Hello! I’ve spent countless hours avoiding social interaction and blasting the neighbours to bring you the latest in my collection of sample packs, this time of the excellent Korg Electribe EMX-1!
You’re likely aware of the big blue, valve-tastic 2010 EMX-1. It’s a beast. Before I used it, I thought it would be ‘another clunky retro thing’ but you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. Okay, the interface IS a bit clunky (having to stop the sequencer to change certain pattern values is pretty old-skool) but the range and quality of sounds on offer is really astonishing! The touch strip makes programming melodies and even drums really intuitive, and the valves actually sound great.
It’s got loads of very nice samples on-board, a mixture of drums, instruments and synth stuff, for many of which Korg added loop points which play nicely with the synth modes (more on that shortly). The sounds pitch down in a pleasingly crunchy manner, and there’s plenty of gain staging available. Lots of effects too, of which you can have three going at the same time, either parallel as three separate send effects or in series for smashing up stuff.
The synth options are brilliant! There’s the bread-and-butter subtractive VA stuff, as well as options for playing pre-defined chords, but there aren’t many synths out there to this day that also offer (albeit relatively basic) additive, VPM, formant, cross-modulation and ring modulation-based synthesis modes, all in the one box. There’s a brilliantly crunchy waveshaping synthesis type which uses samples as oscillators, which combined with the modulation, amp and filter envelope stages can lead to honestly brilliant results. Oh yeah, and pretty much every control can be automated, so it really can get pretty nuts.
Anyway, enough of my yakkin’, here’s the breakdown of the pack contents:
———— ONE-SHOTS ————
Over 700 individually recorded, trimmed, faded and normalised one-shots, grouped by sound type:
BD: Bass Drums (105)
SD: Snare Drums (104)
CP: Claps (39)
HH: Hi-Hats (68)
PC: Percussion (147)
HI: Lead Sounds (64)
LO: Bass Sounds (64)
FX: Sound Effects (64)
WAVES: Varied Factory Waveforms (65)
CHORDS Varied Factory Chords (20)
———— LOOPS ————
A collection of BPM-labelled stock and new DRUM and SYNTH looping samples formatted to repeat seamlessly and continuously without ‘pops’ or ‘clicks’.
———— WAVES ————
Lots of waveforms designed to be played as oscillators in samplers, all of which derive from EMX-1 sounds:
MULTI-CYCLE WAVEFORMS (80):
Looping sounds with ‘baked-in’ movement which repeat seamlessly without ‘pops’ or ‘clicks’. Great for use as character-filled oscillators in samplers.
SINGLE-CYCLE WAVEFORMS (64):
Extremely short tones which loop without ‘pops’ or ‘clicks’, these can sound convincingly synth-like with careful use of envelopes, filters and effects.
WAVETABLES (32):
Morphing oscillators for wavetable synths.
WAVE SWEEPS (96):
A collection of sounds whose tonal properties are ‘swept’ through - while cool to demonstrate EMX-1 timbres they serve as useful melodic/percussive elements in tracks. .
The synth engines sampled for the WAVE SWEEPS are as follows:
CROSS MOD - The frequency of one oscillator is modulated by with the waveform of another
FORMANT - Filters placed in series produce sounds reminiscent of the human voice.
VPM - The phase of one oscillator is modulated with the waveform of another, generating metallic overtones.
WAVE SHAPER - Two oscillators are mixed and passed through a wave-shaping distortion.
———— SAMPLE CHAINS ————
14 sample chains, one for each type of one-shot, plus a bonus one containing all 64 of the single-cycle waveforms which are really fun to use as synth oscillators on Elektron samplers!
———— ABLETON LIVE CONTENT ————
This pack contains two kinds of Ableton Live content, both of which are exclusively compatible with Ableton Live Suite.
Five instrument racks designed for instant-access to all the one-shot, multi-cycle and single-cycle waveforms.
Drum Selector
HI Selector
LO Selector
FX Selector
Tone Selector
The pack also contains 64 wavetables created exclusively for this pack which have been formatted for Ableton Live’s Wavetable synthesiser.
———— AKAI MPC CONTENT ————
AKAI MPC EXPANSION
An Akai MPC expansion featuring custom artwork and audio previews for each of the four programs, organised into two categories:
EMX-1 DRUMS:
Two programs split into multiple banks containing all the percussive samples set to play in ONE-SHOT mode.
EMX-1 SYNTHS:
Two programs split into multiple banks containing all the non-percussive samples. Crucially, these are set to play in NOTE-ON mode, meaning they play for as long as a pad is held, and have a release stage so they fade out once the pad is released.
Presented alongside the MPC Expansion are 32 WAVETABLES and 64 SINGLE-CYCLE WAVEFORMS which, once installed, appear alongside the default Akai Oscillators on your MPC.
———— AUDIO FORMATS ————
Sample Chains: 16-Bit // 44.1kHz WAV
Everything Else: 24-Bit // 48kHz WAV
As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and for being awesome. Elektronauts is my fave hangout spot and it’s thanks to you guys! <3
EMX-1 is a badass.