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Greets, I just picked up an ESX and I'm working my way through the manual and how to get around things.

I want to use this in a live DJ setting by either running audio or mic vocals through it and adding effects to the stream.

It does exactly what I want it to do when I hold down the "audio in" part button, but I dont want to sit there and hold it the whole night.

Is it possible to do this or do I need to find a rock and set it on the button

Thanks fellas..

Rick

rickvh wrote: It does exactly what I want it to do when I hold down the "audio in" part button, but I dont want to sit there and hold it the whole night.
Rick

the Audio In part works like any other keyboard or sample part: in order to use it in a pattern, you need to actually enter steps. if you want it to sound thru all the time, with no gating, do the following:

go into step mode, and add a single step, on step 1 of your pattern. go into the Step Edit menu, and toggle down to Gate Time. change the length of that step to the maximum (spin the dial until the number reaches 128.0). now hit play on your pattern, and you'll get constant, uninterrupted sound from the Audio In part, while being able to apply effects and modulation.

remember that you'll have to do this for every pattern where you want the Audio In to come thru, and you'll have to remember that it's gonna drop out along with everything else when you solo a different part (which might be unfortunate in a live setting), so keep that in mind when you're doing breaks and builds and such.

Buy the KP3. It was made for what you want to do, live effects on other music.

The ESX is a sampler groovebox. That's different. Live effects aren't sampling. The primary function of the ESX is to make music using sampling, not to do live effects on other music. Of course you can use a wrench like a hammer, but if the job is pounding nails, you aren't doing yourself any favors trying to use a wrench.

Give the KP3 a try. You'll see what I mean.

xmlguy wrote:Buy the KP3. It was made for what you want to do, live effects on other music.

The ESX is a sampler groovebox. That's different. Live effects aren't sampling. The primary function of the ESX is to make music using sampling, not to do live effects on other music. Of course you can use a wrench like a hammer, but if the job is pounding nails, you aren't doing yourself any favors trying to use a wrench.

Give the KP3 a try. You'll see what I mean.

i think it's safe to assume rickvh bought the ESX primarily for its sampling abilities (at least, i hope he did!). while any of the Kaoss Pad series would fit the bill nicely, maybe he's trying to stretch the ESX's usefulness before another gear purchase? if that's the case, the ESX will get you there in the meantime. just remember the caveats mentioned above.

while it may not be their "primary function", the ESX and EMX were absolutely designed with rick's goal in mind: the whole point to the Audio In Part is the ability to add effects and modulation to external sound sources, such as vocals and/or other audio. be sure to use and abuse it before deciding whether or not to "step up" to something more robust.

Notice that I didn't suggest selling the ESX. For his stated purpose, the KP3 is a much better tool for the job. If he said that he wanted to create music using a step sequencer triggering samples, then adding effects to them, the ESX would be a great tool for the job.

In fact, most of the Korg gear have very strong features for specific tasks that don't have a lot of overlap. That's why I own one of almost all of them. I don't own the ESX at the moment because I'm waiting for Korg to come out with its next generation. The memory limit on the ESX is just too constraining to me for a sampler, so for now I'm using the EMX + SP-404 & SP-606 for the same purposes. As soon as Korg releases the ESX-2 or whatever it's called, I'll probably be the first in line to get one.

xmlguy wrote:Notice that I didn't suggest selling the ESX. For his stated purpose, the KP3 is a much better tool for the job. If he said that he wanted to create music using a step sequencer triggering samples, then adding effects to them, the ESX would be a great tool for the job.

well, i know i'm making assumptions here, but i can't imagine he bought the ESX solely, or even primarily, for effecting incoming audio. if that is indeed the case, you're right: he'd likely be better off with a dedicated live/DJ effects unit, like those in the Kaoss Pad series. still, his original question was asking how to peform a particular task on the ESX, and not, "what should i buy to do X?". he says himself, "It does exactly what I want it to do".

however, if he's simply trying to achieve his purpose with the feature-set of the ESX, he can certainly do so. again, the ESX was designed with this functionality in mind. it's not just an afterthought (it's even listed as a "Main Feature" in the manual). that isn't at all like he's trying to "use a wrench like a hammer". it's a lot more like using the knife from a multi-tool, while also using the pliers.

