Just ordered one to compliment my OT tonight.
This is mostly due to running out of tracks on the OT and wanting another box to take up percussion duties.
I had borrowed a volca sample from a friend but found it too fiddly and as a result hardly used it (the colour might also have been a factor)
From the vids I’ve seen, the Korg is pretty much a stripped back OT, it lacks the midi sequencing aspect but thankfully retains motion capture and as a bonus adds the ability to create chords without resampling as well as chord memory and scale locking. Features I’m sure people puzzled over their lack of inclusion on the OT.
Anyways, ramble on.
Is anyone already using the Korg sampler 2 with the OT?
How do you find it?
I had one for awhile and used it with the Octatrack. The Electribe Sampler is very capable and a great companion to the Octatrack, as long as you’re aware of its somewhat odd limitations. It’s taken a lot of heat, mostly because people expected it to be something it’s not. But approach it with no preconceptions and just learn what it can and can’t do, and it’ll be a great companion to the Octatrack.
I found it worked best when I had one pattern going on the Tribe, no matter what I did on the Octatrack. While Korg has adjusted the glitches that occur when you switch patterns on the Tribe, they’re not entirely gone and you will eventually run into situations where it’ll just annoy the hell out of you. I believe Korg’s intention was to build a rich and extensive live-oriented set within one dedicated pattern, and then switch to the next one as you switch songs in a deck. To use five-ten patterns to build a song, will frustrate you. But one pattern with sixteen tracks within the Tribe sampler, will get you very, very far.
I also have the e2s. It’s a fun little box, although noisy (cheap output stage electronics)
I wish the new korg products had slightly better output stages fwiw. Many new korg boxes (mainly volcas and the new electribes) have some hi freq noise/buzz/whine in the output. You often need to reach for a parametric eq to remove it, and while it doesn’t render them useless, is not ideal.
Can’t speak for the sampler version but my Electribe 2 doesn’t exhibit any noise whatsoever. I use it all the time with my Octatrack, mainly percussion and lead duties, controlled by its own sequencer but slaved to the Octatrack.
They pair really well as they are virtually pattern for pattern program changes (the Electribe has only 250 patterns) plus the Octatrack sends program change on start up so it will set the Electribe to the correct pattern when reconvening a session (just switch Electribe on first).
When you increment or decrement a pattern on the Octatrack the E2 will follow suit. So if I were to switch from pattern A1 to pattern B1 on the OT the E2 would switch from pattern 001 to pattern 017. With regard to pattern changes it is like they were made for each other.
I’ve just picked up an electribe sampler and, while I have it changing patterns via program change messages, it first cues the pattern up for a bar before changing it so the electribe ends up playing patterns one bar behind everything else. Am I doing something wrong?
We stoped using our Korg Sampler due to the hassle it was transferring samples to it. I can’t remember the workflow, but I think you have to transfer to a card, insert card in the machine, load from card to memory and save somewhere in memory or back to card or something like that. Maybe they’ve updated it now - maybe you can use the USB to transfer now, if so it would be a cool machine again. Working with it once you have your samples in place is cool
I realise this post is over a year old now, but if anyone is having this problem, the culprit is almost certainly the Korg power supply. I personally know of people who have had that exact problem and a new PSU fixed it.
I had an E2S and the outputs were absolutely clean. This is a test I did for the guy I know who was having issues:
That is from the main outputs into a Focusrite Saffire and recorded in Logic.
I didn’t mind the E2S too much but midi channels 1-16 being hardwired to the 16 sample slots was a total dealbreaker for me - meant I couldn’t integrate it with my other gear.
Reviving this post here. Has anyone used the ES2 as just a sample box to be sequenced with the OT? I’m trying to find a smaller drum sampler to use with the OT for a hardware only live set, but i don’t want to have 2 different sequencers. My first thought is to get a volca sample, but I’m thinking the ES2 might be a better idea. However, I’d want to use the MIDI OUT tracks of the OT to program my drums on the ES2. Anyone have any experience rocking that?
Just be careful, the electribe have a weird midi implementation where each sound is on its own midi channel, so you would eat up your octatrack midi I racks really fast, iirc.
That said for simple drums you could probably get away with using the electribe’s own sequencer, and then sequence bass and lead patches from the octatrack to use the lfos and stuff.
You can certainly do what you want. I used my E2 all the time with the OT. I didn’t find the fixed MIDI channels to be a problem. All sixteen channels are available and you can put any sound on any track.
I have to say that, although I occasionally sequenced the E2 by the OT (and all the E2 controls are MIDI mapped), I preferred to run both sequencers. I found note entry to be better on the E2 due to the pads, plus the key, Scale and chord settings.
I have since replaced the OT with an A4 (I am more of a synth head) and use the E2 in exactly the same way with the A4.
Groovy. I just don’t want to have to manage multiple sequencing, plus the ability to mute and unmute MIDI channels via the OT seems simpler for my brain’s workflow.
I’ve used Digitakt a bit with my Electribe 2 synth version… As long as you plan on having the electribe sequence itself it should be good. The electribes dont really have poly per pad and instead have a shared envelope that either retriggers for every note you add or doesn’t but no envelope per voice… so that pretty much limits that feature to stab chords. Then the envelope is just attack and release which is pretty bad sequencing it from another device but when you start motion recording the attack and release it starts to feel a bit more like a ADSR instead of an AR. The filter is pretty dang nice sounding but it doesn’t self resonate. Also keep in mind that the motion record is different than Elektron as it is auto smoothed which is can be nice or not at times but makes it feel less exact and a bit more like an lfo. Step jump is awesome… great for getting a glitchy feeling breakdown. The electribes look stronger on paper than they are though, especially compared to what you can do on any Elektron gear. It should do drum duties pretty great though.
