Korg AX10A

Easy enough to use without a manual although the manual is required briefly to make the most of this unit

for what it is supposed to do, it does it very well....i think most people will accept that plugging your crappy wee yamaha into this will not automatically turn it into a top of the range martin. if you want a martin sound then buy a martin !!!

but this unit is specifically designed for crappy wee guitars and enhances their sound beyond belief adding a certain sparkle and distinctiveness. it takes your duff wee piezo and tranforms it

i see comments from so called "proffesionals" spouting garbage about how useless this is....i mean for f*cks sake...what are you expecting here for the money !!!

the tones that can be achieved on this unit are subtle and sweet. the delays and verbs are excellent for the money and the notch filter is simply superb in a live situation.

the unit comes into its own when home recording to a pc...stereo outs would have been nice but when youve got unlimited tracks on your cakewalk/cubase software then its easy enough to double track and pan effects. the unit produces a very clear signal and although can at times sound a little digital it has no harshness to it

yes its plastic but lets face it....if you break it then you aint taking care of your equipment properly....simple as that

its sturdy enough and ive seen plenty of other units made of metal in my time that are flimsier than this

not needed so far with this product but i would imagine as with all the korg stuff that the service is up to their usual standard

I bought this in the UK for ??39 brand new so for what it does at that price then its fantastic value for money.

if you are a proffesional then use proffesional products and dont moan about this unit

if you are like the vast majority of musicians then i would deffo recommend

It's not hard to use, but it is a complex little mother - you need to read the manual, also the website listed has a quick-start guide for the AX10-series units, which is pretty good. If some of the reviewers below had read even this, they'd know both the depth and the speed of modulation effects is variable. The speed of delays and reverbs is adjustable using the 'tap', and the expression pedal can be assigned to depth rather than straight volume which makes it far more useful IMO.

The inside back of the manual shows a spreadsheet for the presets showing what each one is - ambience, modulation, delay-type and what initial setting for each patch.

I'd prefer a pair of stereo outs rather than a y-cable - most stereo FX sound much better through two channels of an amp and it gives the ability to eq. each differntly. Particularly, delays lose their slight metallicy-ness.

The expression pedal I find is handy, and my only complaint is I'd like a little more travel, although that would no doubt increase size or need an extra joint in my ankle!

Given it is an acoustic effect, and anything you do to an acoustic guitar is going to sound 'strange', I think it is good. It is very subtle on some settings. But with an acoustic, less is more. I like the Condenser Mic setting particularly on low.

The delays and reverbs once adjusted are just fine - very clean and uncoloured which is what I believe you want for acoustic, whereas analogue ones which clip highs are better for electrics IMO. If you want an analogue sound like Nirvana's 'Come As You Are', you won't find it in this box. The Chorus is a little strange on high settings, but adds a nice warmth on low settings.

I just got a 600ma plugpack which works fine. Yes, it is made of similar plastic to laptops. Everything is these days. It is solid plastic, and I'm sure if you jumped on a similar size metal box you could deform it enough to render the PCB inside bent or broken off it's connections.

Korg has a good name and all the knobs and detents feel solid. For the price and used indoors or for sit-down non-headbanging playing it is fine.

I find their website OK. Never dealt with them otherwise.

I play a Cole Clark Fat Lady, which has a very interesting sound as it is made of all-solid Bunya top and Queensland maple back and sides. It has a very distinct sound, bright yet very full, and the pickup system with the saddle piezo, 'face-brace' tape pickups and blender produces an uncannily-similar tone plugged through a PA, it has a very distinct character.

I wanted an effect unit which complemented rather than dominated the guitar - I don't know if I'd ever use the 'body' models except maybe the Reso setting for slide - but the other FX and particularly the compressor, delays/reverbs and the C-Mic setting are excellent.

If you had an otherwise-good guitar, which had an insipid tone like a passive saddle piezo only, this could may potentially bring it to life.

