Korg Forums

[tracert]

Over the past 6 months I have bought three Electribe ESX’s and three Electribe EMX’s. I love the simplicity and immediacy and flexibility of these machines but they have all had issues with noise.

I have tried both the Smartmedia and SD models. Korg brand and third party power supplies. The stock tubes and two variants of higher quality JJ tubes.

The Smartmedia units have a constant humming noise (not a ground loop) which I have read people say is standard across all of the Smartmedia models and is a product of the way the PSU and onboard power supply works.

The SD units do not have this hum, but instead have significantly loud white noise from the outputs.

No amount of crafty gain staging has been able to eliminate these noises. Yet in some demos on youtube I can’t hear anywhere near as much noise as I’m dealing with. And some sellers on online market places say that their units have no output noise whatsoever. It’s not a cable/mixer/headphone/in-home power issue, it’s just the units themselves.

Am I insanely unlucky and have picked up several busted old units?

Do you have an ESX or EMX that doesn’t have these noise issues??

Pleeeease help me I’m actually going insane

[tracert]

I know there are a few threads from years ago about getting replacement tubes, noise issues, tube bypass mods etc.

but i just need a straight answer, is there a guaranteed fix? is this normal? am i cursed?

Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated