Review Snapshot
by PowerReviews
Reviewed by 1 customer
Cool Sampler with Powerful Ableton Integration
I got the Korg Electribe Sampler 2 on a whim a while back. I had never used samples much, opting nearly always for synthesizers. This sampler really blows me away. First off, everything you do can be exported as a complete Ableton session onto the SD card and loaded in the computer. Even if you aren't an Ableton user, this process easily creates individual stereo samples of your parts for use in any DAW. Beyond that there are many excellent built in samples to get creative with alongside your user samples as well as a few analog oscillators to create your synth sounds. Motion control is probably the most expressive element of the sequencer. Modify most knobs with record enabled and the motion of your knob movement is written to the sequence. The record function even turns off after one full pass of the motion. I did find however that occasionally my motion control wasn't recorded fully at the beginning but I was able to always eventually get what I wanted. I loaded some of my own samples and loops onto this as well and got creative in ways that would have taken much more effort and been less fun in a DAW. The main outputs & headphone outs have a bit of a digital whine to them and really make the instrument unusable as a performance piece. However, with exporting sessions as Ableton projects, there is zero of this noise and no noise floor beyond that in any way. The built in effects are good too, elevating your sound with distortion, delay, and modulation effects among others, all of which can be motion controlled. I found myself making loops with motion control of three-bars against standard four-bar loops to create a much heightened variation to my productions. I did this by making four-bar motion controlled loops and then, in Ableton, shortening the loop length to three-bars. The built in scales and chords are extremely inspiring and allow you to quickly execute ideas and try out melodic content that's beyond your standard way of thinking. Korg has really nailed it with this one as long as you are exporting samples onto an SD card.