Electribe and Electribe Sampler

[TomViolenz]

Any owners of the Electribe here, who can answer me a few short questions?!

1: Can the Electribe itself be controlled with a Midi controller?
Meaning can I play with the Electribe as is and at the same time control from a connected Midi controller, let's say the volumes of all the sounds that are not selected at the time?
(That one is kind of a deal breaker/maker for me.

2: I know the new Sampler is not out yet, but maybe some things can be learned by looking at the previous model.
a.) How does it deal with long samples (let's say a minute) especially considering the 4 bar limit on the sequencer.
b.) can the recording of that sample from the outside (let's say from Ableton) be triggered for different sound slots from an outside Midi controller. So that I can hit record on slot 1 and then continue messing with that sample while it loops on the Electribe, while I get slot 2 ready for recording more stuff from Ableton?

Basically what I want to know is, is it feasible to use it like a 16 slot looper on steroids (with all the filters and FX of the Electribe, to mangle the sound.

Thanks for your input

[Tarekith]

1: Can the Electribe itself be controlled with a Midi controller?
Meaning can I play with the Electribe as is and at the same time control from a connected Midi controller, let's say the volumes of all the sounds that are not selected at the time?

Yes you can do that, although the CCs are hardcoded on the electribe and can't be changed. Each of the 16 parts is locked to the same numbered MIDI channel as well.

2: I know the new Sampler is not out yet, but maybe some things can be learned by looking at the previous model.
a.) How does it deal with long samples (let's say a minute) especially considering the 4 bar limit on the sequencer.
b.) can the recording of that sample from the outside (let's say from Ableton) be triggered for different sound slots from an outside Midi controller. So that I can hit record on slot 1 and then continue messing with that sample while it loops on the Electribe, while I get slot 2 ready for recording more stuff from Ableton?

Basically what I want to know is, is it feasible to use it like a 16 slot looper on steroids (with all the filters and FX of the Electribe, to mangle the sound.

The new sampler is out now actually, it's hitting stores all over at the moment so people are already getting them. The recording process is very much an offline thing it sounds like, you have to be in a seperate screen while recording. You can record the input, or bounce a copy of your pattern output. Not sure that facilitates using it for multiple loops on the fly. The electribe manual has a section on the sampling functionality now, so you can see exactly how it works:

http://i.korg.com/uploads/Support/USA_E ... anual2.pdf

[pale1]

From what i can understand from the Korg forums, the sequencer must be stopped when you record something from the audio inputs. So jamming along with your volcas, guitar, vocal and looping those is not going to happen.
My wet dream of a battery powered hardware version of ableton live.... Was but a dream. Boooooo!!


Regards

Foss

[TomViolenz]

1: Can the Electribe itself be controlled with a Midi controller?
Meaning can I play with the Electribe as is and at the same time control from a connected Midi controller, let's say the volumes of all the sounds that are not selected at the time?

Yes you can do that, although the CCs are hardcoded on the electribe and can't be changed. Each of the 16 parts is locked to the same numbered MIDI channel as well.

So sound 1 is on Channel 1, Sound 2 on Channel 2 and so on? That's good. But I guess hardcoded means I have to find a Midi controller that already sends these exact CCs for its controls?! That seems unlikely. Or are there any that can be changed on the hardware without a computer program to handle that (or if it is via a computer program, were the controller at least then keeps the new assignment even when disconnected from the computer).
I'd be most interested in a unit with lots of faders, since that's what I would want to use it for, volume fades.

2: I know the new Sampler is not out yet, but maybe some things can be learned by looking at the previous model.
a.) How does it deal with long samples (let's say a minute) especially considering the 4 bar limit on the sequencer.
b.) can the recording of that sample from the outside (let's say from Ableton) be triggered for different sound slots from an outside Midi controller. So that I can hit record on slot 1 and then continue messing with that sample while it loops on the Electribe, while I get slot 2 ready for recording more stuff from Ableton?

Basically what I want to know is, is it feasible to use it like a 16 slot looper on steroids (with all the filters and FX of the Electribe, to mangle the sound.

The new sampler is out now actually, it's hitting stores all over at the moment so people are already getting them. The recording process is very much an offline thing it sounds like, you have to be in a seperate screen while recording. You can record the input, or bounce a copy of your pattern output. Not sure that facilitates using it for multiple loops on the fly. The electribe manual has a section on the sampling functionality now, so you can see exactly how it works:

http://i.korg.com/uploads/Support/USA_E ... anual2.pdf

Ah cool, then it's probably only a few months till they actually sell it here in Germany....

But yeah pale1 has it right of how I wanted to use it, and that seems infeasible now.

But I guess just a battery powered Traktor (for my own loops) would also be nice too. So how does it deal with long samples that are longer than the 4 bar sequencer?!

Thanks for the link to the manual, I'll give it a read through

[TomViolenz]

So the manual writes:

You can use up to 499 user samples with a total length of approximately 270 seconds when calculated as monaural. Numerous preset samples of drums, drum/phrase loops, and hits are provided.

I mean 499 sample slots is fine, and I guess you can change them around by just using another SD card, but why that extreme limit on sample time?! This is quite clearly only meant for one shots (ca. 500ms/sample).

But why, I thought we supply the SD card memory anyways and the Electribe accepts them up to a size to 32GB. That should be plenty of space to have 499 samples of 5 minutes each.

I don't get it, so is this device intended for the people who like to use their own one-shot libraries and no one else?!

[Tarekith]

I was just in Trier this morning and saw the Sampler in the window of a music shop there, so they must be getting out in Germany already too.

The large SD card also helps when you want to export audio, like the Ableton export option. A large set could be pretty big if you used a lot of patterns and parts in it.

As for the short sampling time, best guess is that the synth and sampler version are identical except for the OS and paint jobs. So instead of all the synth waveforms of the synth version, Korg let's you fill up that space with your own samples. Definitely seems to be more about smaller one shots though, that's for sure.