Flavor of the Week: Korg SV-1 Stage Vintage Piano, MicroSample and Wavedrum — This Tasty New Trio Rekindles Hardware Lust
While I often like to champion obscure software from boutique companies and the idea of keeping your studio compact and efficient (as much out of necessity due to a cramped apartment than out of a sense of resourcefulness), I’m still occasionally as susceptible to the charms of hot new hardware as a drunken businessman is to a Hooters girl. This week I’m eager to order an extra plate of wings from Korg’s new comely trio: the SV-1 Stage Vintage Piano (due early November 2009), the MicroSampler Compact Sampling Keyboard (also early November) and the new version of the Wavedrum (due
Korg MicroSampler
January 2010).
SV-1
Excellent vintage piano sounds just never get old, but vintage pianos themselves definitely do. With the excellent Nord Stage EX already out there as hardware dedicated to vintage keys, the SV-1 has some mighty big shoes to fill. It attempts to do so with six banks of sounds that offer a large selection of sampled vintage electric, upright and grand pianos; clavs; tonewheel and combo organs; and string synth, choir and synth brass sounds. The 36 total onboard sound use Korg RX technolgy.
The SV-1’s processing section includes 3-band EQ, compression, chorus, tremelo, wah, amp models (including rotary speaker), phaser, flanger, reverb and delay. Plus a speciel tube-driven (12AX7) Valve Reactor complements the amp modeling with the authentic warmth of tube distortion.
Extra goodies include XLR and 1/4-inch balanced outputs, included editing software and hammer action for the keyboard. The SV-1 will be available in 73-key ($2,700 MSRP) and 88-key ($3,000 MSRP) versions.
MICROSAMPLER
While the SV-1 is a monster, the MicroSampler ($750) extends Korg’s cute and cuddly MicroSeries (including the MicroX, MicroKorg and MicroKorg XL). Like some of its brethren, the MicroSampler has a 37-minikey keyboard, battery or AC power, simple control interface designed for a low learning curve and a gooseneck mic. The schtick for the mic however is sampling, not vocoding. With the MicroSampler, you can sample audio using five sampling modes straight from the mic or load samples from MP3 player or other devices straight from the built-in device cradles. Samples are assignable to individual keys or spread out across the keyboard.
With the bi-directional USB port, you can save to or load from a computer, and included editor/librarian software helps you manage your sound. Among many other nice touches, MicroSampler includes a timestretching feature that adjust samples to a certain tempo without changing their pitch and 21 effects borrowed from the Korg Kaoss series.
Korg Wavedrum
WAVEDRUM
Finally, Korg will release an updated Wavedrum next year at a price to be announced. The Wavedrum is a digital percussion module using a real drum head to give players the real drum feel on stage or in the studio. Wavedrum will combine 36 DSP synthesis programs with 200 PCM samples to create a wide range of sounds, which Korg says you can play with sticks, mallets, brushes or hands the same way you’d play an acoustic drum. Its sounds cover many types of acoustic and electornic kits, as well as dozens of percussion sounds from around the world.