut short by the dynamic voice allocation. I was using intervals (not actual chords) and not at the 16 part limit when I got this odd stutter recording a layer that did not show up when I was playing around on the voice without the pattern playing at the same time. Ok, fair enough, change the voice priority setting and move on. Depending on the complexity of what you are doing you might find this annoying or a non-issue, but it does impact how I now design my sounds resulting in the safest route being shorter sounds with less decay time.Second, I've found a bit of distortion, again with complex patterns, when I've got lots of bass in the headphone out, even if I turn the volume down. This is an artifact of how I monitor when I'm sitting at home (through monitors where my lead is a 3.5mm connector usually plugged in to my laptop) and may not be present in the main out and which I will have to test at some point. This distortion was noticed both with the monitors (which are equipped with a sub) and in various headphones. I'm not taking anything off my rating for this, because I'm not using the main output.The good news is that this distortion is not present in the exported audio, and my workflow does not involve live performance featuring the electribe at this time. Need to test it with the main output -- I suspect it will be clean.Third, while the interface is well designed, some things are buried a bit in the menu system. I'm getting quite adept at adjusting things like note priority, polyphony, variations on note triggering, and so forth, but some things I wish I could just hit shift and crank on some knob as a shortcut. Pattern naming is really annoying, but in theory you really only name something once then just increment a number at the end if you follow Korg's naming conventions (and this makes perfect sense in my opinion). Still, I'd really like to have an editor (which I have not yet found if there is one) to do 'housekeeping' from a computer. The workaround in this case is to know the interface better, and I'm certainly getting faster and faster.Fourth, rendered audio doesn't always loop clean if you have effects, which is an integral part of the "DJ" sound. I found the occasional click on my last project because I didn't take the effects off before I rendered the audio (being lazy). Solution was simple, use an audio editor for a little clean up. Twisted Wave and just a few minutes and I had all 32 files (several patterns that make up the raw material of the composition) clean and sounding great. This is clearly not a problem in 'live' mode.If you decide to get an electribe, make sure you download the "Electribe Parameter's Guide" from Korg and learn what ranges harbor your favorite sounds. While it's great fun to just let inspiration take hold and scroll through all the kicks, or all the snares, it's probably best to know where your go to 'oscillator' sounds are when you're quickly framing up a musical idea. If you're not used to this type of music production, you might also want to create a few custom 'psuedo-init' patterns with sounds close to what you generally use so you can just grab a pattern and go without any setup. Later you can tweak and adjust the sounds to what you have in your head, or what you didn't think of -- this engine can do a lot more than is obvious.On the plus side here are some of the reasons I give this device 5 stars:-Once you're slightly used to it, you can work very rapidly and flesh out your ideas-Plugging in a midi controller makes it a snap to use your mad skilz on the keyboard (or not, but it's easier for most of us).-it's trivial to take a part you've created and throw it on another part-location to double or create tonal variations-the pads can be velocity sensitive or not -- a very nice option for different use cases-depth of playing options-- midi input, step sequencing, trigger style, or pad input 'keyboard,' audio in, even sync jacks-selecting a scale makes staying in key easy when you're making things on the fly-many available parameters make knob twisting easier to control based on your style-battery powering option means I can put this in my backpack and plug in my headphones to create anywhere-Audio export, Ableton aside (it works well in my tests), gives you each part on a track and can be imported into any DAW (I use Logic X)-it's an instrument. If feels good, and that feel encourages you to explore and create-did I mention that it's an instrument? Much better than a control surface tethered to a computer.All in all the new "electribe" is not quite what I was hoping for, but I think I was being unrealistic. What it is, however, is a great way for me to build compositions, and not just dance music, it's equally adept at creating "Berlin school" sequencing and other stylistic sonorities.These days you can create music on your phone or pad when you're on the go, and you can even take these devices live, but I think this new electribe is surely portable enough to be a 'knob twisting' way to make music at home, on the stage, in the studio, or even on the go. At this price, it's a winner.

This thing is great. It comes loaded with a ton of demos to check out and deconstruct and enough sounds to make damn near anything. This is my first synth and i can say that as a beginner it isnt hard to get into. As a beginner I cannot compare this to anything else or find any serious faults other than the lackluster documentation/user guide. I was able to put a decent piece together after a couple of hours playing with it and I believe it has been helping me understand how synthesizer work. I have tried using daws and midi controllers with little success due to the steep learning curve and limited hardware of my laptop.

I really wanted to give this thing five stars but I can't due to a minor issue. It has the newest firmware and seems to to a great job at everything when the unit responds correctly. For $400 it is an amazing unit. But I cannot recommend it for live sound due to timing and playback issues that happen every so often with this unit. No one else to my knowledge has had these problems but I have so I wanted to make people aware of them.When you press play the unit usually plays the song but sometimes it just doesn't feel like listening. There have been several occasions where I had to press play SEVERAL times before it finally worked. Sometimes it would never work and I had to try random songs before I would find one that played and I would have to play a song that I didn't want to play and scroll down to the song that it refused to play before in order to play the correct song. Sometimes none of the songs work and I have to stand there and wait awhile until it decides to work.Summary:This unit is fantastic and is a great value. They did have to cut some corners to keep the price down but nothing major. Just little things like making the bottom of the unit out of ABS plastic. Reliability seems good so far. I have had it for probably about two years now and often use it almost everyday for hours on end. Usually at least two or three, sometimes a lot more. It never overheats or has any major issues. The only minor issue it has is occasional playback issues but no one else seems to have that issue and my other electribe hasn't either so perhaps it is just a fluke. It is rare but does happen from time to time.

This is my first groovebox. I've never been a big EDM fan, but my interest in electronic music and drum machines has increased, and this fit the bill perfectly as a sketchpad for the ideas in my head and just noodling around. Easy to use and sounds great.I was waffling between this and the sampler version, but chose the synth version (with it's additional filters) along with a used Microsampler (unfortunately discontinued) for the best of both worlds. Looks like I chose wisely, as it is now possible to run the sampler firmware on this synth version. Awesome.I picked it up pretty quickly, but am learning something new everytime I turn the device on. Works well as a sequencer for other gear too. Highly recommended!