The KORG Edition
The worst thing I've encountered about the sexy alt-paper contributor
lifestyle is the anemic review budget. After spending practically all
my EVIL SCRIPPS EMPIRE money on the sticks I have to buy to beat the
ladies off me*, there's little left at the end of the month to finance my gadget pr0n habit consumer tech reviews - an area I'd love to get into, if only I could get them for free the era's financial constraints didn't weigh so heavily.
I'm not that different from the rest of you schmoes, really. When I'm not making love to you with my words, I spend a lot of web-surfing time drooling over high-dollar items that I cannot afford. For me, cutting-edge music gadgetry is king.
Statistics I just made up tell us that approximately 99.7% of all currently active music journalists are actually failed musicians trying to get enough cred in the local scene to warrant making cold calls to established artists and ordering them to do their bidding, and since I totally scooped Wired that one time, I guess I kinda fit in that category.
The rest of you have it easy, I promise. While you knick-knack fetishists out there can jump on eBay and find your 20-year-old vintage whatsits for pennies on the dollar, I have to go straight to the source. After about five seconds' worth of list-compiling, I realized that an inordinate amount of my wishful-thinking** goes to KORG, makers of fine tiny digital composition tools.
Stupid KORG and their stupid knowing exactly how to make me want to fire all of my money out of a cannon at them. Hulk SMASH!
...anyway. Here's a quick rundown ofWHAT AH WANTS GIMME GIMME the smallest, cutting-edgiest offerings I'm currently drooling over.
First, the Kaossilator Phrase Synthesizer ($199, various internet-type places).
Touchpads help bridge the gap between backend digital creation and realtime analog implementation, which for end-users too impatient to tinker with each individual aspect of a waveform in a step sequencer (read: me) is a godsend. Portability and modularity are always a plus if you want to be able to tool around without dragging your workstation of choice everywhere. Is it versatile enough for your purposes? Hey, ask YouTube.
Next, we have the Mini-Kaoss Touchpad Effects Processor (another $199, all over the place).
Hot damn, I loves me some touchpads. This one looks like it is to effects processors what the Kaossilator is to synths. Unaltered sound goes in one hole, magical Korgy-gnomes shape it to your whim, and the processed results come out of the other hole. Including 1/4" input/output jacks instead of the smaller RCAs would make for easier guitarability, but that's why God made adapters.
Too lightweight? Then maybe KP3 Dynamic Effect/Sampler ($399, teh interwebs) is more your speed.
This thing looks like what would happen if the Kaossilator and the Mini-Kaoss had a baby which they sent to Earth in a rocket just before Krypton exploded, and our yellow Sun gave it super-sampler powers. Frankly, it's a little intimidating. The glass ceiling of my crappy musical "expertise" centers on the idea that one person shouldn't have too much power. After all, if one guy can do everyone's job at once, eventually he will. Even if the music doesn't suffer, nobody wants to go to a live show to see one guy play with his toys. I paid $30 for this?!?
Korg also has a series of controllers (dubbed the nanoSERIES) for the "I can't live without my workstation" crowd, slated for release in late October. These I'm a little more cautious about - I'm not seeing anything innovative about them other than their size, and early reviews sound mixed.
----
* Huh-huh.
** Approximately 67%, with the other 33% divided equally between Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst.
I'm not that different from the rest of you schmoes, really. When I'm not making love to you with my words, I spend a lot of web-surfing time drooling over high-dollar items that I cannot afford. For me, cutting-edge music gadgetry is king.
Statistics I just made up tell us that approximately 99.7% of all currently active music journalists are actually failed musicians trying to get enough cred in the local scene to warrant making cold calls to established artists and ordering them to do their bidding, and since I totally scooped Wired that one time, I guess I kinda fit in that category.
The rest of you have it easy, I promise. While you knick-knack fetishists out there can jump on eBay and find your 20-year-old vintage whatsits for pennies on the dollar, I have to go straight to the source. After about five seconds' worth of list-compiling, I realized that an inordinate amount of my wishful-thinking** goes to KORG, makers of fine tiny digital composition tools.
Stupid KORG and their stupid knowing exactly how to make me want to fire all of my money out of a cannon at them. Hulk SMASH!
...anyway. Here's a quick rundown of
First, the Kaossilator Phrase Synthesizer ($199, various internet-type places).
Touchpads help bridge the gap between backend digital creation and realtime analog implementation, which for end-users too impatient to tinker with each individual aspect of a waveform in a step sequencer (read: me) is a godsend. Portability and modularity are always a plus if you want to be able to tool around without dragging your workstation of choice everywhere. Is it versatile enough for your purposes? Hey, ask YouTube.
Next, we have the Mini-Kaoss Touchpad Effects Processor (another $199, all over the place).
Hot damn, I loves me some touchpads. This one looks like it is to effects processors what the Kaossilator is to synths. Unaltered sound goes in one hole, magical Korgy-gnomes shape it to your whim, and the processed results come out of the other hole. Including 1/4" input/output jacks instead of the smaller RCAs would make for easier guitarability, but that's why God made adapters.
Too lightweight? Then maybe KP3 Dynamic Effect/Sampler ($399, teh interwebs) is more your speed.
This thing looks like what would happen if the Kaossilator and the Mini-Kaoss had a baby which they sent to Earth in a rocket just before Krypton exploded, and our yellow Sun gave it super-sampler powers. Frankly, it's a little intimidating. The glass ceiling of my crappy musical "expertise" centers on the idea that one person shouldn't have too much power. After all, if one guy can do everyone's job at once, eventually he will. Even if the music doesn't suffer, nobody wants to go to a live show to see one guy play with his toys. I paid $30 for this?!?
Korg also has a series of controllers (dubbed the nanoSERIES) for the "I can't live without my workstation" crowd, slated for release in late October. These I'm a little more cautious about - I'm not seeing anything innovative about them other than their size, and early reviews sound mixed.
----
* Huh-huh.
** Approximately 67%, with the other 33% divided equally between Scarlett Johansson and Kirsten Dunst.
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