Korg X50 61 Key Music Synthesizer Keyboard Review

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(More customer reviews)I've owned the x50 for a couple of years now and use it in my home studio. First of all is sound quality. The top of the line Korg series is the Triton keyboards, which cost thousands of dollars (depending on the model). This keyboard uses the same engine, so the sounds are quite similar to the top of the line model. In other words, incredible sounds.
So why is it less than a thousand bucks? First of all, it's not as customizable. Make no mistake, you can still tweak every sound, but it's not as easy or as in depth as the Triton series.
Second are the physical stats: 61 VELOCITY SENSITIVE, but NOT weighted keys. This means that you can still play with dynamic control, but there isn't the feedback one might be used to from a piano. The keyboard itself is very well constructed but mainly plastic. It will surprise you in it's lack of heft, but don't confuse that with cheapness. It's solid.
So why use this? The voices are amazing. I use it in my home studio to backup my guitar. For one song I wrote in a flute solo and then brought in a flautist to learn the song so she could play with me live. She commented on how good the flautist was who recorded for me. She didn't even know it was a keyboard.
The strings, piano and organ sections are particularly strong.
It's great for my studio since I'm not a pianist. It's exceedingly portable so it would be great for gigs too. It's really a great deal since you get thousands of dollars worth of voices for less than a thousand.

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The Korg X50 music synthesizer features the HI (Hyper Integrated) sound engine that's used on the world-famous TRITON series. It gives you pro-quality sounds in an ultra-compact body. This keyboard synthesizer delivers unbeatable convenience and enjoyment for live performance or song production. The 64 MB PCM memory contains a wide range of sounds, including piano, strings, guitar, and synth sounds. With 512 sound Programs, as well as 384 ?Combinations? that let you use up to eight Programs together, you can start enjoying a diverse selection of great sounds right away. The effect section lets you simultaneously use four effects (one insert effect, two master effects, and one EQ), and provides a full selection of effect types such as reverb, chorus, and delay. Best of all, the X50 is compatible with Korg?s TR line of music workstations so you can share sounds and songs with Korg users around the world.The X50?s ultra-portable design also allows greater accessibility to musicians on the go without having to sacrifice quality.

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Moog Music MF101 Moogerfooger Low Pass Envelope Filter Pedal Review

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(More customer reviews)Wow, someone actually wrote as a review "My husband uses this in his band a lot...don't know anything about it...", now I have seen it all. Why would any body think that an endorsement like that could possibly be helpful in any way? Oh great, well if it's good enough for your husband then I'll take TWO!! Holy smokes, what else do you see him using that I might want? Thanks for nothing, luckily anyone else who is looking at this will surely know what this is and it goes without saying it's value and quintessentially uniquely classic moog filter sound. Thanks for nothing though, Little Lost Long Island Girl.

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This is the classic Moog filter that changed the sound of electronic music. Reach out and sweep the filter with the CUTOFF knob. Or use the ENVELOPE section to do it automatically. Or plug in one or more expression pedals or control voltages to do it. Or do all three. This is the best-sounding, most playable filter you can have! A 110V power supply is included. What is a Lowpass Filter? A lowpass filter removes high frequencies from a tone. It makes the tone sound more mellow or muted. The lower the cutoff, the more muted the tone sounds. Imagine a window shade. As it is pulled down, it cuts out the higher light, then the light from the middle of the window, then finally all the light. A lowpass filter does the same sort of thing to the sound spectrum. The moogerfooger filter is a direct descendant of the original Moog modular synthesizers. It contains two complete modular functions: a voltage-controlled lowpass filter and an envelope follower. The envelope follower tracks the loudness contour (envelope) of a sound, and produces a voltage that follows the dynamics of your playing. Every time you play a note, the envelope voltage goes up and then down. The harder you play, the higher the envelope voltage goes. The envelope follower opens and closes the lowpass filter. Think of the envelope voltage as an invisible hand that turns the CUTOFF knob up and down every time you play a note. Since the envelope follows the dynamics of your instrument's signal, you actually play the filter as you play your instrument. The moogerfooger filter is also a resonant filter. As you turn up the resonance, the overtones near the cutoff frequency are boosted. Resonance gives the moogerfooger filter the same classic Moog filter sound as the Minimoog and Moog modular synthesizers. The moogerfooger filter's control parameters are signal mix, cutoff frequency, resonance amount, and envelope amount. All of the Lowpas

