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I have some concerns and questions about the KP3 before I make the jump to buying it (I have to order it online since I'm nowhere near a music store, not to mention a store selling KP3s!!!). So these are for all your savvy KP3 users out there.

This regards mainly SAMPLING and EFFECTS, which is mainly why I'll be using it. It sucks that the sampling is only 16 beats. That's SOOO short. Regardless does it matter what time signature the loop you want to create is in? For example I will be using this unit as part of my effects and using my guitar to make guitar riff loops. I'm assuming it doesn't matter if I'm in 3/4 or 5/4 right? Cuz it says 16 beats, but as long as I finish the loop within the alotted amount of time, i will be fine right? Also does the loop start as soon as I tell it to? I want it to be a seamless loop that stays in time. Basically I don't want to have to worry about a loop staying in time. I just want to be able to play the loop in time and have it stay like that.

Second, and this is the BIG one. If I make a loop on the fly live (which is what i will definitely always be using this unit for), can I manipulate the loop live with effects? And if so, is there any way I can have the loop have like a 'killswitch' effect? I hear there is a mute button but I was wondering if I could kneel down, have the loop being played behind me, and randomly hitting the mute switch so that the loop will 'killswitch' on and off. Also if you pres the mute switch, does it mute it until you hit it again? or can u just click it and it does a momentary stop.
However I want the loop to not just STOP and return to where it was when I hit the switch on. I want it to stop and then keep going as if I didn't press stop. So it's still a continuous loop that stays in time, I'm just 'killswitching it' like a normal guitarist who killswitches stuff.

Also is it really awkward messing with different effects live? I can imagine cycling through all these different effects live and having the sound 'jump' as i cycle through each effect. Does this happen?

Basically I just want to make sure these problems are addressed so that i can use the KP3 in a live setting and it will not be plagued by any annoying problems such as timing, etc.

Oh, and as an aside, can I still do Matt Bellamy style Kaoss stuff with the Kp3? cuz i know he uses a kp2 and the control screen looks way different.

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH! I really hope I can join the KP3 family as soon as possible.

Also if you guys have any ideas as to what could possibly limit me with the KP3 considering my usage (basically always making live stuff or directly affecting another instrument, such as vocals. so i would run vocals through a kp3, not make a loop, but have it affected by the KP3s built in effects). or if you have any basic complaints about the KP3 yourself youd like to warn me about, i would really appreciate it so much. please let me know if I have been unclear in anything.

Firstly, please stop saying "killswitch".

Regarding your questions...

It doesn't matter what you play into it, it will record for as long as you have set it to record for (up to 16 beats) but with reference to different time signatures, you would either have to be mathematically clever (and disregard the beats the KP3 is counting) or make sure your bars still add up to 16 beats. So you could do a 3/4 5/4 crossover fine but doing entirely 5/4 is trickier.
There are ways around it (such as doing the maths) but the KP3 is made for 4/4 primarily (as it was, primarily, designed for DJ's).
The loop starts as soon as it is done recording and it will stay in time with the KP3 internal clock along with the other loops you record to other banks. Although if they drift, you can manually realign them.

Manipulating the loops with the effects is kind of the general idea behind the KP3, so yes. The mute button, as the name implies, mutes all sound. The samples, the incoming audio and, I believe, even the effect. Cutting to silence. Until you let go of the mute button, as it is, essentially, a momentary switch.
The loops continue when the mute button is depressed, you just can't hear them. When the mute button is as happy as Larry, however, the sound can still be heard.
You can set the loops to stop and start again from the beginning when pressed or simply mute and continue playing silently, so this "killswitch" idea can actually be applied to individual loops as well as the entire output.

Awkward is not a word I would use to using an XY touchpad to manipulate fairly in-depth effects. Easy might be. Scrolling through the programs does not affect the sound at all. This is not an old guitar multi-effects pedal.

As for Matt Bellamy type stuff... You don't need a KP3 to be a pretentious sellout but I suppose it's one way. Are you sure you have the chops to contend with his skills though?

As for other issues, this forum is littered with complaints about the KP3. Not that there are that many nor that many that really warrant complaint. But they are there for you to look at.

Awesome, thanks for all your helpful feedback. And yeah, I said killswitch a little too much.

If it isn't too much trouble, can you expand upon the topic of the internal clock a little more? How does it work?

I've been scouting the forums and the theme I've seen is that the KP3 is good at keeping in time with itself yet drifts out of time with external gear. I don't see how that makes sense...if the KP3 can keep a loop as solidly in time as you originally played it and your live drums are on point as well, shouldn't the loop stay perfectly in time with the band? Or perhaps they are using gear to mean other things...as in the sync up the BPM of the Korg with a CD doesn't exactly line up.

