| StoreTags: weeny, teeny, bitsy, isty
Author: skab on May 15 2007 Viewed 3696 times. 25 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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I miss the old review section, and since i've just got one of these, i thought i'd review it for the beneifit of anyone who is considering buying one. a few years ago, i had a kp2 and i didn't get on with it very well. it had a lot of novelty value, what with all the flashing lights and the motion record function, but it just started gathering dust in my studio, so i gave it to a friend.
about a month ago, i saw the KP mini in a music shop, and gave it a prod. i was impressed. korg have stripped out all the daftness (sampler, motion record, cutting switch, flashy lights) and put in the same effects engine as the rather over-priced KP3. And it's a good FX engine. Lots of standard effects, filters, phasers, reverbs, delays etc. The filters are quite transparent, not terribly warm, but they are very clean sounding, and the 72dB/oct LPF is particularly ballsy. the fuzz distortion is good - it's not the best digital distortion ever, but start working the pad with your fingers, and you'll be pleasantly surprised at what it can do.
The second half of the 100 possible FXs is where the little red and black box begins to really shine. of course, there are 10 god-awful "synth" patches, which are a waste of space. korg have, however, been very generous with the other 40 tho. very funky, comb-filtery delays, a great tape and dub echo. there's a series of grain shifters - which basically give you a hardware buffer override. and the lopps! oh the lopps! i loooove the looper patches in this thing! i may have got better at tapping the bpm button, but i suspect korg have improved the technology since the kp2. the looper patches are wa-wa-wikkedy-wa-wa-wicked. they fixed the irritating memory problem of the kp2, which would erase the sample buffer as you dragged your finger to the left, and now anything can be subjected to that stutter-to-granular-and-back-again goodness.
the real killer about the box is its size. about 2 and a half inches square, it'll fit in the pocket of your khaki kombat pantaloons, and IT RUNS ON BATTERIES! you can even fit a neck strap to it for flavor flav freshness.
my only gripe with this thing so far is that some of the effects tend to leave a bit of audio in the buffer which comes out as noise, but at a very low level.
and for the same price as a kp3 you could get 2 of these suckers and several beef jerky and pastrami sanwiches. bonza bonsai!
EDIT: Samples are now here
link
as you can hear, with some more practice, i might actually get almost good with this thang | |
Comments
05/15/07
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jogn
Nice review. It's the lack of midi on this that gets to me, though I wouldn't even want to sniff the kp3 cos of the price.
05/15/07
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skab
yeah - no midi is le bummer. still, if you've got a mac, you can always get the fingamidi app
05/15/07
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ejectorset
i want audio examples of the hardware buffer override grain shifters or stfu!
05/15/07
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skab
ok - i'll post some tomorrow
05/15/07
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Roshi
Looks really qute.
05/15/07
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tonearm
ok thanks. I was interested in getting one of those bastards. no MIDI? damn
05/15/07
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Logo
Nice review. I'd love one but am part of the no MIDI WTF crew. I really wish there was just MIDI in to receive clock, seems like it would be a pain having to tap tempo all the time live.
05/15/07
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EsromCole
Sounds fun, and small.
05/15/07
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ricemutt
wow, I totally forgot about this thing... I kind of want it! I read about the newer kaoss pad and it seems kind of lame, I don't know how I could justify shelling out 400 bucks for something like that... but THIS, maybe...
05/15/07
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Unknownforce
brilliant - i was planning on buying a second hand KP2 or even breaking the bank for a KP3 but now i'm gonna get this instead, cheers 
05/15/07
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papergoose
nice.
now, I, too, want one.
Not bothered by the lack of midi at all.
05/15/07
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kidko
Thanks for the review! I didn't even know this thing existed. I too have a dusty KP2 and would consider trading up for one of these.
05/15/07
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mlbot
looks cool, and it reminds me of the scene in Zoolander where they all whip out 2" micro cell phones.
05/15/07
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energygiant
that thing is almost as cute as midimacman
05/15/07
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slp
how long looping times does it have? i know its more geared towards retrigga-type-looping-tricks than phrase looping, but still...
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