Korg ES-1 Electribe

The presets, first-rate pro stuff, do their job - sell the unit in the store. Ditch 'em right away though or you'll be tempted to use 'em! Sampling works best if you get your sample in as right as possible first, 'cause you can only cut by start and stop offsets - you can get pretty good at that and it can operate in TEENSY tiny increments so it's doable. You can fade too which is nice plus with reverse that means you can fade-in too. Alot of people miss that you can resample a sample while your sampling it (which is bizarre), so you can sit there and tweak any sound into oblivion and save something completely alien. Loads of fun.

Manual's alright.

The keys are the soft gummy kind, I like those myself so I give thumbs up. All the knobs feel too small to me though. Selection and stuff are entered with one of those finger-spinning flat dial things, ya' know, great for rushing through a big range (during editing) but can be annoying for 'landing' on a single number quickly. At least it doesn't "drift" though, like my poor ol' TR505's. :O

The midi kinda' sucks but it's a good master or slave clock - the unit sends on one channel, each pad sends a note #, that's it. Use it to fire my SP202 and it's a truly evil duo.

Everyone loves the sequencer. It's x0x stylee, rad.

The motion sequencing records darn near *anything*, and there's one per part! That means you can fade volume, filter, pan, whatever.
You can use it to record you toggling the 'roll' button on a snare part - dayam! Limitation, though, only one motion control recorded per part. Reverse button, even - whoa.

On top of that there's still the motion seq for the efx section and the delay section that are independant of the parts.

Okay, here's why I wanted to write this review, two reasons: Distortion - and DECIMATOR. This box is a born industrial and hardcore killer machine, despite the perty-boy looks. Forget all the other crap on the machine. Lay a heavy-on-1 at above 200 bpm and put the decimator on high on the bass and snare and a Sci Fi sample and overdrive the mixer as much as you can - WHOA. This thing can be extremely messy if you let it.

Note: You can't write while it's in 'play', BUTT the delay can go hella' long AND it doesn't stop while it's writing. Sooo . . . build-up to a break, max the delay time/depth and, within the course of one or two (or whatever) measures, hit stop (delay continues), 'doubletap' the write button and hit 'play' again in time so it sounds just like it belonged there. Works for me! 8-)

I wish to god this thing could run off a 9-volt or something, cause then I'd probably make a belt clip for it. :D

Timeslicing circuit bent toys is one of my favorite tricks of all time. Re-resampled sampling is probably one of the coolest toys in my studio.

I have never used presets. No need to. After I figured out Smart Media loads and saves-very easy. WARNING -- the first time I loaded a new bank I forgot to save current one and lost everything. LEARN FIRST!! Editing is easy. Once you figure it out which is not hard at all programming is so fast. I do sometimes, to make thicker sounds,put the sample on three or even four seperate PARTS and pan it to different areas. this is also cool for effect MOTIONS or effect on or off. Can get complicated if you start adjusting pitch though---MESS AROUND WITH IT !!! FUN FUN FUN

Effects are cool. MOTIONS. I have 2 Smart Media (32mb) full of samples. Sampled the hell out of my Triton.

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I have owned for 2 years never a problem. I haven't grown sick of it either. I actually need another Smart Media card.(check Wal-Mart's camera area!!) I have used this as a backbone to alot of songs. The song I'm doing now,contains ALOT of this Electribe.

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I hope it never gets stolden. Too much time has been put into inputting samples-which is VERY easy. I would buy another though-it is insured,as ALL equiment should be! I wish you could use different effects on different parts. I process this through a Sherman Filterbank 2. That way it makes it really mean and THICK sounding. ENJOY

It is very easy to use. The preset sounds are not that good in my opinion, but it is a sampler. I used some of the presets, but samples mostly the bass drums, and snares

I actually liked the effects. They helped all of the drum sound I sampled

It seemed to be very reliable at first. After about 7 months the AC adapter started shorting out and shortly there after the whole thing stopped working. I bought a new adapter but it still doesn't work. I will try to get this unit fixed because I have a lot of original patterns that I want to use still on the machine. It is really frustrating because I like the ES-1.