It's not and in-your-face FX, although on extreme settings some are quacky. But if you balance the FXs carefully, you can string some nice tones together.

The AX10A is pretty simple due to the dial-type interface. As others have pointed out, the white type on the dials is almost impossible to read. Probably the most difficult task in editing presets is deciding which sounds you like best. There are so many variables, many are very subtle, and it is a little overwhelming trying to settle on a particular sound or setting. But once you find something you like all you do is push the preset WRITE button twice and it is in memory. That is easy.

As another reviewer pointed out, there is no reference in the manual and nothing available on-line to tell you what settings were used to create the factory presets. That would be quite helpful to establish baselines for creating your custom presets.

The manual is okay but could be a bit more elaborate. Either they were saving money or figured most of us would not read the manual anyway and did not want to bore us with details. Details can be boring but they are darn handy for answering specific questions. The manual could be improved. Even if they wanted to save the printing costs, the least they could do is put PDF files online that have the details.

An on/off switch would be nice but unplugging it does work. I got the transformer for an extra 10 bucks. But if you have to use batteries, at least they are the more affordable AA cells. You can buy 4 or 8 rechargeable NiMH AA batteries like I use for my camera and the battery cost is reduced plus the NiMH seem to last longer than standard alkaline cells.

I have a small body acoustic with a Fishman Piezo and preamp system. I play a solo acoustic act at clubs or restaurants weekly and sit in with other players occasionally. I have always been able to get a decent sound out of my guitar by adjusting the on-board preamp as well as the EQ and reverb/delay on whatever PA is plug into. The AX10A is a nice improvement to that system.

The AX10A may not be studio quality but its sound limitations will never be noticed by the vast majority of folks in my audiences. The device clearly enhances the sound of a piezo acoustic. I can understand reviewers who say that the device sounds digital or artificial because to a trained or experienced ear there is clearly something 'unnatural' going on. A piezo is not extremely natural in itself so I am not sure where this discussion should go.

I found the sounds produced by the AX10A quite acceptable and a big improvement over the basic piezo sound I was able to get before without the device. In my opinion, with some tinkering and adjusting you can create a user preset that makes your piezo sound more like a genuine acoustic that is being recorded with a mic.

The AX10A is an ACOUSTIC effect so it does not get too wild. For the most part it is much more subtle than say a distortion or flanging stomp box. I use those devices with my electrics and they are far from subtle. Most of the differences created by the AX10A maintain an acoustic sound. The factory presets, which are mostly useless in terms of live solo performances, are pretty dramatic...which for me is why they are useless.

One reviewer said the expression pedal is useless. If you create some custom user presets the pedal can actually be quite useful. The pedal has a button next to it that allows you to change the pedal function to control volume or the level of the different effects.

I have used volume pedals in the past and found them VERY useful. So I create a preset on the AX10A that is a basic clean acoustic sound with a nice reverb and set the pedal to act as a straight volume pedal. That is USEFUL.

You can set the pedal to act as a blending control to gradually add one of the more dramatic effects the pedal produces such as chorus. That can be interesting especially with some tunes that have unusual interludes that can be enhanced by effects like compression, delay, reverb or chorus. Again, USEFUL.

One interesting feature is the Notch filter that lets you adjust a feedback filter to stop that annoying harmonic feedback that causes an open string to start vibrating loudly when at rest. That filter can be set to the pedal so you can adjust the Notch Point on the fly. Although I am not sure why you would need to do this since it is pretty simple to figure out which string is the problem and just turn the Notch filter knob before you start playing.

Another useful feature is the built-in chromatic tuner which works very well. There is a drawback to the tuner that is also a drawback to the device in general. There are two large buttons on the device that act as preset UP and DOWN selectors. To turn off or by-pass the unit, which also turns on the tuner, you have to step on both buttons simultaneously. It can be a bit tricky and you may find yourself switching presets when you really were trying to bypass the unit or turn on the tuner. This is on par with the annoying white faced dials that are so difficult to read.

