Buyer BEWARE! Korg Kaoss pad KP3 midi clock issue

vdrum · Post by **vdrum** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 6:45 pm

I wanted SO BADLY to get the KP3 to do what it claims to do: "Four Sample Bank buttons on the front panel allow you to create, play and save both looped and one-shot samples on the fly."

If you have a complex midi chain of devices and you want the KP3 to follow midi-clock as a slaved device, it WILL NOT WORK. It comes close to beat matching at first (NOT perfect) but drifts significantly over a few bars and the tightness of the beats goes all to hell. I worked very closly with a really great guy at Korg (tech-rep) and it took a couple of weeks for him to finally admit that YES, this IS the case and YES the KP3 does have a problem working as a slave midi device.

If you plan on using the KP3 as a master midi-clock device it seems as though the unit WILL do what it claims. My live drum rig does not allow the routing to do so , so I have returned the unit...very bummed.

bildeaux · Post by **bildeaux** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 7:51 pm

So if you connect a midi cable directly from your laptop with Live as the master to the KP3, the KP3 will not detect the master's BPM?

Just curious becuase this works great with the KP2 and I use it in this fashion instead of tapping in a tempo for effects.

b.

vdrum · Post by **vdrum** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:05 pm

it WILL detect BPM, it just wont "lock-in" tightly..like a few ms off, and then it drifts and gets all f'd up. PLEASE understand that it WILL detect BPM.

Atomikat · Post by **Atomikat** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:30 am

I'm using my KP3 as slave to my ESX1 as a master and they work fine for me , they go to a track into ableton Live...BTW I want to sync Live with them...can anyone tell me how can I do it? in other words : ESX1 master midi-clock>KP3 slave>Ableton Live slave and this way manage the tempo from the ESX1. Thanks.

p8guitar · Post by **p8guitar** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:18 pm

vdrum wrote:... If you have a complex midi chain of devices and you want the KP3 to follow midi-clock as a slaved device, it WILL NOT WORK. It comes close to beat matching at first (NOT perfect) but drifts significantly over a few bars and the tightness of the beats goes all to hell. ...

too bad, I wish I read that before. I wondererd why the bpm LED was blinking so late after the beat.
But as there is an USB connection there is a chance that we will see an update solving this. (call me naive...

)

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:35 pm

this is kinda off topic, but isn't it really distracting to look at all those moving red lights? thats probably the only reason I don't want the thing is cause it seems like it's screeming "look at me look at me!!" I'd prefer if it was a little less animated...
anyone else feel the same?

also.... do all of the kp3's have a syncing problem or only some of them? one dude said he had it working fine but maybe he hasn't investigated it enough to find the problem.

vdrum · Post by **vdrum** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:39 pm

I bought one from audiomidi.com, and had a few long conversations with Korg USA, who agreed to send me another one and swap it out. BOTH units exhibited the same problems...I personally spent a full day trying to isolate and troubleshoot...evn to the extent of creating MP3s of the problems and sending to Korg. In the end, they finally admitted that there was a problem.

Good luck...its a great device that turned out not so great for me.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:41 pm

thats really strange, you'd think that syncing would be top priority for a tempo based machine. :shrug:

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:13 pm

actually, the problem was already here on the KP2.
if you midi sync the KP2 as a slave to live, the sync drifts rather quickly (after a couple of bars).
shame they didn't fix it on the KP3.
another reason no to waste my money on this one.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 10:15 pm

peeddrroo wrote:actually, the problem was already here on the KP2.
if you midi sync the KP2 as a slave to live, the sync drifts rather quickly (after a couple of bars).
shame they didn't fix it on the KP3.
another reason no to waste my money on this one.

luckily I've never tried syncing my kp2

that would be totally frustrating.

sans soleil · Post by **sans soleil** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:10 pm

strange...i have my kp2 synced to live via an mpc1000 (live master clock -> mpc-> kp2) and it locks in fine...no drift at all even over very long tracks...

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:16 pm

I have a theory. sometimes when I sync external gear to my computer I notice that the external gear has to sometimes speed up or slow down by 1bpm in order to stay locked to the software. apparently the software sometimes drifts and the machines have to follow. so I'm thinking the kaoss pad simply doesn't follow drifting software

anyone confirm?

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:25 pm

Atomikat wrote:I'm using my KP3 as slave to my ESX1 as a master and they work fine for me , they go to a track into ableton Live...BTW I want to sync Live with them...can anyone tell me how can I do it? in other words : ESX1 master midi-clock>KP3 slave>Ableton Live slave and this way manage the tempo from the ESX1. Thanks.

Just go ESX -> Live -> KP, since Live can both send and receive sync (right?). Might give sloppy sync, so a better solution would be to get a midi splitter box and send ESX -> KP, ESX -> Live. If the ESX has midi through, you culd try Live -> esx -> KP, but in my limited experience, Live works better as a slave.

The KP hasn't midi through (?) so it can't be in the middle.

vdrum · Post by **vdrum** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:12 am

My KP3 was sync'd directly from a Roland Drum brain (TD2) which transmits VERy stable, very accurate midi clock..Live wa even iinvolved with the problems I had.

Peter Package · Post by **Peter Package** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:54 am

Sorry to report Korg has a long history of devices that do not sync
correctly.

Also their BPMs are not correct
for example 120bpm is really 119.91 etc etc

Both early Electribes had this problem.

As did the arp in several of the Synths

Buyer BEWARE! Korg Kaoss pad KP3 midi clock issue

Buyer BEWARE! Korg Kaoss pad KP3 midi clock issue

Re: Buyer BEWARE! Korg Kaoss pad KP3 midi clock issue