Well, If this thing is not able to be fixed I will not buy it again. I think it is very good for a first time piece of gear though. The machine is very nice but the sound quality could have been a little better. And it could have atleast come with say 20 voice polyphony, because if you are a very creative person, you will shortly out grow its functions. But this is overall a good unit, hopefully it works over a year for you.

Fairly easy, some things are not the well explained in the manual, like how to get samples on and off the smart media cards. There's no LCD screens, thank God, so if you have time and an intuition, you can figure this thing out.

This thing is chock full of features, my favorite is the time slice, although I'll be damned if I can figure out how exactly it slices, on shorter samples, it doesn't seem to do a very good job, and I haven't been able to figure out how to more slices, I usually end up with only 2. The solo feature is nice, you can do some pretty cool stuff by isolating different parts of your beat. The reverse function is cool too. If you really get into this thing, you can be a one man percussion monster! This thing is definetly for a live environment.

The sounds are great, awesome samples, although some are kind of goofy ("Stupid", and "Funny" come to mind), I especially like the conga/table sound. The effects are top notch too, you get flanger/chorus, resonating filter, reverb, distortion, phaser, isolator (whatever that does) wah and other goodies. The delay is nice too. I use it mainly to sample our singer, who sings this Yugoslavian folk song in the middle of one of our tunes. I sample her, reversed it, delayed it and ran the phaser on it, sounds amazing!

The build in beats are wicked too, you can have a lot of fun with these. It's a little scary though, they sound so good, you could just plug it in and press play, and presto, instant DJ!

The dials are nice but a little flimsy, they seem to be getting loose on me. Also, the other night, I yanked the power cord out by accident, and it fried about 8 rythm patterns. :( BEWARE OF THIS!

Haven't tried.

Very good sample/rhythm box. Everybody should have one!

I like this! It is easy, if you read the manual ;) The presets are ok, it is pretty basic, but in a way that I like. The manual is on the net, yipee!

It does have features, not like a synth though, however I like the nobs and feel of the buttons.

Samples, 32hz but I think the sampling is very clean... although I haven't had much experience in this.

feels solid.. but still early days.

don't know. However, with the manual on the net...

I think this baby might increase in price... at least it is more expensive than when I bought it ;)

I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in france to get one of these so I guess it must be os v1.0 . Presets? I was between dates and needed a sampler to transfer my existing loops to ... and fast so I wiped them all out. writing patterns in this machine is a dream come true - a sampler that writes like a 909?! my daughter can even program it. luckily it was designed on a similar principle to its predecessor the er-1 because mine arrived without a manual, it was the last one in the shop, from out of the display window and I had to leave town 2 hours later.not having the manual two little things bug me, what is the motion dest and motion value function for? It seems to be un necessary for you can already record motion sequence into the effects and pads by flicking a switch and hitting record.

polyphony? difficult to talk in keyboard terms as this is a drum machine at the end of the day, but you can play all the sounds at the same time bar the 4 pads at the end which act like hi hat style gating which I am very fond of, for samples of loud screaming people and the obvious countersample to shut them the fuck up again it works a treat. The effect center is astounding, considering the toy like flavour this machine gives off, shame you can't pan them from left to right - I normally use the left channel for rhythm and the right for sounds to get the most flexibility out of the box, but have since had to change the way I play because of this minor flaw.The arrival of a smart media card has changed my life completely, and there are a number of software programs out there to make .wav transfer a lot easier: this is essential when dealing with tempo perfect demanding loops like breakbeats for example, because of the numerical display for sample editing - I can't fault them for it because the inclusion of a wave style editing screen would put the price of this box beyond the reach of many people, and lets face it,everyone in the world should have a go at one of these.the sample edit functions of course are very basic but then this suited me down to the ground when I was plugged into a the battery supply of the tour bus loading sounds in from a mini disc player with literally only hours to spare before I had to perform with this machine. As I said before, the machine programs like a vintage roland drumbox, and the music making world is split into two parts, those that have programmed light up the lights and groove style, and those that will.You can easily wipe out entire sections of motion sequence and/or sample triggers but the move data function featured on the er-1 is missing so keep a pen and squared paper handy. Time slice is an interesting feature, enabling you to acid-ize your loops and play back isolated chunks of samples,and uses up no memory at all as far as I can see, so setting all samples up in thisway can be flexibility central. too bad you only get to use one per pattern but again this is a toy.all in all, not so much you can do but whats available works well, its also all on the top layer so no page hunting in play mode which should make it appeal to all sorts of people making all types of music, you don't go into a sub menu when playing a drumkit or a guitar now do you???????!!!!!!!!!

