What’s the best overview video re: the actual features of this? I enjoyed the Signal Sounds one with The Unperson, which was up to their/his usual high standards, but is there a Loopop style one with an exhaustive explanation of what it can/can’t do?
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I don’t think there is one. Not many good videos out there at all to be honest and even the manual doesn’t really explain all the features. 
This video was pretty good though in terms of explaining some of the stuff it has.
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Thanks 
From watching a few videos, it appears as though the basics as far as sounds/samples are:
- 4 channels with 12 sample slots per channel
- 9 projects can be stored at any one time
- despite appearances it does support kits (i.e. 8 hits per sample) and loops
- built-in synth engine (4 mono; 3 poly + dub sirens)
- 128mb / 999 sample slot storage
There is somebody working on a kit workaround using the multisample function it has, but I don’t think it’s really ready for prime time. For now, no kits.
The loops are also kind of unique. To make it more “dub style” they have it set up so that loops are always running in the background and you can mute them in and out. Also, for instance if you had a drum loop, you could have it work so that if you trigger a drum fill sample, it drops the main drum loop out and then the main drum loop comes back in after the fill has played. I’m still trying to wrap my head around ways to make use of this feature.
Edit: It also has a live mode. The most notable extra feature this has is a vinyl style time stretch algorithm. So if your beat is in 100bpm normally and you enter live mode, you can time stretch your whole beat down to say 85bpm, and it will drop the pitch like slowing a record down. When you exit this mode, your beat goes back to 100bpm and normal pitch. It’s actually a really nice feature, sometimes you find your beat sounds a lot better at a different speed/pitch.
In the live mode, you can also disable any buttons you want that you are afraid you will hit by mistake and mess up your beat. There are a list of codes you enter to disable all the various features. This is a pretty good idea as when you are dropping the tempo and mashing the buttons to solo tracks or trigger punch in effects, it’s pretty easy to hit something by mistake and screw up your beat. I wish it had the Digitakt style feature where you could mess with anything and it would jump back to where it was, but it’s something.
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Oh, damn - that sounds excellent!
Yeah, that workaround is what I had seen and was meaning re: supporting kits. Seems as though it’s a tool he’s made himself, is that right?
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Yeah! Plus, he’s uploaded some multisampled instruments already. Multisamples are something the original KOII didn’t have, and some of them sound quite nice.
(Check my edit above about the live mode).
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Ah, that’s really clever! From the videos I’ve seen, the pitching algorithm sounds good too.
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It sounds really good. There is a regular time stretch algo as well that also sounds good. You can stretch by BPM or bar, and when you really stretch stuff out it reminds me of old school jungle records from back in the day.
The other nice old school feature is that although you can’t sample at lower sample rates on the machine itself, the OS supports lower resolution samples, so I’ve been using the workflow I noted above to convert stuff to various rates 16bit 22k, 16bit 11k, and 16bit 8k, and it sounds really good (plus it saves space).
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This is, from my limited testing, the actual killer feature of the riddim vs the KOII. The super tone is nice and all, but…
It’s not that I don’t get the patterns and scenes and what not, but at the same time I don’t get them. They seem to me clunky, and all that commit workflow does work but not being particularly pleasant to work with.
However, from my perceptive, and the way I approach these things, you can have a few drum loops, a few bass loops, and so on, and live play an entire song with that.
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I’m actually the opposite. I watched a couple of KOII videos early on about patterns and scenes and it totally clicked with me.
I like using them to quickly build up sections of songs using scenes and then I live jam the song while switching between scenes. I love the instant switching feature for live remix vibes.
I’ve yet to really get into the loop thing, but maybe I will at some point. It’s good that there are multiple ways to work with the device.
Casio RZ-1 8000Hz multisample for kit in keys mode. OCT C4. sound nice with some time and pitch shifts. (only tested on EP-40)
we live in a weird time where we can ask a modded calculator to create personalised software as a means to an end.
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I wonder where they’re going with the EP series - I like that they’re exploring some slightly obscure areas (medieval being borderline certifiable), but it feels like they’re leaving money on the table by not throwing the machine at mainstream sampling genres like D&B, Jungle, Garage etc.
Or even just doing an update of the 133 as it’s now feeling a bit left out with the updates on the Riddim which by all accounts is very fun but also a bit niche in its target audience.
However I do like that they’re not being obvious - there is something absolutely wild about how anti-capitalist the EP series is becoming. I half expect the next one to be for yodelers.
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but once you wipe the samples they become all those genres and the other genres at once (as long as its empty).
in 5 years time we’ll probably hear the factory samples more used as tongue in cheek homage to the devices legacy.
think its important not to get swayed by the packaging and see the performance samplers underneath. each with their own spin.
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I’ve heard someone else mention that as well. Out of curiosity, what functionality is missing from the manual?
You are right of course, but the Medieval and even the Riddim have a very specific aesthetic.
I want a PS1 inspired D&B EP 
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Pretty sure this pitch bend isn’t in there.
It doesn’t name any of the punch-in FX. I don’t recall seeing the “FX + bank” function to solo banks. A number of little things. It feels like an overview and it isn’t searchable which doesn’t help.
These are helpful (posted here earlier).
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Oh wow, what app you’ve used for making it?
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Good to know, thanks for the links!
By the way, pressing +/- while the sequencer is running isn’t just a pitch-bend function. It’s used for tempo matching. It temporarily changes both the tempo and the pitch. I swear I’ve read that somewhere, but I can’t recall if it was in the EP-133 manual or somewhere else.
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