Korg Electribe Blue

I used the original Electribe EMX-1 a lot many years ago and compared that this "new" (already pretty old in 2024) Electribe feels a bit limited in many ways - a poor man's EMX-1. The build quality is solid and nice, though.

However, I needed a separate drum/bass machine to have more control on my drums and for that purpose this device is awesome. Sounds great and tight and it's easy to have almost all common effects and filters on drums.

On a general purpose synths like the Korg KROSS you always have "drum kits" which make it hard/tedious/impossible to tweak individual sounds. Not going to sell this thing anytime soon.

The upside is that this new Electribe is very easy to use and the pads are ok. The initial patterns have drum parts nicely layed on MIDI channels 9-16 by default. One of my biggest gripe is that it doesn't accept MIDI pitch bend events (I don't remember if the EMX-1 did). It doesn't matter if you use the built-in sequencer, but it's a bit difficult for an external sequencer to bend notes. Otherwise the synth parts also sounds good and fat.

I just hope Korg would once again upgrade the Electribe.