well I can honestly say that you only get out what you put in with this box, what you want to play with is your choice, nobody can choose for you this time so I profess to take it with you at all times and have a 9v pp3 style battery and a to dc in adapter handy,(these can be made from broken power adaptors featuring a plug in point for a calculator battery, just cut off the plug, make sure the polarity is right and you're away, you get an hour or two per battery) you never know, you could be round someone's house and the best sample material could come flying through the tv set and.....
well this time you can just pull it out of the bag, hook it up to the headphone socket on the tv and get sampling. Through effects too, now this is a joy! watching the news with a sonic decimator over the war scenes, everything goes atari space invaders!!!!! the audio in thru function is a nice added bonus to check the original source material.
It samples itself too with nothing plugged in the in jack so you can create loops from the patterns you just wrote etc which if you have the sample space its terrific.oh yeah, you've got 95 seconds in which to store the thoughts running through your head at any given epoch but you can store 8 banks of this onto a smartcard - don't get higher than 32mb because you won't be able to access any other areas save the 1st 8 banks.Shame you can't keep your patterns too, save recording them into an external sequencer - no it won't midi sysex dump so you've either got to really work out a plan for how your samples/patterns are arranged or you will come out with gibberish when changing sample banks, and the most infuriating bit is you have to hit stop to save patterns with the write button - I say this because you oftern twist stuff onstage into a better version of the pattern you wrote on the train with an extension cable running from the nearby toilet but having to " er sorry lads, gotta stop a sec , just re saving this bit" in front of a lot of people is not on; more people should follow boss and e-mu 's example.The electribe ethic beleive it or not is a very punk one, in that in 5 minutes you can go and play to people with one of these, its a modern day electric guitar
and should suit any musician from any style provided they're into playing to hordes of sweaty happy people that like to throw themselves, and each other about the room at various speeds.

Electribes, like their owners, are hardcore as fuck, even if they look like they were designed by david bowie and built by quentin crisp.In the nearly two years I have had this machine the rubber pads have shrugged off spilt vodka and orange, the dials can be screwed back to tightness after extensive road travel, it is easy to clean and after a particulary turbulent flight to czech republik where it switched on but didn't give out any sounds, I practically headbutted the damn thing near the led display and lo and behold, it works fine again!! I guess theres nothing that can be done once it eventually does die but judging by the er-1 that I've had for 3 years without a single hiccup, they are very tour friendly: reliable? these things can save your neck when the shit goes down......

well what do you expect from a corporation really? we were at a music fair once and presented a double paged manual ( the same pages repeated over and over omitting the stuff you really need to know)to the electribe promoter in front of a large crowd and just to see the look on his face was enough for me: they are not used to dealing with people unless they're heavily backed up by a multinational recording corporation. The website contains phone numbers for various korg stockists throughout the world but from that moment onward you're really on your own as far as repairs are concerned.But then, tell me a company that aren't the same?! we should all go to japan one day and dump all our broken grooveboxes on their collective desks and say " what are you gonna do about that eh?" in an ideal world.

never let these things out of your sight!!!they're for life, not for xmas; replacing the material is one thing, but the patterns contained within can be collected over years, and to lose this is a solid chunk of your life gone; backup wherever possible, don't let the unthinkable happen to you!my only complaints about this bit of kit is the non ability to pan the effects unit, and the non ability of moving time sliced parts forwards and backwards to achieve different starting positions. apart from that it functions as notepad and performance gear all in one. I still can't keep my hands off it nearly 2 years later, the smartmedia function breathes new life into it. separate outs? what will the future bring?please mr korg
can we have one twice the size with separate outputs, loop remix n slice functions, and a couple of piano roll sections for melodic based melody samples as a first piece of kit for any budding music enthusiasts out there, its a school in itself, definitely recommended.