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Korg Kaossilator Pro Tabletop Synthesizer Review

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(More customer reviews)
Like another reviewer here at Amazon, I also got the original kaossilator a couple of years ago and started to spend a lot of time with it. I was reading an article named "Make Music Now" on a magazine related to electronic and computer music when I first learned about the kaossilator. I'm not a musician and, for many reasons, I never allowed myself to learn music. I always had a passion for music, specially with lots of synths like Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield, Airsculpture, RedShift, FSOL, Vangelis, Synergy, Passport, Jean-Luc Ponty, etc, etc. I have always been a passive listener, until now.When the new kaossilator pro came out I went right away to the youtube website to watch all those people showing their experiences and amazing creativity about this new musical instrument from Korg. Few months later I got my kaossilator pro.Both devices (Kaossilator and Kaossilator Pro) definitely are not toys. They are a very powerful, dynamic and portable musical instruments. As with every musical instrument they have their pros and cons. If you really want to learn more about these two devices go to the net and watch others about what they are doing with them (for all kinds of music). Those people have been like teachers to me.Making my own music is my new hobby. I have been doing this for a couple of years and my family, relatives, and friends have been pushing me to "release" an album. I have had released only one single with the main purpose to understand the whole production process. It is a very simple and very very inexpensive process to release digital music. I did a promise to myself about learning a little bit of formal music before releasing a complete album.Please do a search for "echoes from kiwi" here at amazon.com. That music was done using an iphone, the original kaossilaor, and the kaossilator pro. Again, the main purpose of "echoes from kiwi" is to demonstrate how easy is to create music using a very small and relatively inexpensive musical instruments and a computer.If you, like me, want to start creating your own music and have lots of fun, the kaossilator pro can be your first musical instrument. I bet you will master it in no time.Thank you for reading my review.
Eduardo Nava.

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The korg kaossilator pro dynamic phrase synthesizer is the supercharged version of the palm-sized kaossilator. the kaossilator pro was reborn as a powerful track-making tool and loaded with live performance power. it creates spontaneous changes that were difficult to produce in the past. not any longer with the korg kaossilator pro dynamic phrase synthesizer.as a trailblazer among the "instrumental gadgets" that allowed anyone to easily create melodies and phrases, the kaossilator gained a strong and dedicated user base, even among those without any performing experience. today, the kaossilator continues to be enormously popular. retaining these revolutionary features – while adding a wide variety of new ones as well – is the kaossilator pro. with 200 sound programs, a new electribe-inspired gate arpeggiator, and four loop recording banks that can even record external audio sources, the kaossilator pro is packed with features that make it ideal for both live performance and premium productions. in addition, usb connectivity with your computer and sd card memory storage allow the kaossilator pro to be used not just for improvised performances, but also as a superbly intuitive, track-making music production tool.using touchpad is highly intuitive – simply rub, stroke, or tap it to instantly create complex phrases with a single finger. responding instantly to these gestures, the kaossilator pro creates spontaneous changes that were difficult to produce on synthesizers of the past. horizontal motions control the pitch, while the vertical axis can control tone parameters such as cutoff, feedback, or modulation depth. this makes it easy for anyone to create entirely original sounds and musical phrases.

