Ok, - I just got an EM-1 for around $165; and after trying to figure out the best way to do live stuff on the SP-555, this thing is WAY more intuitive and features really easy on-the-fly pattern editing. When synced to the SP-555 and the possibilities are wiiiiiiide open since you can assign midi notes to the rhythm elements of the EM-1 to trigger whatever samples you need in the SP-555.

Anyone else have some opinions/stories to share on these wicked little boxes? Seems like a lot of bang for not a lot of buck.

can you have it trigger a normal sample? like just a sound bite on the 555 to trigger mid song or does it have to be done via midi... ive been looking at electribes and fooling around with them at guitar center but i dont know all that much about them.. it would be cool to use it WITH my 404...

let me know what kind of stuff youre able to do either in here or P.M. even just messing around..

Not sure what you mean by "normal" sample - but if you mean like a quote from "Scarface" or something, sure. You would just assign the midi note of a particular drum part on the EM-1 to whatever pad on your 404 has the sample from Scarface. Then every time the EM-1 plays a pattern with that drum part, or whenever you press the drum button yourself, the sample triggers on the 404.

What you can't do is load samples into the EM-1 directly. Electribe has samplers, though, like the ES1 and ESX-1. At first glance the electribes are very hard to tell apart until you start reading up on them; it can be hard to figure out which one is right for you. I recommend referencing the manuals on korg's site.

Did that help at all?

hey, what's up?
i recently traded gear for an electribe ES-1, which is the first-edition sampler, and (like bellsauce) i'm blown away with the workflow and the ease.

obvious (OBVIOUS) advantages like being able to tune the samples, having the machine "save" my settings (like, bpm, effects, etc.) really pushed my production forward in MAJOR ways. things i was struggling with in a "workaround" way on the 404 were suddenly taken care of. so the ES-1 also made me more aware of the hurdles on the 404.

biggest prob with the ES-1 is that it has something like 90 seconds of sample time, total, non-scalable.

so, i use it to make beats, but when it comes to phrases, stabs, etc. i end up sampling to the ES-1, tuning them or whatever, then dumping back to the 404, which can hold longer phrases easily. then erase these from the ES-1 to free up precious sample time, and repeat. i then record / play out with both boxes, or dump entire compositions over to the 404 after building them on the ES-1.

the two-box thing is....okay....but i really wish the ES-1 had more time available.

while i still dig my 404, this process really makes me feel like the 404 is sort of a harddisk recorder, more than a compositional tool.
you dig?

i hope that helps.

very interesting... I was looking at the ES-1 before copping my SP but was turned off by the short sample time. How are the effects on it? and does it have multiple midi-seq tracks?

multiple midi-seq tracks - not sure as i avoid midi, howevs, i've read that it doesn't use midi as most master/slave boxes do (BUT, you can have it run as either). but again, i don't use midi.

fx are good, not great, but good. one fx for samples / sequence and then a dedicated master delay effect for the master output, which you can beat-sync.

oh, there's also a func to track sweeping changes....can't remember what its called....but yeah, it recalls real-time filtering / knob twiddles, and plays it back as such.

...actually, on the midi-thing, it would be good for me to pull my head outta my ass and look into slaving the 404 to the ES-1. but it just feels like a fun-stopper at this point.

yes you answered my questions.. or added to what i was wondering anyway... what i meant about "normal samples" was you mentioned something about connecting it via midi... and how awesome it was... my 404 has midi in but not out... i have the idea of how midi works but nothing of what i would call educated... i didnt know if it would trigger without having midi out on the sp basically..

hi i like to ramble..

My experience has been that the midi learning curve is worth slogging through. Print out copies of all the manuals for your products and you can have your boxes talking to each other before too long. I had some buggy stuff going on that was quickly remedied by some helpful folks in this very forum, too.

And, Tim, the short answer is yes. If the 404 has MIDI in, that means it will receive signals from other stuff that transmits midi (midi out.) It doesn't need a MIDI out to recieve messages - midi doesn't have to be a 2-way street.

Basically, every pad in your 404 has an assigned "Note Value." Figure out what this is for the pad with your sample via your manual, and get your device with MIDI out to send that very note. Wham-o, sample triggered.

Wikipedia's entry on MIDI is pretty handy, too.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midi

Using MIDI has many different ways to get from A - Z.
You could have another device controlling the 404 (actually hitting pads on the other device that triggers a pad on the 404).
OR you can just have your main machine "tell the 404 to go".
Like... You press play on your Korg & 'play' gets activated on the Roland.
After making sure each pattern has the same BPM.

Using 2 sampling drum machines together I like to use the "tell it when to go" method. Which should just take 1 midi chord OUT to the SP IN, and (check manual) putting the SP in 'remote' 'sync' or 'slave' mode- whatever they call it.

thanks for the patience sauce

appreciated..


ive heard and seen a lot of drum and bass type rythems with the elextribe type sequencers... are you able to do some kinda choppy more boom bap kinda stuff too? i like the idea of building stuff in a sequencer but i dont know if they can do what i want it to do...

Yeah man; they can make whatever kind of beat you want, as long as it's in 4/4 time. And you can program, tweak and edit it on the fly (while it's looping) until it's juuuuuuuuuuust right.

Very nice vid by the way!

i think i WOULD like that thing

maybe in a few months...

anyone messed with roland sequencer or similar yamaha ones?

tim i was wondering the same thing^

i just read that the electribe is korg's answer to the roland mc series which sorta confused me. what i thought was that the mc-303, for instance, can have eight different midi channels running so that you could run up to that many devices in a chain but on different channels. i haven't figured out how that relates to the electribe. it sounds like the electribes are external sequencers but only on one channel.???

i found some good info on this page
http://www.bluesynths.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=130

i think you need to register first. you'll be glad you did.