Korg Electribe EMX-1

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Just picked one up. Anybody else play with one of these?

Thoughts?

If it had sampling, then everything would be perfect. Still, this thing is pretty fucking awesome ... I must say.

p.s. rumor has it that this is what Ada (on Areal) used to make her entire first album. kinda neat.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:02 (twenty years ago)

all the areal lot seem to like them. basteroid does his entire live set on one. meaty!

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:06 (twenty years ago)

i picked up the ea-1 about five years ago and it is a great analog box. too bad it doesn't run on batteries. i would mess about with it on the couch more during simpsons repeats. the emx-1 is worth it just for the two tubes alone.

― no bones, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:11 (twenty years ago)

yeah, the tubes are really beautiful. plus, i feel like all the sampled sounds are pretty solid. the tube gain knob is pretty rad. i mean, it's easy to get some really dirty sounds. definately a solid piece.

anyone have any tips, or anything cool that i should know about this?

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:19 (twenty years ago)

I've always wanted to know if it remembers knob settings, so that you can set each step to a different filter setting. Does it do that?

― naus (Robert T), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:22 (twenty years ago)

if i understand your question, yes.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 06:03 (twenty years ago)

I have one, I love it. Always think about buying its ESX sister.

Like A Tim did a complete album with just a EA-1 and ER-1, it was called "Red & Blue Boxing" if memory serves.

― Diego Valladolid (dvalladt), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 07:15 (twenty years ago)

I'm envious.

― Brian Jones (Brian Jones), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 09:10 (twenty years ago)

if youve got any tips.. let me know...

Im constantly trying to get a smooth playing style but it mainly just sounds too step programmed.

― danny boy, Wednesday, 8 February 2006 12:04 (twenty years ago)

really? i'm loving it. the step recording functions seem decent, and there are enough patterns that you can compensate. maybe play more with the EG filter. if the sounds are too short. i dunno. that might be making it more staccatto than necessary.

but i don't really know.

my question: how do i get some warmer, moodier ... more lush? ... sounds out of the synth function? the drums sounds are awesome, but i'm just trying to figure out how to find/make some softer synth pads on this thing.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:08 (twenty years ago)

Pic?

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:22 (twenty years ago)

http://static.flickr.com/21/97271306_22db0840b5.jpg?v=0

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Pretty pic.

I have an EA-1 and ES-1 (both mark I) and love the DIY-start-from-scratch format. You mentioned pre-set drum sounds in the EMX-1 - how many does it have? Isn't a pre-set drum kit kinda limiting?

― Cheek0 (Cheek0), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:14 (twenty years ago)

So do you use a midi keyboard with this thing? Can you do real-time playing or just assigning pitches to buttons?

(I'm dumb about these things)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Are 6A/6B and 7A/7B for different hi-hat sounds?

― naus (Robert T), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:32 (twenty years ago)

If you are looking for pads use a sine wave oscillator with a low-pass filter. The cutoff on the filter should be somewhere between 40-60% with low resonance. Set the EG to a slow attack and a relatively long release. Run the signal through the chorus and the delay fx.

You might also want to try the chord synth oscillator. See how that works with the settings I described above.

The EMX has 209 drum samples according to what I read this afternoon.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:33 (twenty years ago)

207 drum samples, but hey ... who's counting?!

is it limiting? no, because Korg wants you to buy the sister piece: a sampler. but ... there is so much you can do to fuck with the sounds that it doesn't matter much unless you are an audio-acoustics person who needs it to be indistinguishable. csounds or something, i don't know.

you can get some pretty great sounds out of this thing, and it is for dance music not dropping seeds into algorithms or anything.

Disco Nihilist ... thanks for the tips. i'll give it a shot.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

If you are looking for pads use a sine wave oscillator with a low-pass filter. low passfiltering won't effect a pure sine wave spaz.

― Savin All My Love 4 u (Savin 4ll my (heart) 4u), Thursday, 9 February 2006 05:35 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I was going to say to use square wave, with an LFO to control pulse width. Not too much, set the knob to just before it's completely noticeable. Works on my Juno 106, but I'm not sure if you can do it on an Electribe. Filter settings and chorus were pretty right-on though.

Also (but you likely already knew it) sloooow attack and release.

― naus (Robert T), Thursday, 9 February 2006 06:45 (twenty years ago)

can you set up the EMX1 to be used as a MIDI controller for ableton Live?

Im sure you can but if anyones got any experience on this I'd like to know.

gonna be hitting it this weekend after all this interest thats for sure...

Im really loving the cowbell or claps with massive echo.

gives you a really nice chicken lips sound that is meant to sound steppy.

― danny boy, Thursday, 9 February 2006 11:29 (twenty years ago)

it's ok, i don't love it - i find the samples a bit limiting, though the snares have a good crack to 'em and the hi-hats are pretty raw as well. the synths are really rather "meh," though they can come in handy.

my main beef with the EMX-1 is a stability issue - it has a known bug where if you turn it off to quickly while it's powering up, the whole thing shorts out, and you've gotta send it back to korg for the fix. happened to baby ford, thomas melchior, and me (happened to me while i was nearly electrocuting myself in the kitchen, and blew a fuse in the house, so maybe i shouldn't blame korg... but fuck it, the machine drum was fine).

now who can tell me about the vermonas? way cheaper than the korgs; how do they sound? are they nice and malleable?

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Thursday, 9 February 2006 21:44 (twenty years ago)

i also think the envelope settings on the EMX are pretty flimsy, or rather, simply rudimentary. and naus, i'm pretty sure you can't set filter settings per step, though i could be wrong.

get thee one dave smith evolver instead. best five hunnerd bucks i ever spent.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Thursday, 9 February 2006 21:55 (twenty years ago)

philip: "the synths are really rather "meh," though they can come in handy."

yeah, the synth sounds aren't awesome, but i really think the drum sounds are pretty solid. hmm. what do you use for synth sounds? i've got a Korg DS. it was the first digital sampling synth they made. eh ... it's okay, but i want LUSH sounds. like fucking your skull with beauty sounds.

ideas?

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Thursday, 9 February 2006 22:07 (twenty years ago)

Korg DSS-1. that's what it is.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Thursday, 9 February 2006 22:18 (twenty years ago)

For lushness, get thee a Wavestation! And I have heard the Evolver demos, and in disbelief that it was a monosynth.

― naus (Robert T), Friday, 10 February 2006 02:20 (twenty years ago)

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