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The Mini-Ak has great rhythm sequences, drum sets, arpeggios, synths, bass inst, brass, leads, strings, keys,  and it has a vocoder.  I didn’t get this keyboard until I started toying with it in  conjunction with my MPC and my Microsampler.  It is an easy to use beast of sound! It was also easy to setup by midi to my MicroSampler.  I feel like I understand why you would want to do something like that a whole lot better now.   Come check it out.  I have the MicroSampler loaded up with a bunch of the work I have been doing recently on our floor model at the King St. store.  Oh yeah…the sound on this video recording  is kind of funny. The iphone microphone add-on, the Mikey (by Blue), usually works great, but we have two studio monitors setup on each side of this demo station, and it really changed the sound when Brandon, the guy filming, started moving around with my iphone.

Okay.  Normally I get a new toy, get super hot on it, use it intensely for a few weeks, and then it gets buried under a pile of other gear in my apartment never to be used again (the curse or luxury of owning this store and getting to try out new gear all the time).  Not my Korg MicroSampler!  I’ve been super busy this past month so I had to take a hiatus from it, but last night I had about a half hour to bang out a beat, and I did.  Yea…my sequencing sucks…all of my projects on the MicroSampler so far have been very rough draft sketches of where I would like this to go, but the foundation of the beats I am cooking up these days is the sound I have been seeking for years.  Eventually I am going to transfer the sounds I am sampling from vinyl over to my MPC1000 where I can sequence it more efficiently.  I love the MicroSampler for pulling samples, but the sequencer is a little to basic for my needs so the MPC1000 really fills in the other part for me quite well.  With the editor librarian, you can load up the entire bank of sound, and save the samples you need to WAV files very easily.  It is as simple as dragging and dropping by usb into my MPC1000 hard drive from there.  The MPC1000 is great, but sampling and chopping on it is tiresome and time consuming.  The combination of these two pieces of gear is everything I ever needed (well…I am looking for an analogue sounding synth hardware piece these days as well to complete my sound…Dave Smith Instruments might fit the bill for me….just have to look into carrying it at the store).  I’ve really had a backlash against computer based beat production these past few years.  I think the possibilities on the computer are overwhelmingly great.  Rather than bang out beats quickly and efficiently, I found myself playing with soft synths, mastering tools, and sampler toys way too much, and I never got around to producing anything.  These days, I’ve been limiting my tools to a few pieces, and I have found my work flow to be a lot better.  Perhaps I will come full circle with the computer gear when I have the foundation better layed out on the beats I am trying to put together to make an album this year.  I know I will need the computer stuff for mastering and if I can get anyone to flow on my album.  I think Dilla would be jealous of the MicroSampler….it is sooo sick!

Making beats is what got me started on running a musical instrument store.

It has frustrated me that the very thing that got me into this (making beats) is something I just don’t do anymore.  I was feeling pretty bored and tired of making beats until this new toy by Korg came along.  I am too busy and lazy to make beats, but this thing solves that problem.  You can chop up samples and sequence a song before you could even turn your computer and get a DAW up and running or load a sound set from an Akai MPC.

It looks like a toy by Fisher Price, but it is a lot more fun than any other sampler I have ever used, and it is lot easier to learn and is more intuitive.  I am super stoked on banging out beats on the Korg Microsampler.  It is the greatest sampling device I have seen made in a long time.  It even runs on batteries.  I sampled the beats on these videos using two tracks by Tom Waits from my iphone (just added a track at the bottom from some cuts by Bebel Gilberto).  Some of the drums are me beat-boxing into the mic.

The greatest feature is the key gate feature.  You can run a sample through it, and when you hear something you like, you just press the key down.  Pressing it down starts the sample on that key, and letting it go ends the sample.  You don’t have to assign anything.  The sample is just there and saving happens at the press of a button.  I think it would be great for chopping up soul samples, rnb, and now Tom Waits.

You can also download the free librarian editor, and tie the microSampler into your computer for easy sample editing (it is pretty darned easy on the unit without this though) effects editing, and using your computer as the storage for all of the banks you will create (you can only save 8 banks on the unit itself).  I downloaded it last night, and it was a snap to get going.  You can drag and drop samples right onto the keys on the editor and transmit them directly to the unit.  It is a blast!

After listening and participating in Von Baron’s goal clinic last week, I’ve decided that my goal this year is to make a 10 track album.  With my new sampler, I think that is a definite possibility (update – I am up to five pretty catchy beats after just hours of use).

This is the first purchase I have made in a while.  I think it is worth it for a starting beat producer or for a guy who already has every toy out there (Jimmy P….I’m talking about you my friend).

I’m a dork….I know.  The sound quality is not good because I filmed this off my Iphone, but you get the idea.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.