A brief return to the Electribe

[circuitghost]

I had an Electribe just when it was out, and sold it a few months later.

The other day, the store had a sale and I went there to play with it, just for fun, because there it was and there I was, and I had decided to not try the Circuit again.

I'm not sure, I haven't followed the debate on the upgrades and whatnot, but it felt different. Solid and fluent, somehow. In just a short while, I put something together that I liked, that had a nice groove to it and sounded just great.

I wondered, as I left: What's not to like here? Good price, great sound, feature-packed, fast and fluent.

It just felt like a complete instrument to me this time around.

[apapdop]

Surprisingly little has changed since you owned one. The big plus has been the ability to copy parts across patterns, this has made a HUGE difference. But other than that (and a low battery warning!!) the vast majority of people's prayers have been unanswered. And yet...

Maybe the fact that you walked up to that electribe with an open mind was a factor?

[Tarekith]

I thought some of the OS updates tightened things up, the arp pad, etc. That might also lead to things feeling a little smoother now compared to when it first came out.

[circuitghost]

Maybe the fact that you walked up to that electribe with an open mind was a factor?

These were my thoughts too, as I walked home yesterday. I just approached it differently.

But here's what I noticed, that for sure wasn't there from last time (or that I never got around to updating, anyway) - the Shift short cuts, there's less envelope clicking going on, the gaps between patterns seem to be gone, part copy is there now (as you said), not sure but I felt voice stealing was less of an issue (could be wrong, though), and it seemed generally slightly faster in response to what I wanted to do. As in the code's optimised. The frame rate has gone up

But all this aside, just taking a step back and looking at what it can do, what you can accomplish with it, for that price and with that quality, I think it's kind of awesome what Korg is doing here.

[stahlwerk]

the Shift short cuts

Yes, these were added in the first update I think

there's less envelope clicking going on

Yes, they changed the behaviour with amp env off in an update (there now seems to exist a hidden "amp env" per part when amp env is set to off, and this has attack and decay set to ~1, instead of probably 0 before.)

the gaps between patterns seem to be gone

Yes, korg added pattern change carry over for insert effects (yay), but not for decay phase (boo), yet (?)

[Ted3000]

Yes, korg added pattern change carry over for insert effects (yay), but not for decay phase (boo), yet (?)

How would decay carry-over get implemented? That would be like having 2 separate parts on each pad.

You can do anything with enough firepower, but the architecture of the voices/parts (and the way the polyphony chokes under load) makes me skeptical.

Maybe it's possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I hear a lot of people asking for decay across patterns but I'm not sure it's a matter of making a change. I'd guess you'd have to drop the sound quality to half in order to make it run.

Would be great! Not holding breath.

[gizmoismogwai]

I had an Electribe just when it was out, and sold it a few months later.

The other day, the store had a sale and I went there to play with it, just for fun, because there it was and there I was, and I had decided to not try the Circuit again.

I'm not sure, I haven't followed the debate on the upgrades and whatnot, but it felt different. Solid and fluent, somehow. In just a short while, I put something together that I liked, that had a nice groove to it and sounded just great.

I wondered, as I left: What's not to like here? Good price, great sound, feature-packed, fast and fluent.

It just felt like a complete instrument to me this time around.

Not much has changed since you last had yours but I agree with apapdop that your open mind and new perspective likely made all the difference. It's a completely capable piece of equipment. DJ Shadow made Entroducing entirely on an MPC 60 which is a very limited device compared to anything that comes out today. Caribou made Andorra in a tiny room in his apartment, feeding his guitars, bases and keyboards through the FX of an SP 404 instead of the vintage gear I assumed he used to get those sounds. I would love it if the electribe sampler could do 8 bars but the way I see it now I have to focus very much on each half of my 8 bar ideas, or each quarter of my 16 bar ideas. That's not so bad for my music, probably.

[circuitghost]

This is all very true.

And I think it proves a point, that the tool is very important to the musician. I don't think it's just a matter of "Just throw whatever at me, I'll do something great with it". Well, for some, but in many of these cases, no.

A lot of those "I did this on just that" has two components in it - it's a bare minimum set of gear, but it's the right set of gear. Getting to that point takes time, talent and exploration. But once you're there, there's not a whole lot you can't do.

So I think it's worth saying something about the value of exploring and trying out instruments, to find a flow that appeals to you as a musician. Then, know that once you've found it, you don't need ten versions of it to make good stuff.

The Electribe is such an instrument. Anyone mastering the Electribe would most likely be able to pull together awesome stuff on the Tempest only, or the Analog Rytm only, or the Volcas chained only.

But the same person could be left stranded in front of a Sub37, whereas another musician could make an entire album with just a Sub37 and a way to layer tracks with it, but hardly know what to do with an Electribe.