If there are two fixes that Korg should apply to the next version it would be easily readable black type on the dials and a single bypass switch. Are you listening Korg?

Yes...yes...it is plastic! It would be great if it were metal but for the 100 bucks that you can generally pick it up for on sale at one web site or another...I thnk plastic is acceptable. At the usual 200 price, I am not so sure plastic would be acceptable. At that price I may have looked at other devices.

And while I am on that subject...I will likely buy a different but similar device by another manufacturer if this thing ever fails to work in the future. But at 100 bucks, this is a great entry into the piezo acoustic effects world.

It may not be the most rugged device in this category but I take VERY good care of my equipment and I always have a back-up plan. If it ever fails at a gig, I have the way I use to do it with just the piezo preamp and the PA adjustments so I am not particularly worried about it failing. It is an enhancement not a necessity.

I could not find a contact email address for general questions. That is not a good sign. I am not sure that they deserve a bad numerical rating for that alone. Their customer support may be just fine, I haven't had to use it yet. But that lack of email contact is a bit annoying.

I play a wide variety of cover tunes in a variety of local venues. I have been playing in groups and as a soloist for about 30 years.
I try to keep my equipment as simple and easy to use as possible. Setting up equipment and dealing with technical issues is a distration from the objective of playing music.
The AX10A adds one more thing to distract from that simplicity but I think the enhancement it adds to the overall sound is worth the extra audio cable and sometimes the extra power transformer and wire.
If it breaks or is lost, I will either buy another or a similar device.

To me the AX10A basically sounds like one guitar EQed or envoloped in different ways. The chorus is of the wrong type, imo, and frustrating to find a good setting between none and too much. I hear no distinctive body or mic types, just a bunch of different envelopes applied to the same input.

I had hoped that the verbs would be more customizable (e.g. decay time) but volume seemed to be the only way to control the reverb and echo/delay effects. I found the manual difficult to read (print size) and the panel display impossible.

It did come at a good price and I suppose that's part of the trade-off.

I took mine back. Luckily the people at the store were kind enough to do that. Gigs were my biggest plan for the AX10A, along with recording demos. But I felt I couldn't use it for either.

Didn't have the unit long enough to go looking for tech support.

I found the AX10A to be not right for my type of playing, acoustic finger-style, which is not to say it wouldn't work for others.

Well dammit, I bought it in spite of the other mediocre or nasty reviews here. Musician's Friend had it on sale at $100. I like Korg-had to give it a try. The unit is easy to use right out of the box. The manual is good though there aren't enough details about the presets. I would have liked a table showing me what the settings of the presets are. Editing and storing your own settings is a breeze and completely intuitive. About 10 minutes should have you up and running. Only 2 complaints. The things is plastic. I mean ok it was $100 and I'm using it on Sunday mornings at church or at a local coffee house. It's going to sit carefully on the floor in front of me and not get run over, jumped on, crushed by a dropped speaker cabinet, or thrown up on by an overzealous groupie. At least not on MOST Sundays. But metal construction would have been so much niver. The expression pedal seems a little flimsy too. The other problem is that dumb white font on the chrome-like dials. Can't see them. at all. Silly.

Well I like it. I've been playing guitar for 30 + years and have been a professional musician, bands, solos, one-offs for fun. Now I play in Church on Sundays and with a 4-man group that does the odd coffee house show every month or so. I'm using this unit with an Ovation Custom Legend 1869 plugged straight into the PA. Sometimes I'll use it with an Ovation Custom Balladeer 12-string. The 12 string can be a little overwhelming with added effects though. Anyway the Custom Legend is incredible by itself but I just wanted something to fiddle around with for a change now and then. The AX10A is quite good. The 40 presets are all unique and most are very useful. Some few of them are a bit quacky... but that can be toned down a bit with the pre-effect settings-limiter, exciter, etc. The spring reverb is adequate, the hall and plate settings are good. The "air" setting is very nice. The delays and echos are good too-not overpowering or obnoxious- just a hint of echo for some added fullness. The slap doesn't seem to really be there. The different body/mic models are all distinct. The nylon isn't quite there but you can get it close with some realy fine tuning of the paramaters. The Resonator effect is really pretty good and you can almost get a banjo feel out of it with some patience. Sounds great with a slide. The "steel" setting is just way too bright and grating. The rest are good. The chorus sounds good... there's just not enough middle ground. Even with the pedal(careful! it's plastic!) the chorus seems to go from not there to completely over the top too quickly. It's good on many of the presets but if you're trying to fine tune your own sound it can be difficult to peg. Overall- I like it. It gives me a little variety. There are better acoustic effect multi-units. BUt nothing can touch this sound at this price.

Hmmm... see above. This is an acoustic effects unit. It's not made to be sitting on the floor of the sports arena while roadies, groupies, radio contest winners, and drunk drummers stumble around it in the dark. It's made for nice quiet acoustic sets where it can sit on the floor next to your stool or whatever. (I'm old. I can't stand up for a full 2 hours straight with a guitar strapped to my body anymore). It's plastic. If you stomp on the pedal it's going to break. Quickly. But it IS an expression pedal, not a stomp box. The bank up and down foot switches are a little more sturdy and those are what you should be using anyway. Find some presets you like, remember where they are or program them so that they are all close to each other and all you really have to do is change banks once in a while. If you're clumsy or you think some of the less careful folks at church might step on it bring a backup. I don't use a backup though I have an older Korg unit at home. My electric runs through a V AMP 2 and while the acoustic could be shoved through that in a pinch it really takes a lot of work to make the VAMP work with acoustic preamps and pickups.

Never dealy with them except to download info and make comparisons on their website. Website is nice.

I've been playing for over 30 years. I have a degree in vocal performance(I know-it's not the ONLY degree I have so I still have a real job to make money). I play guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, ukelele, bass, bit of violin if I have to, bit of piano and I can make sounds on most brass and woodwind instrumnets. I play contemporary Christain music in church with the occasional version of "Jesus Is Just Alright" or "My Sweet Lord" tossed in for fun. Outside of church we play folky, california acoustic electric music. Byrds, Dylan, Beatles, Doobie Bros, Cat Stevens, CSN&Y. Nick Drake once in a while to depress the audience and Loudon Wainwright to really fill them with angst. I compared this unit the the available units from Zoom and and Boss. Roland is out of the price range. The Zoom units just feel cheap and don't have near the range of sound I can get with this one. I like the AX10A. It gives me some variety on stage and really has a pretty wide range of sounds available from it. I wish it had an on/off switch. I wish it wasn't plastic. IF it were stolen or lost I'd probably buy another as long as it was on sale at this price. Most places sell it for $180-$200. That's too much I think. But for the $100 I spent on it it adds to my sound quite nicely. If I was playing in front of crowds of thousands I'd probably get something nicer that costs a whole lot more money. But I don't think anyone who plays for fun or an occasional gig out can find a nicer acoustic multi efeccts unit for the money.

I have to agree with others who have mentioned difficulty reading the verbage on the face plate. It would be nice to be able to see what the controls say.

That being said reading the manual helped a lot. In general I find it easy to use this unit.

I give it an 8 only because I can't read the writing on the face plate. It also need an on/off switch

I use an Epiphone drednaught with a Seymour Duncan acoustic tube pickup and I use a Taylor drednaught sized 12 string with also with an acoustic tube pickup.

I am using a Behringer UltraAcoustic ACX1000 amp with this.

I would have to say that the Martin models both large and small are very good in my opinion. They come really close to the real thing

The Gibson models are not bad but not as good as the Martin Models. A little too bright in my opinion.

I am still deciding on the Taqylor model. It is not bad but it doesn't sound as good as the Martin models

The effects are okay. I use a little spring reverb and mayby just a touch of chorus.