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Korg microKorg Analog Modeling Synthesizer with Vocoder Review

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(More customer reviews)The MicroKorg is probably the finest synth you'll ever get at that price. It's very small (same size as many of those toy keyboards you grew up as a kid, but this is no toy), and has 37 keys, although the big criticisms here is Korg opted for toy keyboard-sized keys, rather than full-sized keys (the similar sized and similarly priced Alesis Micron, also 37 keys, used full-sized keys). It's a four note polyphonic virtual analog synth capable of fantastic analog sounds, with all the great sounds of the '70s, '80s, and '90s! It's essentially a Korg MS-2000 in a small package, but with an 8-band vocoder (instead of 16-band), and a superior arpeggiator, great for all you electronica and techno buffs out there, or those who want to create Tangerine Dream-like rhythms without the bulky gear that group had to use back in the glory days of the mid '70s. I've been aware of vocoders for ages, and of course, was a huge trademark in Kraftwerk's sound (they started using vocoders starting with 1973's Ralf & Florian, which is one album prior to their famous breakthrough, Autobahn), I am so happy to now personally own a vocoder, that is, one included in a synth. It has a condensor microphone for use of a vocoder, although you can hook up any standard microphone too. Like most any synth made in the last 20-25 years, it's MIDI, so you can have it interact with other MIDI synths, drum machines, your computer, or any other MIDI device.
Although it comes with an AC adapter for home and studio use, you'll be happy that you can use 6 AA batteries, so you can bring it with you on your next camping adventure (plus it has a headphone jack too, since hooking it up to speakers might be a bit difficult in the Great Outdoors).
It's also fully programmable, you can alter the sounds already included, or you can erase one of the settings and start from scratch. I really love the features you can do here. You can have it polyphonic, or monophonic for use of soloing, or retro-'70s analog sounds. It has two oscillators, you have many different choices of waveforms. You can edit the arpeggiator so you can get it to do different rhythms (it can do up to a sequence of 8 notes). I also really like the delay feature, to get that echo sound when you release the note, it really gives it a fuller sound. You can get it to pan for that wonderful stereo effect, or select a phasor. You can even program it to have the pitch wheel and modulation wheel do things, such as altering pitch, the resonance, vibrato, etc. There'e two edit knobs, and five more knobs to help you with the programming. But I very much suggest you read the instruction manual, or you might have a hard time programming it. But once you get a hang of it, you'll have a ton of fun programming your own sounds and see what you can do. Despite the keys itself, it's actually a fully professional synthesizer.
The MicroKorg might be geared for the younger audience, thanks to its low price and many of the techno sounds it can do, but Jean Michel Jarre uses one and he's hardly young. Not to mention you can make it do a lot of non-techno sounds too, like classic '70s analog sounds, or '80s polyphonic synth sounds (like what you hear on Van Halen's "Jump") so it doesn't just appeal to the young segment.
It's great see many professional musicians using it from Jean Michel Jarre right down to Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. I even saw a documentary directed by Hans Fjellestad called Moog, which was about Robert Moog and of Moog synthesizers, and they showed several techno/electronic groups where the main emphasis was on their Moog gear (naturally), but one group was clearly shown with a MicroKorg.
This is no 88 key workstation, that's for sure. In some cases that's a good thing, especially if you like in a small apartment and you're concerned about space, but for such a small synth, I am completely blown away at what this can do. You really need to try and buy this synth, you won't be disappointed!

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The microKORG boasts the same dual-oscillator DSP synthesis engine found in Korg's critically acclaimed MS2000 and offers a wider selection of waveforms than any other modeled synth. Oscillator 1 features a total of 71 waveforms. These include traditional analog waves like saw, pulse, sine and noise, plus more unique choices like Vox wave and cross wave. Together they provide a cool selection that can be modulated to produce an extensive range of timbres. In addition, 64 exclusive DWGS waveforms from Korg's classic DW-8000 enable the microKORG to reproduce a broad collection of imitative sounds. Sounds like bells, electric pianos, guitars, basses and more that would be difficult reproduce on an analog synthesizer. You can also apply Ring and Sync modulation from Oscillator 2 to create the kind of complex timbres that are the true sign of an advanced synthesizer.Four filter modes are available, offering -12 dB (2-pole) low pass, high pass and band pass configurations plus an extra steep -24 dB (4-pole) low pass setting. All include resonance. Two classic ADSR envelope generators and two MIDI-syncable LFOs provide the power to shape your sounds. Add a Virtual Patch matrix that lets you create advanced modulation settings – routing the Mod Wheel to control filter cutoff or pulse width, using an LFO to control panning or amp level, etc. – and you have performance that is unheard of from a synthesizer in this price range!

