Korg Forums

Hi there,
I have received my new KO2 today and have given it for a test run. I have to say that I am quite disappointed with it. No where near as much as I was with the Kaossilator Pro. That thing was actually hindered with problems and bugs. Such a shame as all of them could have been fixed with a fireware update.

Heres my issues:

- Only 8 beats. Why Why why have you done this again. Is the price of memory still expensive?? Soooo many people asked for atleast 16 beats

- Always defaults to 4 beats. After 1 day I am already tired of having to change the settings to 8 beats for both samplers everytime I switch it on.

- Why cant I save and load individual samplers?? This would have been great to bring in individual sample banks whilst player the other. This would really extend the set. Its totally CRAZY that they havent done this.

- The gate arps are a maximum of 2 beats long. This makes them all pretty boring and sounding basically the same. Why have you shortened them? - Did people specifically request them to be shorter? Also they all start at the beginning of the first beat. It would have been nice to have some start on the off beat like the KO1.

- The build quality is rubbish. one of the little clip bits has already broken. It feels too much like a toy.

- No volume control for seperate programs. The KO2 has more than sufficient resources to do this. Im not interest in changing the % of the arp can you please just add program volume control.

- Settings dont save.


Overall I am very disappointed with it. Korg doesn't seem to have listened to the feedback of the audience. I don't think this will be a great sell compared to the awesome KO1.

What is everyone elses thought on the KO2?

Mine's a buggy POS. I was so excited for this and now I'm let down. Mine freezes and bugs out 5-10 mins after I turn it on. Plus it records sometimes when I don't want it to. When I first opened it I could play with it for an hour, now only 5 minutes. This is garbage.

I am reasonably happy with mine and have had great fun playing with it, but that said the 8 beat maximum is ridiculous.
My biggest gripe however is having to hold the mic button to monitor the line-in. I was planning to use it as looper for another synthesizer but having to hold the mic button makes it impossible. Hoping a firmware update will have a line in pass-through option.

Korg's R&D and product management for the Kaoss, Electribe, and synth products should be fired. They've just screwed up way too much in these categories. It's obvious that they have no clue what they're doing and they've failed to understand their customer's needs, requirements, and desires for these products for too many years now. It's sad, ridiculous, frustrating, angering, disappointing, and revolting, all at the same time. It looks like they throw these products on the market and just hope they stick, instead of closely examining what customers like about their existing products, what they don't like, and how they can truly improve the products without mucking up what was already good.

I completely agree with what has been said in this thread. I don't own a KO2, but I don't plan to buy one, either, based on so many negative reviews, and my own judgments based on reading the manual and reviewing its features. I was hoping they would really ramp up the Kaossilator's duties in this new product, sort of an amalgamation of the Ko1, the kpro, and the iKaossilator. Instead they stuck with the shortcomings of the ko1 such as the 8beat maximum and did other horrible things to boot such as shrinking the touchpad size (wtf!?) and actually taking a step down on the build quality. I said this somewhere before, but it reminds me of those early 2000s crappy mp3 players. THe K01, on the other hand, has a nice sturdy and solid construction. I don't own a KPro but I know its almost identical to the KP3's construction (which i do own)...to take a step down is ridiculous.

That said, I am *mildly* curious about the minikp2, because it serves double duty as an mp3 player - so you could load up tracks and affect them live, which to me is a bit more useful than the ko2 's mp3 functionality. But, i know the build quality is identical so it really pushes me away.

How much do you want to bet these are just precursors to a KP4 and KPro2? Even then Korg will probably miss the mark...sigh...

I've read some comments on other sites regarding "zero file control" .. totally wrong and simply not true: I just saved and deleted 2 test tracks: Create a test track and then navigate to the menu option "Loop Save/Load" using the "fnc" button, then press the "-" key to save the track. When it completes press "fnc" a few more times to get to the "Audio Player" function. On this screen you can completely navigate throug the entire Micro SD contents, and if a file is a selected you have options "Back" "|> (Play) and "Delete". If you select delete here, the saved tracks will be gone. You can access all files saved without any trouble.

Regarding the 1 longer 16 beat track in the origina vs. 2 8 beat tracks - it is technically the same, however you have a lot more ease of being able to mix 2 totally different sounds because you can save 1 8 beat track and take as long as you like to create the 2nd. Then on top of that save unlimited mixes on top of those. To me this is a gain, not a loss here, and probably just a bit different if you were really into the Kaosillator 1. I personally like having the 2 loops over the 1 longer one because I can mix more diversely Tons of built in sounds, drums, and mix options - I'm quite enjoying it, though I never owned the original one. Right now Guitar Center has the original Kaossilator on sale for 69.99 and the 2 or 129.99. I did not even bother looking at the 400 dollar "pro". Too costly. I do wish however that some salesperson would have showed me the kos pad mini 2. I'm not sure by any means if I'd like it better, but it looks very cool. I would think the best would be to have both.

Pros : 2 Loop Tracks,Clear Sound,Compact,Easy To Use,Lightweight,Micro Sd Recording
Cons : Apparently No 16-beats,Learning Curve To Use
Best Uses : Amateur Recording,Home Studio,Mobile DJ

I suspect the settings to be saved at bottom of wav files ...

see :

http://rzr.online.fr/q/sound