the drums are great, lots of vintage drums machine kits like the linn drum, 808, 909. the synth section is a nice gateway addiction in to analog synth patch creation. its really about the tubes, they really make up for how metallic the sound can be with out them. being made by the creators of the muff fuzz boxes. they add lots of nice punch to your drum programming. they give a gnarly edge to the synths parts you will create. it does have some general midi sounds but, you are buying this for it analog modeling synths. the signal is very hot so you will need some kind of compression and limiting out side the box. that's the trend though recently to make your mixes sound hot and loud without distortion. that's up to you to push the envelope. still you will want to leave the emx on for a day before recording to get the best sound. tubes are like that.

the ribbon/slider is truly great, for quick ideas and improving on top of patterns. the audio bpm detection is nice when you are playing with a prerecorded song than with out it.

the talent of the user will come into playing it and recording decent tracks. the manual was helpful, but i have had experience with sequencers before so this was a clear manual in the case of me. there could be a learning curve with this but not so steep that you will give up. if you are performing you have to hold down two button to engage a track pattern. rather than just pushing one button on or off. but you wont get tired of of playing because of that, more like you have accountable to other aspects in you life. it can be habit forming.

if you have thick fingers this box will be annoying to perfrom with. all metal case is nice, its light since all the weight is in transformer that you will still have to carry with to gigs. so its more of a looks thing than of a practical thing.

its a bargain no frills beat box. compared to some german counter parts in the thousand dollar range, its a steal for the sound quality. those german ones are made to order, and are quite analog high brow knob tweakers. who enjoy that pastime enough to pay for there addiction to knobs and fat analog sounds. not so reliable onstage either though via midi, you hear me mfb...

never needed it

if you leave it out your friends wont think of you as a tool. like you would if you made all of your music in budget dance music software.

active artist

house, techno, ebm

The raw sounds are very clean, even the higher notes don't have much aliasing (unnoticeable in the mix). Tons of synthesis methods in the system unique to the EMX, and they sound great. The filters are smooth, too - NO 'zipping'.

The synthesis options almost made me give it a 10, but the filters are pretty basic - LP, BP, HP, and peak. More options (additional slopes, specific filter modeling, maybe parallel filters, whatever) would have been a great complement to the tons of options you have in the oscillator section and effect section. Also, the drum sounds are great, but there aren't too many of them, so you may get tired of those pretty quick.

Metal case, glass tubes, sturdy knobs, responsive buttons, works for me. It seems like this will last a long time, hopefully it will =)

Incredible bang for the buck.

Awesome metallic blue color, the pictures cannot do it justice. Even store demos don't look as good as the new one you take home (or get shipped home), probably because they are ruined by grubby fingers and flourescent lights ;) This has been on my 'list' for a long time, and I've been happy with my purchase.

Trance, Drum and Bass, Rap, R&B, Smooth Jazz

Overall the sound is great. The tubes really do add a nice touch to the entire project. It does lack polyphony which could pose a problem for people who want to do something a bit more complex or with experience on the keys but hey, its a groovebox, if you wanted to compose a symphony you'd be looking at a workstation or software =)

Mine came with the AC adapter and a midi cable. I was pleasantly surprised by how much the we're able to cram in this little thing. There are enough sounds and options to get you rolling and keep you going for quite bit but not so many that you will get lost in the creative process or feel overwhelmed. Couple this with the ESX-1 and Ableton Live and even more doors in your creative space will open. I love that I can assign loops to different outputs for bouncing into Ableton if I want to get a little bit nuts or run audio out of Ableton into the EMX-1 for some tube fun.

I've been using nothing but software for the past 5 years. It's how I got into this music. Since I've spend time using different DAWs and VSTs the learning curve doesn't seem too bad. There are things to learn but once you understand the basics the machine really opens up The manual pretty much gives you the meat and potatoes of the electribe with more indepth reviews of some of the nuts and bolts as you read farther into it. Information is easy to find in the manual and it isn't thousands of pages like some DAWs out there (*cough* Logic *cough*)

I wouldnt want to drop this thing on my foot. Built solid. The pads feel great and have a nice bounce to them. The plastic cover of the knobs feels a little flakey but when you turn them it's easy to tell that everything underneath is solid.

