Korg Forums

I bought an Akai MPX8 thinking that it would be perfect for my need. However, it turned out to be completly lacking in every area where it mattered.

Basically, what I want is a stand-alone sample player (not tethered to a computer) that I can use to manually trigger the occasional *long* atmospheric or spoken word samples (sometimes up to 3 minutes long).

The Akai can play the samples but the loading time is atrocious and the interface frustrating (you turn the jog-wheel and it automatically begins to load the kit. This wouldn't be a concern if it wasn't for the stupidly long loading times).

So my questions are:

1. Can the ESX / ES1 hold long samples?

2. Is there an extended load time for patterns with long samples?

3. Are samples stored to internal memory on the Electribe, or are they stored to the SM card?

4. Is the process of getting samples onto the ESX/ES1 difficult?

if you're looking for a long phrase sampler maybe have a look at the Roland SP404. It has massive sampling time and no loading necessary when you turn it on.

Can be MIDI sequenced by other gear or samples can be triggered and or looped in realtime.

It is sequenced with 2 MIDI channels which you select when turning on so if you have a monophonic sequencer such as on the electribes you can still have 2 layers of sequenced samples.

The FX on it are pretty good too but CC's are not sequencable.

It's very limited in terms of stand-alone functionality but really shines when sequenced externally. and with over 300minutes of sampling time with zero loading its perfect for very long sample phrases.

No, the ESX is not designed for long samples, like for long audio loops. It's a sequencer designed to trigger lots of short samples that turn into long audio loops that you can hear and perhaps resample on other gear.

The SP-404 can handle long samples, measured in many hours or days, depending on how much flash you have. It plays samples directly from flash, so the length doesn't depend on internal RAM to handle the sample size.

The SP 404 only has a single track sequencer (so no muting of tracks)- if this is a consideration you could have a look at the Boss SP-505, which has four tracks with 1 hr Sampling time.

robosardine wrote:The SP 404 only has a single track sequencer (so no muting of tracks)- if this is a consideration you could have a look at the Boss SP-505, which has four tracks with 1 hr Sampling time.

Yeah, the SP-404 is rather limited in many respects. I much prefer the SP-606. A customized and upgraded MPC 1000 with JJOS is another option. For computer focused options there's Maschine Studio and Ableton Live with various controllers.

I recommend you take a look at the SP-606, as xmlguy suggests. It has more features than its siblings, and is capable of sequencing whole songs without too much fuzz.

If you need uncompressed samples, however, you should go for the SP-404sx or the SP-555.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions, guys. I really like the look of the 505. I do have an old SP-202 floating around somewhere but remember not being blown away by it last time I dusted it off.