The Korg Electribe EMX-1

The Korg Electribe EMX-1 is designed as an all-in-one techno-production station, and contains a drum machine, and a synth/ sequencer enclosed within its solid metal casing. It has lots of knobs and buttons for the gadget fiend (20 knobs and 68 buttons), an info display, a Smartmedia card storage (ideal for saving off songs and using as a workpad) and two lovely valves (Valve Force Vacuum Tubes) set behind a little display glass...like you see in the museum. The valves make up a genuine analog circuit and are linked up to the Tube Gain knob that can be altered at your desire to make your sounds...warmer in a vintage sort of way.

Electribe EMX-1- MMT?

Multiple Modeling Technology is Korg's technology that creates sounds within the Electribe EMX-1. For the brainy buffs out there MMT offers 16 different types of synthesis, these range from powerful analog synthesis to a various number of digital synthesis to which Korgs of the past were built upon (like PCM and waveshaping). So now we have to play around with 207 PCM drum waveforms, 76 PCM waveforms and a whopping 64MB of song memory.

Outputs

The Electribe EMX-1 has a full MIDI spec, accessed via MIDI In, Out and Thru sockets, and audio is also bi-directional, with two main and two assignable individual audio outs, plus an audio input. Only mono audio (at mic or line level) can be accommodated. The machine can even be sync'ed to audio via this input

Electribe EMX-1- The Machine

The striking metallic-blue front panel is quite logically divided. You can easily pick out the synth section, effects, Part select and keyboard button area, and the row of 16 'keyboard' buttons, which also doubles up for a range of edit options, and mimics the black and white keys of a musical keyboard. The standard sequencer transport controls appear to lack fast forward and rewind options, but in fact they're located above the keyboard buttons, doubling as left/right select keys.

Each drum and synth voice is organised as a Part, an indivisible pairing of a voice generator and one track of sequencing played by the Pattern-based sequencer. Step sequencing is favoured (similar to the How to Make Your Own Beat Section), especially for drums, but don't worry, real-time recording with the Electribe EMX-1 is straightforward. Voice editing is very much a part of the writing process, since sounds and sequencing are so closely linked. Indeed, there are no separate voice memories: sounds are tailored for each Part during the composition process.

The synth/sequencer team is joined by three effects processors, a new and cool real-time arpeggiator, the ability to process external audio through the EMX's synthesis facilities and effects, and 'Motion Sequencing', the real-time recording of front-panel control tweaks, as featured on many other Korg products.

The top panel of the Electribe EMX-1 is divided into five or six principal sections. The first one to become acquainted with should be the main section, which houses the transport controls (record, playback and so forth), the mode keys (which determine whether the EMX-1 is in Pattern, Step Edit or Song mode), the ubiquitous bpm Tap key and the useful Mute and Solo buttons (to remove or single out respective parts within your pattern). By using the Auto BPM Scan key, you can easily detect the tempo of audio that is coming from the audio-in jack. The matrix menu that is sandwiched between the large rotary dial and the mode keys helps guide you through what parameters are available for the selected mode. You select the parameter by first pressing the mode key and then moving up or down the parameter list using the two small arrows to the left of the matrix menu.

The edit area is made of five separate subsections that include Effects, Part Common, Modulation, Synth Oscillator and Synth Filter. The 16 onboard effects are selected via the large knob and edited with the two rotary controls beneath it. The Edit Select button allows you to decide which effects processor is being edited at the moment. The FX Chain button is married to the two small red LED lights above it that indicate how the output of one effect is being input into another. All you have to do is repeatedly punch the button to determine the connection. There's also the Motion Seq button that records and plays back the movements of the two FX Edit controls.