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KORG KO1 KAOSSILATOR Pocket Sized Synthesizer
From KORG
List Price: $250.00
Price: $187.14

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Ships from and sold by Electronica Direct

8 new or used available from $150.00

Average customer review:

Customer Reviews

Kids love this thing!
Give this to a kid 3 years or older, put on the earphones, show how to turn the knob to get different sounds and the kid will be occupied for quite some time. Next time show the kid how to record, loop and add loops. It may be hard to get it back for your intended purpose!

Much better time waster than video games.

Great meditation device, too
Took me all of about 30 minutes to master the button combos needed to build, save, and edit some very satisfying multilayered loops. Those who haven’t really put one to good use may dismiss it as a toy, perhaps because it’s so easy to use and appeals to more than just trained musicians. But it’s an extraordinary little device, particularly considering its portability. I just want to mention one unexpected benefit that I’ve realized: it’s a great tool for meditation. Something about slowly building loops (starting with a thick, swampy bassline for example, or just a string of distorted, echoing phrases), and hearing them go round and round and round in your head . . . it becomes like chanting a mantra. At the end of a session, I feel as if I’m waking up from a deep, hypnotic trance. If you work for a living, include about 15 or 20 minutes of Kaossilator in your lunch hour. Great stress reliever.

KAOSS fans will Love the KAOSSILATOR
The Korg Kaossilator is billed as a `Dynamic Phrase Synthesizer’ and if you want phrases to loop and make your own creations, this is the machine.

Dynamic = The X-Y touchpad surface allows for limitless real time manipulations of patches. Phrase = This is a phrase machine. Each preset is a sound/phrase. Other Kaoss Pads had some synth and drum sounds, but were also effects processors; the Kaossilator is all about sounds and loops and making its own noises, rather then manipulation of others; hence no inputs on the Kaossilator.

The Kaossilator looks similar to the other member of the Kaoss Pad family, this time in yellow. About 4 by 5 by 1 inches; 4 `AA’ batteries power it and free it from AC supplies. Front panel has the touch pad, knob for selecting patches, and three buttons for controlling record/play, scale, tap tempo, and other parameter. RCA outs on top next to the AC jack.

Fans of the Kaoss pads should love it. This fills the void for Kaoss fans used it mostly for making sound, as opposed to the former Kaoss pads, which were more about the manipulation of another instrument’s sounds. Kaoss pads have some wonderful sounds and drums, but a limited number. The Kaossilator has 100 distinct patches.

Patches are grouped as follows: 20 Lead, 10 Acoustic, 20 Bass, 10 Chord, 20 SE [Special Effects], 10 Drum, and 10 Pattern, 100 total. You will become a scrolling machine navigating the 100 selections, it makes for sometimes busy work, but that’s part of what makes it an actual instrument that you play. Yes, I’m talking to you, Guitar Hero.

So how do you play it? With no piano keyboard or guitar frets for navigation, how can you stun the masses with that riff in your head? The touchpad is set up such that sliding from left to right will give you two octaves of the patch. Notes? This is where the Kaossilator shines; over 30 scales to choose from to break out of your riff rutt. Ionian is the default, so if you play the first patch at power up; L00 Ambient Lead and scroll left to right, it sounds like someone playing two octaves of the C major scale. Chromatic and Dorian and Phyrigian are in there of course, but also Raga Todi, Arabian, Japanese Miyakobushi, and Major and minor blues scales, or turn it off and go completely microtonal.

A button on the bottom lets you select diff types of gates and arpeggios, taking you out of the lock step of strict 4/4 time. A card is included that lists the 50 diff gate arpeggiator patterns on one side, and the scale list on the other. The categories for patches are givenon the card also, but you’ll need the users manual or your brain to retrieve the specific names of the 100 patches. Again, it being a real instrument, faves phrases will soon stand out and burn into your head; the Power Chord patch 55 is one example, adding sorely needed guitar distortion to de-sterilize a loop.

It’s all about timing when stacking sounds, but the Kaossilator makes it easy enough; just dial in a patch, preview it, hold the record button when you want to add it to the loop. Drum patterns and drum sounds may be reach for first, then stacking bass, accents, rhythm, and then you can solo over the whole thing. It’s easy to get stuck in the preset techno patterns for starting your loop symphony, but just as easy to create your own rhythmic loops using any of the preset sounds.

The AC Adaptor is not included, but that will just weigh ya down, the battery power option is huge plus and sorely needed; a set of small self powered iPod-ish Speakers and you’re a mobile one man Kraftwerk