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Peterson V-SAM Virtual Strobe Audio Metronome Review

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(More customer reviews)I am called on to tune harpsichords, and this is often done using unusual temperaments and pitch standards far from A=440Hz. I formerly used the excellent Korg MT-1200, because it could be programmed to any temperament, and because it allowed a very wide range of pitch standards (I often need to tune to A=411, for example). Korg has discontinued the MT-1200, replacing it with the model OT-12, which has most of the same features but is not programmable. When the MT-1200 that I used went bad (its memory chip failed, so it needed to be re-programmed every time I used it, quite a hassle), I went on a search for something else that would do the job.
After consulting with harpsichord players, builders, and other experts, I learned about the Peterson V-SAM. None of my experts had actually used this tuner, but had heard that it was an amazing new device that was great for harpsichords. I called Peterson (for a very long time known as a venerable manufacturer of stroboscopic tuners) and their sales people confirmed that the V-SAM was excellent for this kind of instrument. I let my experts know what Peterson had told me, and so they independently bought V-SAMs at the same time I bought mine.
About a week after I got my V-SAM, I started getting calls from the others. Nobody could make the V-SAM work with harpsichords. It was unstable, and would frequently not even recognize that a note was being played on the instruments. Suspecting a faulty unit or perhaps a faulty manufacturing run, I checked my V-SAM with some wind instruments. It worked fine. Several calls to Peterson tech support revealed that if I simply added an external microphone, the V-SAM would work great on the harpsichord. I tried hand held mics, clip on mics, and suction-cup mics, and nothing helped. The others had similar experiences.
Finally, I was able to talk to engineering at Peterson, and was advised that the V-SAM was never designed to work with instruments like pianos or harpsichords. They said the tuner was intended to be used with instruments that can sustain their tones, like violins and wind instruments.
I have since returned my V-SAM, as have all my associates. I want to stress that this is not really a fault of the unit...Peterson is a good company with a high quality product. The problem is that this design is not suitable with certain instruments that produce transient tones. Unfortunately, Peterson sales and tech support did not know this and led me astray. Likewise, most retailers simply parrot what Peterson says or implies in their sales capacity, and hence the bad information is kept circulating.
In my opinion the V-SAM is a fine product for most applications, but if you want to use it with instruments that produce tones that decay quickly, look elsewhere.


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The Peterson V-SAM' presents a combination of programmable Virtual Strobe' tuner, audio tone generator, and metronome in a hand-held format. It marries the revolutionary Virtual Strobe Technology', first introduced in the VS-1 tuner, with a new, brighter, high-contrast display. The high-output tone generator within the V-SAM offers 10 octaves of audible tones, which conform to a selected preset or custom temperament and are adjustable in 0.1 cent increments. This permits ear-training possibilities previously unavailable in a hand-held device.Versatile MetronomeThe V-SAM's audio/visual metronome allows tap or dial-in tempo, adjustable beats per measure, beat subdivisions, and a stopwatch function.Built to be BetterThe V-SAM's "tuner mode" expands upon the Peterson VS-1' with an even wider variety of alternate temperaments and the ability to select temperament tonal roots. In addition, the user can create and store custom temperaments and use them with the same flexibility as preset ones. The V-SAM automatically detects a note being played in real-time and is accurate to 1/1000th of a semitone. It can transpose displayed notes based on any of 12 scale notes.

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