I erased the presets
Easy to operate

You know the features

All good, but yes, thin

No. No. No.
I did use it at a gig and was slightly happy with it just as a sequencer.
The damn thing won't save any samples. It freezes in write mode. It has to be turned off to get it back to normal. Still it won't save samples. I opened it up to see if it needed a battery replaced. But it's designed not to be tampered with. I hate Korg. I should have bought a 'Bop-it!'

Bad
The website blows too

Crappy as a sampler. Not good for sequencing.
If anybody knows how to fix this problem, please tell me. I might take back everything I said.

The es-1 is very easy to use, but the presets aren't that good in my opinion.

Polyphony?? that's a good one!!! The es-1 only has one midi channel and that would be ok but you can only use 9 sounds simultaniously, BUT if you sample sounds u can use about two simultaniously because the hz frequenties interfere with eachother so you have to do some mastering before you sample them ( not if you sample presets from another machine off course). there is an onboard sequencer and it is very easy to use.

I'm very sorry but the sounds sound cheap cheap cheap. the effects aren't that great also.

reliability is very good

good customer support.

I wouldn't buy it again if i lost it, i probably would't even look so hard.
The fact that i hate about the electribe is that the editing of the samples sucks big time!!! It is too hard to get the timing right while using the cut-feature

Not sure about the software version though I bought it in May of 2001 from a local "Guitar Center" store.

As far as the presets - well they are good for illustrating what can be accomplished with the unit so one can dissect the patterns and note the motion sequencing and the use of mult bar patterns. But obviously one shouldn't purchase this sampler merely to permutate patterns using factory supplied samples as a source.

Editing the patches ? well this is a sampler with no graphical display so much of the sample trimming is done by ear which some people prefer though I'm not in that boat. To be fair its no more difficult editing the samples on this unit than ,for example, the Akai S2000. another approach is to use the Smart-Media reader to transfer samples between the ES-1 and a computer equipped with a smart-Card reader and digital editor such as Cool Edit or Sound Forge. Use the computer to chop samples and xfer them back over to the ES-1.

the manual ? well its adequate and covers most of the operations and Korg has their little "finger diagrams" which can be useful at times. I use manuals as references - I only look at them when I hit a wall. The ES-1 manual is easy to navigate and it doesn't take long to figure out what you need to do , for example, to slice a loop.

The keys are laid out like a XOX step sequencer. You can assign a sample to sample keys and then press a step key in the sequencer to have the sample played. the associated key lights up and you will hear the drum hit next time around. Organize your drum loops like this building upon it on each pass. But you can certainly sample a whole drum loop , trim it down, and assign it to a sample key and treat it with effects and resample. And then you can assign that to step key - just make sure your pattern's tempo matches the loop tempo in order to fill out the pattern correctly.

Effects are useful and can be applied in real time (Except slice which is more of a function than an effect). The effects aren't spectacular -merely average in my opinion though they are sufficient to mangle exisitng samples and loops into something else that others won't recongnize (so you can avoid getting sued should your masterpiece become a hit on down the line).

Expanison ? you can't expand the memory except to save things to Smart-Media which is fast becoming the media of choice for budget musical instruments. roland sp-202, 303, Boss-BR-532, roland MC-505 all use smart media. And you can take the ES-1 sounds to a computer with a smart media reader and load them up.

the sequencer is a step sequencer. Anyone used to XOX style machines will be at home. User's of Re-Birth will also be at home. for a budget sampler with effects and a step sequencer this is a pretty good deal. The on baord memory lets keep things "on disk" as long as you economize on the sieze of your loops. Obviosuly you should be choosy about what you sample as stereo vs mono.