I am not very fond of the compressor. I do use the limiter in some instances and also a littel of the aural enhancer. That being said I would not buy this for the effects. The guitar models are what makes it worthwile.

I didn't buy this to try to sound like any other player. It does enhance my sound though. It a lot of cases it sounds like a real acoustic just a lot louder. This is what I wanted.

I take care of my equipment. I do not think the unit will take much abuse though. Some other reviews mentioned that the case is plastic. I am not sure it is plastic but It does not have the weight and obvious sturdyness of my ToneLab.

At a gig if it went out I would just plug directly into the amp so this is not an issue.

Have not dealt with Korg so I have no personal experience

I would replace this if it were lost or stolen although because of my perception of lack of sturdyness and because of the difficulty in reading the faceplate I might be tempted to see if any other manufacturer was competitive with the guitar models.

Not bad. Could be better with just a little tweaking

Unvisible white text on the silver dials.. Unused pedal, ON/OFF missed.

I have tested KORG AX10A with acoustic classic guitar, pickup: Fishman onboard prefix blender.

I have recorded these on ECHO Indigo IO 24Bit 96KHz (in mp3 format I converted it to 48000KHz 16Bit)

For the test I'am playing A.C.Jobim's - Triste


1. original sound without effects:

http://www.ivanabramov.com/download/lj/AX10A/triste_original.mp3 1540Kb



2. c-mic mode:

http://www.ivanabramov.com/download/lj/AX10A/triste_AX10A_c_mic.mp3 987Kb





3. M-large mode:

http://www.ivanabramov.com/download/lj/AX10A/triste_AX10A_m_large.mp3 1682Kb

May be it good for it price, but sound is sometimes awesome.

I want to have some "de ess" filter to avoid piezo noize...

Fairly easy to use, but how much crack were they smoking when they decided to use a white font on the three silver dials? Very difficult to see, especially in a low light setting (this thing lives on the floor). Overall the unit is nice, but has some silly little problems that really become a bitch. I get the feeling that they did not get much input from players...

I think the sound quality is actually good FOR WHAT IT IS. You can't expect to get a true mic'd sound out of an effects box, but this comes fairly close. The effects are a bit digital sounding but not terrible if you go easy on the parameters. The reverb and chorus don't impress me, but they get the job done.

I do notice an odd sound and I talked to another guy that has one of these and he has the same issue. You get this faint decaying hiss when you strike a note. Before you run, it's very faint, but it's there. It almost sound like a very quiet drum symbol and you have to listen for it. Overall though, it does not cause an issue when playing through my amp. However, I wanted a simple way to record. Not to cut an album, just a no hassle way to plug this puppy into a recorder and get some stuff down. For some reason I get a decent amount of noise across the board, and it gets pretty bad on certain patches. If I plug my guitar straight into the recorder, it's clear as a bell. I can barely hear the line level noise through the amp which is very odd. But beware if you plan to record with this. It could be my unit, but I doubt it. The expression pedal is pretty lame. Too progressive at the end of the travel, kinda scary also to step often on a delicate plastic box.

MINOR ISSUES BECOME MAJOR PROBLEMS. What the fuck were they thinking when then put plastic input and output jacks? Don't move or bump the unit because the jacks will make a poppy static noise. I see this getting worse over time. Okay, so the jacks suck but I am pretty careful with my gear-- but Korg bends you over again. It does not come with a power suppy so if you use batteries, there is NO on/off switch. It turns on when you plug in your guitar cord. Besides being annoying to plug and unplug every time you use it to conserve battery power, you are assured to wear the damn plastic input jacks. C'mon, $190 bucks and they could not put in a simple switch? The expression pedal is pretty much useless, it would have been great if they elimated the pedal and made the jacks metal and added a power switch. Plastic case feels a little weak, I would be very delicate with this.

Have not dealt with them on this...