I can see myself only really making one to two loops over what the band is playing really. I don't really see myself doing the more DJ-like stuff. So as long as the timing for that is good, then I'm set.

Thanks again man

The internal clock is the KP3's own MIDI timer, its BPM setting basically. This is in opposition to using an external MIDI clock i.e. slaving the KP3 to another MIDI-capable device.
However, you now mention a band and as it seems you will not be using other MIDI gear, it is not important to your use. The most crucial thing for you and to allow the KP3 to stay in time with your bandmates is to get the BPM right. If any of your band play to a metronome, you can set the BPM exactly, though I'd be suprised if this was the case. So tap tempo will become your friend. Just listen to the band and tap the tap tempo button along with them several times as accurately as possible. I cannot stress this enough. If your timing on tapping the tempo is sloppy, so will the KP3's deduction of the tempo.
I believe the posts mentioning drifts are referring to MIDI-connected equipment, though driftin when not connected to MIDI can still happen but that is much more of a case of your technique (the KP3 is merely a machine after all - it only does what you tell it to do). For example, your band could start a track at 120 BPM, you would tap along and get what you thought to be the right bpm of 121 BPM. Eventually, the KP3 loop will drift. However, this is assuming that your band can play metronomically. Which I doubt. Very few people in the world can. And also, the beauty of using it with real live musicians as opposed to syncing to just other machines is that those real live musicians are able to adjust their playing on a whim. So, when you introduce the KP3 loop, it will more than likely be in the ball park of the right BPM but then the band mates can assure that it is the right BPM by adjusting their own playing accordingly (if need be). And if they don't and it sounds like the KP3 has drifted a little, just use the [ALIGN] function to basically re-tell it where the start of the loop is. It's very quick and simple and can actually be used for musical effect quite well (as it basically retriggers the loops from the start each time you press the button).
For what it seems you want to use it for, it should be just fine. Either you'll get the tempo right (or right enough) or your band will adjust accordingly (which, if the loop is prominent enough in the mix, they will do naturally and subconsciously anyway).

Ah awesome, thank you so much.

One question that I'm still left with however is, why use tap tempo at all? If it is the middle of a song, and I need to record a riff that is looped through the KP3, can't I just start the loop record, play in time with the band, then start the playback of the loop in time? Why would I need to tap tempo when, if it just spits out what I put back in, I can just play the riff in time and have it come back out in time as well.


And yeah, I realized now I'm saying 'in time' a lot. Timing is important to me though! as im sure it is for you and just about anyone else who plays music haha

Timing is important and this is the moral of the story really.

The sampling/loop-recording process that the KP3 uses demands the user to set the BPM and number of beats before recording. Because, as I am sure you know, the length of a beat is entirely relative to the tempo at which it is played. For example, 16 beats at 120 BPM will pass more quickly than the same number of beats at 142 BPM.

I'm not sure if you thought that the KP3 recorded loops like a guitarist's looper pedal does, but it doesn't, I'm afraid. That's a whole different kettle o' worms there.

Ahhhh okay, I gotcha now. Yeah, that's what I assumed.

Well my tap tempo skills are pretty tight so I'm most likely gonna pick up a KP3 now. Thanks a lot man, I really appreciate it. I will let you know how things go.

Tight tap tempo skills. Wow. You're my hero.

But seriously, no problem.

Also, where are you located? (I'm not asking for a specific address nor the position of your actual self in relation to the room you're in)

I'm located in New Jersey, around the Monmouth County area. and unfortunately there are no music stores with KPs around here...some guy tried to convince me the Kaossilator Pro was the same as a KP3...and that they don't make KP3s anymore (i dunno if that last one is true or not but the KPro is definitely not the same as the KP3).

i probably came off as a huge newb from these posts asking all these questions. but if u guys wanna check out my music, just go to www.myspace.com/caliconj . i play all the lead guitar and wrote parts for other instruments, etc. (I recommend Celebrity Crush, You Are Here., Desperate Measures, and For You)

i dont mean that as a shameless plug btw. im probably gonna be hanging on these boards a lot soon and I'm always interested in listening to and sharing music so I figure if you guys wanna get a little insight into the type of player i am/person then you can check that out. of course, when you hear from the music, i kinda don't do obnoxious shredding stuff (even though I love to do it in my spare time) since it doesn't have its place, but you can hear i am really influenced by effects and sounds like that so i wanna really explore that avenue. because of ur help, im gonna be stepping into Kaoss territory now.

what about you? im really interested in checking out some music you've written.

