Korg EXB-PCM-03

Future Loop Construction is a great vast collection of various drum loops that can be sliced/broken down and played sound by sound or as an RPPR,which plays the loops in different groove styles.You can,of course,use any & all of the Keyboards internal processors in anyway you can conceive.Depending on what Korg keyboard you have,the install should be a snap.All i had to do was...
1.)Turn off keyboard and remove power cable
2.)Unscrew plate/top for the EXB boards
3.)Snap simm rom into any of the EXB slots and your done.

Even thou is seems like adding 16mb of chopped loops isnt alot,it is! It adds what seems to be 100 new drum kits.No editing or tweak's needed,there are made to be used right away/instantly and can truly help when you need idea's or have producers block.They provide RPPR for the loops which are suppose to play the loops,realistic-ly,for you.I personally didnt need it,but its there for anyone that needs a quick great groove.The way there mapped to the keyboard isnt exactly perfect if you want to simple change youre drums to the loops,so dont expect to.But they did map it so you can chanage from loop to loop.They made a very great chose of loops to slice,loops & use.And unlike the other EXB boards it didnt over write my programs.

Its much better then recording a loop and slicing/breaking it down your self.Just using the sound programs in SEQ mode,they arent the same volume/level with the internal sounds for some reason but just add an compressor or limiter.The way the loops/sounds are sliced is almost perfectly so there isnt that noticeable wierd cut-off at the end.They were recorded in such a clear & dynamic way that all you need is some compression.If you already know how to play drums on the keyboard YOU WILL LOVE THE EXB-PCM03.Many are very classic & popular to use.It mostly hiphop,rock & jazz loops.I really like how they seperate some of the percussion sounds into there own programs.If youre really into loops & grooves,this is a perfect addition as you can change the grooves and tweak the filters & effects all at the same time with great results & quality.

No problems or issues at all.You can use it anytime-nothing to load!

No problems or issues at all,so no customer support needed.

If my classic korg Triton with the EXB-PCM03 was damaged,stolen or lost some how.I would buy this in a heart beat again even if it cost $500,no doubt.I have the best sampler but it doesnt match up when i have to pay hundreds of $$$ for so little.

Installing the board is a breeze on a Triton Studio. Just flip the top and slot it right in. Load up the PCG and you are away! Not! This thing will take up a whole bank on your Triton/Karma and it will usually be the C or D bank. I loaded mine into the E ? F bank and thought I was pretty cool until I realised that the preloaded SNG (song) files that contain the RPPR files (jeeez what an excessive load of jargon!) default to bank C ? D and does not find the preset banks so you get some weird stuff going on ? certainly not drumbeats. I ended up jamming around and figuring out how to save the song file from the sequencer to point to the new bank. YAY on my way now. Well, no not really. You can?t use this boards RPPR Loops if you don?t load up the 16 or so sequencer song files first. I figured you can the load one song you want to use (hip hop or house etc.) so you don?t have the other 15 hanging around. You then have to use that song as the basis of your composition unless someone has figured out a better way. What a pain in the ****. You have to go through and change all of the effects that came with the loaded song etc ? either that or make up a new song and then copy all of the settings of that song into the preset one. Then to make it worse, you have to go through to track edit and view which tracks are being used by the drum sample loops because they are loaded onto all of the first 8 tracks. Then you have to work around the used tracks, recording onto any track that does not have existing sequence information. Just a heck of a lot of messing about for someone who likes things easy.

Well there is 16 MB of drum loops that are spliced via midi so that you can change tempo etc without mashing the loops. The sounds and loops are actually quite good sounding and quite a few sound as if they are played live which is cool. The problem is that all of this extra grunt seems a little wasted due to the wacked out way you have to use the board, especially with the amount of space the kits take up on your machine.
The best way of using this board in my opinion is to take advantage of the RPPR patterns that it comes with. Each song loads up an active drum kit so that you can jam on the keys and get quite a good feel going. I find it easier to just record that into protools and then lay the other stuff over the top rather than use it in the sequencer.
You can make your own patterns with any of the 128 different programs if you like which seems to work better for me as well.

Ok, I know I have been moaning like a spoilt child who has dropped his ice cream about this board but here is where it shines. The sounds are quite useable and can ad that extra live feel that some compositions just need. Also there is a large selection of loops that keeps you interested. I think you would have to be careful in using some of them because they are pretty distinctive.
There is a good range of styles ranging from standard, hip hop, funk, R&B, Latin etc. Also there are some one off hits that can ad a little spice to your composition. Some of the loops work nicely if you layer two or more together.
Here is another thing, what is with the extras on some good loops that render them useless? Some of the funk loops have bass guitar licks in them that are not tuneable unless you are a freakin legend and if you do, they mutate like samples do. Quite a few of the samples have this extra tonal crap that just make things complicated.

