Korg Brings Chaos To Order With The Kaossilator Pro

DAW or Digital Audio Workstation emerged as a popular term among electronic musicians. Software or hardware, these processors are simple ways to help musicians use, create, and control new effects and sounds while playing their instruments. Korg’s unveiling of the Kaossilator Pro at NAMM 2010 makes DAW hardware easier, more intuitive, and opens the architecture further for stage and recording use. Keyboardists now have a powerful new tool that works like many tools.

Several years back, Korg introduced their first Kaoss product, allowing the control of multiple audio parameters by simply moving a finger across an X-Y touchpad. The Kaoss family quickly grew to include more than effect processors, but also DJ mixers, video and audio samplers, and musical instruments. The newest addition to the line is the Kaossilator Pro, a versatile instrument for the creative musician.

The Kaoss series began with Kaossilator, a unique keyboard effects processor that stands alone and cdan connect to any MIDI keyboard. The Kaossilator continues to be enormously popular. Retaining these revolutionary features - while adding a wide variety of new ones as well - the Kaossilator is now reborn as the new 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 live performance. 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. The Kaossilator Pro features a mic input jack and fifteen types of vocoder programs, making it easy to achieve unique sound effects, create robot voices and unique more.

In addition to the modeling synthesis borrowed from the original Kaossilator, the Kaossilator Pro provides a new PCM sound generator as well, allowing even more realistic drum sounds. There are twenty different one-shot sounds for kick, snare, and hi-hat etc., as well as twenty-five rhythm loop patterns that will be immediately useful in dance music styles.

The Korg synthesizer technology acclaimed by top musicians around the world has been carefully distilled into the Kaossilator Pro. The versatile array of pro-level sounds covers all styles of dance music including techno, house, breaks, hip hop, R&B, reggae, and electro. There are also numerous acoustic instruments such as piano, trumpet, and guitar, providing a further boost to your expressive resources. You can assign your favorite programs to the eight Program Memory buttons for instant recall, ensuring that your live performances will be smooth.

Finger sensitive touchpad control 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.

The Kaossilator Pro offers standard MIDI in/out connectors. In addition, the USB connector lets you use your computer to back up the loop recording data, or even drop loops into your favorite DAW. The Kaossilator Pro can also control your software applications or an external MIDI device. The Kaossilator Pro can send or receive MIDI clock. It provides an SD card slot for storing loop data and user settings such as program memories. Favorite phrases can be saved to build up a collection of loop data that will inspire your musical arrangements. SD Card storage also allows you to create the same show with the same loops, night after night. You can also swap loops with other Kaossilator Pro users, or use your data in multiple units. Slot is compatible with SD memory cards but is not compatible for use with SDHC and SDXC cards.

The Kaossilator Pro provides line inputs and a mic input, allowing loop recording using an external audio source. This makes it easy to add a rap, vocal, or audio from an external device to any loop phrase created on the Kaossilator Pro. The Kaossilator Pro provides four Loop Recording Banks. These banks can be combined for virtually infinite performance possibilities. Each of the four loop banks can host infinite overdubs. In addition, each bank can be muted or un-muted, its volume adjusted, and its loop length changed, making dynamic live performances easy for anyone. An unneeded loop can be erased during playback, and a new one recorded, so there’s no need to stop the performance.

There are 31 levels of music expressiveness. By specifying a scale and key, you can use a single finger to play perfect melodies and phrases that would be difficult to play even on a keyboard. There are also special scales such as Spanish, Ryukyu, and Raga, letting you play phrases that have a distinctive flavor. Another boost in expressive power is provided by the new Note Range function, which lets you specify the range of pitches available on the touchpad from a single octave up to eight octaves.

Kaossilator Pro Editor is a dedicated software program for managing your recorded loop data, as well as MIDI assignment editor functionality that lets you transform the Kaossilator Pro into a powerful MIDI controller that’s set up just the way you want. Kaossilator Pro Editor can be downloaded free of charge from the Korg website. The software can run on Microsoft Windows XP (SP3 or later) / Vista (SP2 or later) / 7, and on Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

Korg brings chaos to order with the new Kaossilator Pro, available at J&R New York and at www.jr.com .

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