In fact, most of the Korg gear have very strong features for specific tasks that don't have a lot of overlap. That's why I own one of almost all of them. I don't own the ESX at the moment because I'm waiting for Korg to come out with its next generation. The memory limit on the ESX is just too constraining to me for a sampler, so for now I'm using the EMX + SP-404 & SP-606 for the same purposes. As soon as Korg releases the ESX-2 or whatever it's called, I'll probably be the first in line to get one.

for the record, i own every Electribe except the ES-1 (which i sold after purchasing the ESX):





while the ESX and EMX each serve a different primary purpose in the 'tribe family, there is actually a tremendous overlap between the two: both offer 9 drum parts, 5 "synth" parts (counting the Stretch and Slice Parts of the ESX), have identical effects, mod/LFO, and Filter sections. in fact, i could reproduce pretty much any pattern on my EMX identically with my ESX. how's that for overlap?

as for memory, i agree, the ESX is woefully behind in this regard. however, i believe that, considering the ESX is geared more toward single drum hit/FX samples, and short loops, it more than handily achieves its purpose. the ESX is more of a build-your-own drum machine than a full-blown loop and phrase sampler.

anyway, my point is that what he's asking to do can certainly be done on the ESX and to great effect, which is why i recommended that rick learn to use the ESX's audio processing features before deciding to buy another product. there is such a wealth of amazing effects and sequencing tricks that can be applied to incoming audio, it'd actually be a shame for anyone to overlook this feature of both of the E-X series!

if you can't tell, i'm a bit fanatical about the Electribes. i've owned each one since launch. i initially sold the ES-1, ER-1 and EA-1 after purchasing the EMX/ESX combo. i regretted it almost immediately, and within a short time, i bought an ERmkII and EAmkII. i'm still planning on buying another ES-1, as its compression and lower sampling rate provide a murkier, and more pleasing output than the ESX, and to me, this helps it sit much better "in the mix".

Thanks for your excellent responses, that should take care of what I need. I wont have an issue with soloing or anything. When I apply the effects to the Audio In, I dont plan on doing anything else whilst that is happening.

To sort of fill in some of the other suggestions, albiet the other offerings Korg have are a possibility, I happened upon the ESX at Guitar Center for $350 and 1/2 the remaining warranty left on it. I was considering strongly the Pioneer effects pad, you know.. the $800 one but saw this deal and figured I would give it a shot and see if i can add on all of its other capabilities to my live DJ mixes.

I guess I could give a little more detail about my application and why I wanted to do this. I messed around with the effects and applied them to some vocals from a mic input and loved how good they are, especially compared to what my mixer is capable of. I did pick up another mixer that has decent effects, but you can only apply one effect at a time. So applying effects constantly to the audio in source is only the first thing I wanted to figure out how to accomplish before I move on to something else.

I do plan to learn the ESX better and use it for sampling and creating some simple beats so i can either remix a couple of beats under an acapella or simply just create a few transitional break beats for live mixing where there are gaps in BPM that are too great and I can use the ESX to create some filler beats to get to my next song.

I've been reading about a lot of the features and what this can do and I think I can really apply alot of that to live music mixes. I did want more than just effects, I have a mini kaoss that I picked up the other day, it seems to be far lacking on what I want to actually do, but it doesnt hurt to give it a try to say that I played with it and maybe later down the road I find a use for that as well.

Again, thanks for all the info. It does help quite a bit

tip: motion sequence the filter and fx applied to the audio in-part! setting the ESX to play and then changing the tempo live makes for some very interesting textures, especially if you have a delay in the FX chain
good luck on your ESX, you'll soon see that it does a LOT more than what you got it for, so you're in for a great time with that machine. I've ownen/borrowed/tried most electribes, and the ESX was the only one that remained (it even won against my MC808 despite the 50x more memory, longer sequencer, 128 note polyphony, better sounds etc..)

cheers from norway

285 seconds seems generous enough for making some pretty complete songs/beats. I remember way back in the stone age when marley marl and pete rock used to craft some bad ass beats with 12 seconds on the sp-1200.
I own an ES-1 as well and 95 seconds with a few smartmedia cards was more than enough for me.
That being said, the ESX-1 provides more than enough memory for any type of musical situation within reason.
I would never even fancy the thought of trading it in for anything else.