Quick questions:

1. Can you add MULTIPLE effects to one sample and save it for whenever you want? For example I want to record shaking a percussion instrument and then add multiple effects to it like delay, ring mod, and something like a whammy effect (if it even has one), and then be able to sample it during live performances.

2. can you sample something and then directly affect it by using other pedals? like for example have something played through the kaoss pad, and then manipulate the sound coming out with another external pedal like the digitech whammy or something?

I only ask these because I want to make cymbal delay samples like the ones in this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaVPAKuZ ... r_embedded) at the time 1:05-1:08. and i figure we can do that by record something playing cymbals and then adding delay to the cymbal sample in the kaoss and triggering it whenever.

thank you!!

Stamos6669 wrote: 1. Can you add MULTIPLE effects to one sample and save it for whenever you want? For example I want to record shaking a percussion instrument and then add multiple effects to it like delay, ring mod, and something like a whammy effect (if it even has one), and then be able to sample it during live performances.

you can only use one effect at a time, so not in one step, but you can do it. you can record a sample, the resample it with an effect, then resample that with another effect, and so on.

Stamos6669 wrote: 2. can you sample something and then directly affect it by using other pedals? like for example have something played through the kaoss pad, and then manipulate the sound coming out with another external pedal like the digitech whammy or something?

yes, of course. the KP3 output is just audio - you can send it through whatever other effects you want.

The KP-3 has a resampling function meaning that it can sample itself. In other words, you would sample a sound onto the KP-3 (cymbals in this instance) and apply an effect, such as delay. Only one effect can be applied at a time, however, you can re-sample the delayed cymbal into a different bank. So let's say you recorded the cymbal to bank A, applied some delay, and then re-sampled (shift -> sample) into bank B. Turn the delay off, and you have a normal cymbal in bank A and a delayed cymbal in bank B. From here, you could apply a ring mod and re-sample again to bank C, and so on and so forth. There is no limit to how many times you can resample so you can essentially add as many effects as you want. But keep in mind once the cymbal is re-sampled with the effect, the parameters of the effect can't be edited.

Not sure if I quite understand the second question, but you have a couple of options as far as other pedals. You could run the audio source through an effect pedal first, such as running your kaossilator through a digitech pedal and then into the KP-3. The KP-3 will sample all sounds as they are effected by the pedal. Or you could run the kaossilator into the KP-3, and then the KP-3 into your pedal. This will just effect all sampled sounds coming out of the KP-3. You really just have to experiment with it and find the KP-3's home in your rig.

Not 100% on this, but it sounds like the cymbals in the Muse song have some heavy reverb and echo and are faded in and out. You shouldn't have trouble doing something very similar on the KP-3. Hope this helps!

Thanks man! Yeah, I basically want to be able to sample something via the Korg Kaoss and as it is being played through my speaker cabinet, click on and off certain other pedals and have the sample be affected in real time. So for example if something clean is being sampled, i just click on the whammy 1 octave up setting and lo and behold! the sample is now an octave up without having to re-record it!

"Or you could run the kaossilator into the KP-3, and then the KP-3 into your pedal. This will just effect all sampled sounds coming out of the KP-3. You really just have to experiment with it and find the KP-3's home in your rig.
"

This seems like my answer! I need a kaossilator pro though? damn...more money down the drain.


this got me thinking, can i download samples onto the Korg Kaoss pad that I make on my laptop and still be able to manipulate the tempo and effects, etc so that it stays in time with whatever context I put it in?

Stamos6669 wrote: This seems like my answer! I need a kaossilator pro though? damn...more money down the drain.

No, you don't NEED it, it was just an example of something you could do

Stamos6669 wrote: this got me thinking, can i download samples onto the Korg Kaoss pad that I make on my laptop and still be able to manipulate the tempo and effects, etc so that it stays in time with whatever context I put it in?

yes, you can load WAV files from the SD card onto the Kaoss Pad's sample banks

why don't you download the KP3 manual and read what it can do?

hey!

Im thinking of buying a Kaoss pad, but before, i have some questions about the connections.
I have a reloop digital jockey interface ediotion http://www.reloopdj.com/product_info.ph ... ion--.html the question is, can i connect it to the Kaos pad and will it work? Line out from the relooop to line in to the kaos pad and line out from the kaos pad to the speakers, will this work? How about the Traktor do i have to change something in it?

really hope you guys could understand me Smile