Korg Kaossilator – The Kaossilation Station

Korg’s latest must have gadget is the Kaossilator Pro launched at NAMM earlier this month. Taking the form factor of its cousin the Kaoss Pad, the Korg Kaossilator Pro is like the classic Kaossilator on steroids. With 200 sound banks, audio input for sampling and vocorder functionality, four loop banks for unlimited recording and layering, a souped-up gate arpeggiator with modulation control, the good old X-Y pad interface and the ability to save to SD card this really is a gadget to die for. The Kaossilator Pro even comes with a USB port so you can hook it up to your Mac or PC. The addition of MIDI in and out means you can sync it up to other MIDI compatible devices, one of the most requested features in the classic Kaossilator.

When is the Korg Kaossilator Pro shipping? Well you can pre-order the Kaossilator Pro now and it will be available in March.

Kaptain Kaoss wants one.

The pink Kaossilator was introduced by Korg in February 2009. Produced as a limited edition, the pink Kaossilator is a rare beast and quite difficult to track down. Despite being a limited edition it may not have been as popular as the regular yellow model. When you do find a pink Kaossilator in stock and available to buy it is often cheaper than its yellow sibling. If you don’t care too much about colour (or would prefer a pink one) then search around and maybe there will be a bargain to be had.

Perhaps most famously a pink Kaossilaor is owned by Lily Allen who often plays it live on stage. Look carefully at this photo by BlacKie-Pix from Flickr. Lily Allen is performing live with her limited edition pink Kaossilator at her show in Amsterdam in October 2009.

Have you ever wondered what the term “Dynamic Phrase Synthesizer” actually means? This is the phrase which manufacturer Korg uses to describe its revolutionary pocket synthesizer the Kaossilator. Having searched the internet high and low this seems to be a description invented by Korg’s marketeers and is a unique term used only for this unique little product.

So let’s break it down. Three words – dynamic, phrase and synthesizer. We all know what a synthesizer is. According to Wikipedia a synthesizer is “an electronic instrument capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequencies” so no surprises there. As for the words dynamic phrase my guess is as follows.

The Korg Kaossilator doesn’t generate just single notes or even chords. No, the range of sounds which can be achieved from the Kaossilator’s bank of presets also includes rhythm patterns, drum loops and complex, layered voices. The sounds available represent not just electronic and acoustic instruments, but a number of bizarre and expressive special effects too.

These voices can be shaped and twisted by dragging the finger across the Kaossilator touch pad or control surface, extending the sounds into phrases. And there is the clue to the word dynamic – the tonal and timbral character of the sound is shifted in real time by the actions of the musician playing the touchpad. Each phrase is controlled dynamically, with the pitch and amount of effect applied being adjusted by the x and y postion of the finger on the Kaossilator touch pad.

That’s my theory anyway! Got a better one?

One of the magic things about the Korg Kaossilator is the touch pad or control surface. Unlike conventional synthesizers, the Kaossilator is played by running a finger across the touch pad.

The Kaossilator touchpad provides the player with a monophonic touch sensitive input method, that is to say that touching the pad will only trigger a single sound. However the touch pad is actually an extremely expressive way of playing due to the range of control it offers.

On most of the 100 presets, movement along the x-axis of the pad (i.e. left to right) controls the pitch of the note. But the real magic is the pad’s second dimension – along the y-axis. The up and down movement on the Kaossilator touch pad changes different parameters on different presets, ranging from volume, tremelo or tonal quality, through to more esoteric parameters such as high pass or low pass filters, delay, distortion or complementary frequency.

The result is a wonderfully expressive way of playing using a very intuitive interface. Some of the effects that can be achieved would take hours to program on a conventional synthesizer. If you get the chance to try out the Korg Kaossilator you’ll get it straight away, but be warned – if you do you’ll want one, that’s for sure!

A great shot from Flickr of the Korg Kaossilator with the Roland SH-101, a classic synth from the eighties. These are two totally different beasts with 25 years between them, but the SH-101 is still popular today.

Not really a hack, but here’s how to boot the Korg Kaossilaor into diagnostic mode that runs through a series of tests to make sure the Kaossilator is working as it should.

1. Press down the SCALE and the TAP/BPM buttons while holding in the GATE ARP button and switch the unit on. The Kaossilator is now in diagnostic mode and he display will show the firmware version (currently 1.00).
2. Press SCALE. The display will change to read “int” followed by a sequence from t2.2 to t4.6 while the Kaossilator plays a test tone through the left channel, then the right channel and then both. The sequence ends with all LEDs illuminated.
3. Press TAP/BPM to initiate the LCD display test. Each display element is illuminated in turn.
4. Press TAP/BPM again and the display reads “TAP”.
5. Press TAP/BPM one more time and the Loop Status LED lights up red while the display reads “S.on”.
6. Press SCALE and the Loop Status LED turns green.
7. Press LOOP REC/PLAY and the Loop Status LED turns off and the GATE ARP LED turns on.
8. Press GATE ARP and the LED turns off, while the display changes to read “EnC”.
9. Press TAP/BPM again and the display changes to a zero.
10. Turn the rotary dial to scroll through a numerical readout from 0 to 999 or down to -99.

So there you go. It’s not the most exciting thing you can do with a Kaossilator, but if you’re a Kaossilator geek then it’s probably of interest. Go on, try it…

Here is a very quick and easy hack to access another undocumented feature of the Korg Kaossilator. This one gives you an approximate indication of the battery life status. Simply hold down the TAP / BMP and LOOP REC / PLAY buttons while pressing the GATE ARP button and switch the Kaossilator on. The display will ready “bat” to indicate that you are in battery status mode. When you release the buttons the display will then read “Hi” or “Lo”, depending on the condition of your batteries.

It’s not pinpoint accurate, but if you’re on the road it gives you a good indication of whether you need to pick up another set of batteries to keep on groovin’.

One of the most fun things about Korg Kaossilator is its ability to record a loop, building up layer upon layer of groovy goodness as you play over the top of the last groove you put down to memory. For many however the Kaossilator’s two bars, or eight beats, just isn’t long enough to work their musical magic. If you wish you had just a little bit longer to play with then what you need is the undocumented Four Bar Loop Hack.

Widely describer on the internet the Korg Kaossilator Four Bar Loop Hack extends the available memory to accommodate four bars, or 16 beats, rather than the standard two bars. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of the undo feature, which means everything you play is committed to the final groove, but with a bit of concentration this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Basically the Kaossilator extends the loop length by utilising the area of memory usually used to buffer your unsaved loops.

So how is it done?

1. With the Tap and Loop Rec buttons pressed and held down, switch the unit on.
2. When you see the LED displaying DLY this confirms you are in bufferless mode, so release the Tap and Loop Rec buttons.
3. Press the Tap and Loop Rec buttons together again, putting the Kaossilator into loop adjustment mode.
4. Turn the rotary selection dial one click clockwise, extending the loop length from two bars to four. The display should change from L8 to L16 to confirm this.

That’s it – simple huh? Now you’ve got twice as much audio real estate to play with. Go forth and groove!

A very nice Korg Kaossilator photographic study found on Flickr.

It’s what we’ve been waiting for – the Korg Kaossilator with optional YOWL module. It will add unparalleled warmth and fuzziness to your Kaossilator, apparently. Purrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I want one.