Not much can really go wrong with the board due to no real working parts although I would not recommend taking a shower with it.

I am lucky that I sort of figured this thing out myself but I have since found a good site that has some great tutorials on how to set this up. Well done Korg Canada! So I have to say the support from these guys regarding this unique board was good.

Hmmm! I have a love ? hate relationship with this board. If it was lost (woops! Just fell out of my pocket!) or stolen (there goes my beloved triton) I would not get another one to be honest. I think I would try the Trance Attack board but I would hope that the set up was not as MENTAL MULLET as this one. The sounds are great and the loops do sizzle but using them is a pain. I have noticed that quite a few guys on Triton sites (go TritonHaven!!) are confused by this board so try it out if you can before you buy it.

The box contains a blister pack, which contains a warning note, a simplified installation instruction (I guess you're supposed to check your Triton/Karma user manual for illustrations, because the "manual" that comes with the board doesn't say which way to put the board in - I managed to guess correctly, and I also presume it is impossible or at least very hard to put it in the wrong way). Then there is a big, folded sheet with all the sounds on the board, a floppy with preset data (programs, combinations and songs/RPPR:s) for either bank C or D (your choice).
The preset programs are the basis, the combinations add very little to these (in my opinion), but the songs (RPPR:s) are hilariously fun to sift through! Made for jam sessions!
Editing? Same as all other ROM sounds on your Triton/Karma.

16 Mbytes of "acidized" loops. I don't know at the moment how many loops are on the board, but the number of samples is over 1300, according to the box cover. I haven't counted them.

The board contains just the drum loop snippets. It doesn't add any to the polyphony, effects or other resources in your Triton/Karma.

I must add the preset RPPR:s as a "feature" to this product, since they show off in a superb manner how you can make awful good use of the samples/programs on the board, and they are also immensely fun as a responsive jam session drummer at your fingertips. I initially wondered why there were songs on the preload floppy, and why the heck I should load them, but once I did I realised these were no demo songs, the songs merely act as containers for a big bungch och RPPR loops! Be sure *not* to overlook these.

All samples are drum loops, snipped up at each transient so that the loop can be reconstructed using the proper MIDI sequence, and be turned into something different using the improper MIDI sequence, which is really why you'd buy this board. The board contains the individual samples, and a floppy loads your Triton/Karma with programs, combinations, songs and RPPR:s using these samples.

Triton/Karma lets you velocity switch between two different samples, which can add some expressiveness to the programs, but as far as I can tell none of the loop snip programs uses this feature, for obvious reasons I guess.

The loop samples ranges from clean vanilla style studio recorded drums, smokey jazz drum loops, laid back RnB loops, hip-hop of course, latin rythms for those inclined, some interpretation of big beat and so forth. I believe Korg have tried to put most modern musical styles into the board. Some loops you *won't* find are synth / electronic drum or drum machine loops. Thank goodness! Why splice together sampled or synthesised drums into a loop, sample the loop and clip in into individual beats again? No, thankfully Korg put only "live" drum loops in there!

You could use this for rock, pop and all sorts of modern dance music, even jazz I think, but classical music? I think not.

Some loops have a tonal background, e.g. a bass line behind the drums, or a stray chord blast on one beat, or other etched melodic content - which is a drawback when you're using these in your own songs that don't happen to follow those particular harmonies. However, you can always tweak the pitch of the samples in such a "drum set" and match the song tuning, but it is a cumbersome hack. I whish Korg had left all loop samples as clean, drums-only loops so we (you and I) can add the melodic content otherwise, but the "contaminated" loops are very few, so I won't whine about this. (I'm not giving the sounds a top rating partly because of this, Korg, just so that you know, for future references.)

Haven't failed yet. Installing silicon based hardware yourself is always tricky because of the risk of damaging the delicate circuitry by electrostatic discharges, but till, the board is sitting nicely inside my Karma and does a good job at disrupting my sleep at nigh (since I loose track of time when I'm jamming on the Karma :)...

Never ever tried to get help from Korg, but I have tried to reach them on other matters and not succeeded.

If this was stolen I'd get really, *really* pissed, but I'm not sure if I'd buy another one. It *is* a big help building rather useful drum loops with a feel to them, for us who do not like to do this purely in software (where the flexibility is superior, of course). The board is about as good as I expected, but the accompanying floppy with "RPPR":s made me smile for a whole week - these preprogrammed loops really show how to make the best of the sounds on the board!