Korg Kaossilator – The Kaossilation Station

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, tremolo 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!