| StoreTags: weeny, teeny, bitsy, isty
Author: skab on May 15 2007 Viewed 4411 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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lematt
it seems to be fucking awesome !
05/15/07
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skab
Logo - you can dial in the bpm if you know it, you don't have to tap. but it doesn't have an auto bpm detect.
slp - yeah it's not long - only 1 measure
05/15/07
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skab
oh yeah - now there's some samples in the main post
05/15/07
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mapmap
this looks awesome.
i wish korg would make a midi effect kaoss pad...
with xy pad and midi arpeggiators a stuff.
05/15/07
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skab
yeah a midi pad would be dope. wasn't there a usb trackpad midi controller that could be divided into CC zones? i'm sure somebody posted it up a while ago
05/16/07
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ejectorset
wow thanks for the smaples sounds great. i seriously must get one now. whoops, shouldnt have asked for the samples.
this is the last piece of my no-computer setup!
seriously thanks so much wow i just got to the grains example!!!!
im fiendin for this like its heroin.
muuuuuuuuuust have.
thanks again.
05/16/07
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skab
glad i could help ejectorset
sorry my grains gave you GAS 
05/16/07
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jp
i've just bought the KP3 and it really rocks. i think it's absolutely worth the price. it's a loop sampler and great effect device. i also love the granular effects and the loop stuff which works great for the recorded loops as well.
05/16/07
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Tenine
Ahahaha!
Flavor Flav
Great review, thanks.
05/17/07
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deceptikon
Cool, thanks for the review. I might have to pick one up..
By the way, I'm in Tokyo too. Where did you pick up the Kaoss pad?
I like 5g in Harajuku and that little shop on the 9th floor in Shibuya near the Tower for vintage stuff.. I guess all the new stores are pretty much the same though.
05/17/07
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j_chot
great review!
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