This is essentially a beat creation machine though I have sampled my bass lines with it, sliced them and treated them as part of the pattern. Its pretty easy to process any audio source using the audio inputs. Sample anyhting you want and you can deal with it. I don't see this sampler being the end point in the song writing process. Its very good at jumpstarting ideas but after I get somenice beats and loops I move it all over to the PC which has superior editing tools. I should add that sometimes I send things back on over to the ES-1 and back again. I do this just so I can sit there with the ES-1 in my lap hearing the sounds.

Above all the potential buyer should keep in mind that the samples are to be played as part of a pattern - that is if you hit a sample key its not a candidate for looping until you insert into a pattern. thats why many use the ES-1 only as a drum/beat creation tool.

The keys on the ES-1 are small andI can see that repeated usse over a period of time might cause some problems but this IS a budget sampler after all. Its better built than the plastic SP-202 which is not good for much in my opinion except to record belches or the breaking of wind. The bottom line is that you can come up with some good sounds but thats your job since this is a sampler. If you get a nice sample the ES-1 will do a reasonable job of capturing it. Of course the effects are thee to help you do interesting things to it.

I use this strictly in the studio so its never seen the inside of a smoke filled club infested with E-heads intent on knocking over the mixing desk. For me the ES-1 is stricly a compositional tool NOT a gigging tool. Others might use it for playing out - I don't

never called korg. didn't need to.

Oh I don't know if this is the killer box that some of the boys in Future Music say that it is. It is a better buy than most of the other budget samplers but I see that roland now has the 303 and the new 505 out there. I havent' checked those out yet but its obvious that if you favor step sequencing then get the Tribe.

also it seems that Korg has now released the new sampler with the synth built in which is sort of like combing the two original Tribes together. If you have waited this long to make a decision about the ES-1 then I would suggest looking at the newer unit first unless you are getting the ES-1 for a good deal.

I play guitar and bass in addition to composing beats so I try to find tools that accomodate my abilities and needs to capture aduio along with MIDI data. Of course there aren't many budget units that will do this well and even the higher end units are so-so about it. But still the ES-1 does make it easy for me to construct beats or sample and existing one and within minutes have something to show for it. so thats saying something. but I'm not a drum snob so maybe those who are will have a different opinion about the box. Of course most drum heads have the akai MPC2000 so I wouldn't know why they would be worried about the ES-1 in the first place.

In general I'm pleased with the variety of sampling options out there though I'm also attracted to the great software solutions as well. Gigasampler , Reason, Halcyon, are all good products that let you do great things as long as you have a decent PC to base it all on. So I'm less and less attracted to hardware samplers even if they are cheap. It seems that their shelf life is about six months and they scrap it and move on to something else. Even the better samplers like high end Akais , EMUs are hard pressed to offer tools as good as those in a $300 editing/sequencing packae for the PC. O course giggging with a PC is hard to do. sorry to get off track but i just wanted to offer that perspective.

Presets sound good. Editing patches very easy: wish all samplers were this easy. Manual very helpful

Polyphony is not a problem. Efx cool to play with not real professional though. I do not like smart medias. Sequencer built in nice touch, also allows for other than 4/4. Slice is a dope concept that other companies should look into.

32khz is not clean enough for my personal tastes. Would be excellent for industrial, techno, hard house,and hip hop. Drums are easily distorted and sound just a bit thin but crunchy. Efx good for drum sampling. works with velocity sens. keyboard well

Seems more reliable than most sampling drum machines.

I sold mine and got an mpc for 80 dollars more, which was more to my suiting. The drums are just not clean enough for me. It is always easier to dirty things up, but almost impossible to clean up. It still has great features and I would recommend to people who like dirty, gritty, or distorted drums. I have seen it and heard it all, and would like to have an es as a compliment to my setup, but probably not essential for what I do(Downtempo with a south american, indian, mid east, feel.