It's a shame really, this could have been a nice box. Plasitc input jacks and no on/off switch piss me off. This would be nice if you want an all-in-one unti to play an acoustic gig, but the reliability is not there. Sound is good, not the holy grail, but gets rid of most of the piezo quack and has a good amount of effects to play with. Granted it does sound a bit digital for my taste. I can't give my stamp of approval on this unit mostly because of the reliability issue and partly because the sound can be a bit digital.

I hate to go backwards, but I personally like the flexibility of a seperate effects unit and a DI box for a simple solid amped acoustic sound. It really depends on what you are looking for in terms of sound and features. It's about a hundred bucks more, but I would also look into the fishman aura as it's not an effects unit. I have not had to a chance to play with one, but I am thinking about picking one up. Feel free to drop me an email if you have any thoughts or questions. I urge everyone that reviews on here to put in an email address, it really livens up this board if players can communicate with each other.

It's easy to use and all. Cheap Price, Cheap sound though.

I've been a guitarist and professional producer for over 15 years now and among various electric guitars for acoustic I use an Ovation Viper which plugged in sounds unbelievable.
The Korg AX10A is a toy, period.
Don't expect any great sounds out of it.
If you have a crappy guitar this pedal will not improve it in anyway. If you have a nice guitar this adds a nasty digitalness to the sound that in the long run becomes really annoying.
I believe this product was made for the average teenage player just looking for some decent sounds for an acoustic guitar. But if you are a pro-live and recording guitarist, keep the money and just get a nice tube preamp.
I got this just to try it out and returned it after a week.
I like the AG-STOMP much better. It has a more natural sound when recorded and doesn't have the digital harshness found in this unit.
I tried it direct to the board, into a tube preamp, into a trace elliot acoustic amp and all of the setting I tried were horrible (To my ears anyway).
Then again, some might find this product fun and useful....until they start learning something about tone.
Haven't tried the fishman yet, but again, the AG Stomp beats this by lightyears and yes it costs a lot more than the AX10A.
I have heard other "cheap" units sound better than this one, therefore it gets a one.

It's made out of plastic! A couple of hits on the expression pedal and it will break.
Also, the unit is a silver/chrome color with white font on it!
Good look in seeing the settings on stage! The designer of this unit must have been stoned when he created it! I mean, at least use black font, not white. Dum Dums.

I have dealt with Korg before and they are very helpful.
They do some pretty awesome synths, but their products for guitar aren't really that good.
Still, they have a good customer service. I give them that.

I said enough above. Once again It's a toy which might fool your average inexperienced guitar player. But if you know what tone is, just stay away from this unit.
An acoustic with Piezo, if mixed properly will sound better than any setting on this unit.
Save your money and spend more time learning some mixing techniques.

Pretty easy to use. the layout is quite logical, though using shift/function keys is kinda cumbersome.

Anyway, when your tones are stored in the internal memory you just have to select them wth UP and DOWN.

The most desapointing feature is the lack of power supply (at least here in France). You have to use batteries or buy a 3rd party one. Sad.

This is what really sold me about this unit, combined with the very low price.
The device is not noisy at all, and the modelled tones are very reallistic. I use it with a Gibson J-45 equipped with a Fishman active matrix active pickup and an AER Classic 60 amp.

When I directly plug the J-45 into the amp, the sound is quacky and way too medium, even with the Mid control rolled all the way out.

With the AX10A in between, it is night and day. The tone is balanced, bright but not harsh. It is comparable to the best acoustic sounds I hear in records.

In addition, the different guitar style modelling offer a lot of possibilities. Large Martin, small Martin, Large Gibson, and Taylor are excellent.

I also tested Yamaha AG-stomp, Fishman Aura, etc. They are OK but no better than AX10A, and they cost 3 times more !

One very funny feature is the resonator guitar modelling, which gives a fat and vintage bluesy sound, especially with a bottleneck.

I don't know yet. Construction is average. It can be used on a gig (though not a hardocre metal one...!) I would say that it is not sturdy and that it has been made for people who respect their hardware.
It is coherent with the price range.

Not used.

No competition in this price range.

Excellent tool.