Im pretty happy on the price. Feels like you get a little more than what you pay for. Wouldn't pay anymore than what I did though unless it came with polyphony and more fx.

Best support is not having to use it

This thing is just so much fun. No more point and click editing. So nice to actually have something you can touch and make noise on.

Hobbyist

DnB, Hard Trance, Rock, Fun stuff

Sounds are great, although a bit limited by the preset only drum sounds. Also, when recording in real-time, everything is rounded to 16th beat, which can be annoying. Nevertheless, its plenty for beginners and enough to make a handful of tracks

Box only comes with the unit and power supply - would have really liked a carrying case / bag, which dont seem to be available anywhere else. you cant copy entire patterns around either - you have to do so synth by synth, drum by drum. Anyhow, sounds can be tweaked like crazy; plenty of fun there. you can spend hours just playing around and getting it 'perfect'.

Within 5 minutes, i was pumped and burning tracks like crazy. You hardly need to refer to the manual, which is quite thorough.

Very sturdy, and the case seems tough. However, the plastic protecting the screen is easily scratchable (like ipods!) especially when turning the select dial.

Haven't needed to contact them, but others say their top notch.

its small and its sex. everything is so easily accessibly too.

Active Musician

Techno, DnB, HipHop, Rock,

Sound is harsh but for most electronic that's what you want. The effects stage is a little limited but you can separate the outs into 4 and use external effects for more if you want. Envelopes are simplistic, but with some creative use of the LFO stage you can kludge most things.

Nice feature set, plenty of instruments and you can tie in stuff from the outside so it's pretty flexible.

The UI is stellar here. Very intuitive, natural and interactive. The only problem is the data knob jitter which is apparently chronic with these-- both my EMX-1 and ESX-1 developed it within a few months.

In general it's pretty well built, EXCEPT FOR THE KNOB CONTROLS. Cheap pots and the main data knob is a rotary switching type that within a few months seems to develop oxidation that causes reverse-direction jitter. This makes it unreliable to use the data knob for live gigs. Smarter de-bounce software could probably fix this but Korg seems to be a bit slow in figuring the problem out. Both my EMX-1 and ESX-1 developed the problem and I hear it's very common, and it's VERY annoying.

Depends on if you need it for live-- if you do, forget it, it's too unreliable. Or kluge up an external MIDI data knob and use that instead I suppose (assuming the MIDI-in supports it, I haven't checked)...

There's been NO software upgrades, period. No attempt to permanently fix the data-knob jitter. They'll swap it out for another sure, but that one will probably get the problem too before long, making it a critical failure. There was a problem with blowing out the output stage that they will fix (never happend to me, I may have gotten a newer one so I didn't need it).

Oh it's certainly sexy. Got most of what you want. Best interface out there by far. Good-enough sounds, and pretty great features.

Active musician

Electro-jazz

its the last of the mohicans in many ways. a future classic. the future tb303? i dont know maybe maybe not but one thing is for sure its its own beast and a very expressive little box of tun. it fits well in lots of different styles of electronic music. some of its build quality seems a bit flimsy but it should last if you take care of it. easy to use for the most. something are annoying but i think for the price this is a excellent little box

lots of possibilities in a small package. step seuencing lots of tracks for diffent parts excellent drums and synths all in one. layers well and can cut through a mix as well. the less than advanced envelopes is a bit of a downer but honestly you can learn to live with it. ribbon controller on this box can realy make for some fun. worth the price of admission alone

assuming yo have never used a synth before i will give it a seven beacuase there is some things about it wich will require learning. i mean you can have fun right out of the box with it by spinning a few knobs and dials.

made in china so i am going to sit on the fence in terms of quality. i would have prefered a japanese box. sorry i just have limited faith in the chineses manufacturers. with good reason it would appear.

dunno

this question is kind a wierd question. i mean i already have it. allthough i will say this. its a keeper wont be getting rid of it anytime soon.

active musician

electronic lots different genres

I've used mostly software for the last 8 years, and it came as a shock to me how full and 3-dimensional this little thing can sound. To me it doesn't sound analog, nor does it sound traditionally digital. It has a unique bright, full sound. I do wish it had a more expensive-sounding reverb. The springy one it has is ok for adding ambience, but not for creating real big reverb effects.

Of course it has a limited feature set and very few parameters compared to typical synths, but it is amazing how much you can get out of them, if you're willing to push it. With a little ingenuity you can work around almost all its limitations. Now IF ONLY the synths were truly polyphonic...

It's not as easy or convenient as software, but what is? the EMX-1 is easier than many hardware devices. I found it especially clumsy to build songs using the pattern-based song mode, but then I discovered I could record the songs into my computer via MIDI, edit them in a software sequencer, then split them up into patterns and record them back into the EMX-1. (I'm thinking of making a YouTube demo of this.)

A very durable build for these days. 100% thick metal case, a power plug that doesnt slip out, a nice screen, etc. The knobs aren't flimsy, but I'd prefer they were actually anchored into the case rather than the substructure.

I think the price (US$500) is about right for this unit. Any more and you'd be better off with something else, any less and it would be a steal.

Haven't needed it.

It looks quite cool, but it would look cooler if I'd designed it ;)

semi-pro producer

electronica

This instrument is all about throwing sounds together and seeing what happens. Not so easy to think of a sound you want and then build it. It's better to give in a little to what it does well. There are many dual oscillator configurations to choose from, and the PCM sounds are weighted more for drums than otherwise. It is primarily a drum machine. You can get all kinds of drum sounds out of it (starting out as PCMs) you can change the pitch of the drum sounds, you can apply an LFO, and you can apply three chained effects of your choice. There is not a huge range of non-drum PCMs (70 or so), and you can't load more. I find myself just using the oscillator sources for the synth parts, although the PCMs are pretty good, some very good, in my opinion. One great thing about this machine is you can use it as a MIDI sequencer for other equipment. The step keys make it really easy to create parts in real time. I am using it to sequence a modular analog synthesizer, and it also works well in this role because I can also use it to fill in sounds for the analog while I save money for more analog modules, and decide which sounds need to go over to analog. To get the functionality of this thing in an analog synthesizer would be huge money (and a lot of space).

No accessories were included. I immediately bought a couple of smart media cards. You have to get 128MB cards. I also bought a USB reader so can transfer the patterns I create to my PC hard disk. The pattern files are binary and can only be read by the machine though (my understanding). I also ended up buying a couple of adapters to go from 1/4" jacks to 1/8" jacks. If I could add anything to this machine, I would add the ability to have separate effects for each part, instead of sharing the three effects stages across all the parts. Well, maybe the ability to load PCMs would be a bigger plus.

Very easy to use. The manual is very clear. A lot of thought went into it.

Overall quality is good. It's a substantial device, but not bulky. Comparable to a larger laptop ca. 2001. I think the knobs could have been tougher. I am careful with it because I want it to last a long time. So it doesn't seem bulletproof, but it's not fragile either.

Easily worth the price when you consider a sequencer alone can cost this much. Nothing compared to analog prices. Really a great gift for someone who has an interest in music. Resale appears to be strong as well. Not a huge financial risk.

No experience, which probably says a lot.

I saw this thing on youtube and was immediately obsessed. It strikes me as a future icon of this era. Instant collectible.

Great sound.... the PCM's are not perfect, but as good as PCM gets!

Great features... I would like to see some more options with time signature. I would also like it to have more effects going on at once.

Easy easy easy!

Drums are perfect, synths and PCM are great...

Amazing for the price!

Active Musician

Psy DnB

The sound is imho really nice. It's my first hardware, but I heard the sound of other gear in this section (grooveboxes) and I have to say, that it's very fat, pounding and warm thanks to the valves.

Ok, it would be nice if you could load your own samples. But the drum-sounds are nice and there are some filters and nice effects to get really cool sounds. The synthesizer is limited of course, but it's fun to play with it and you can create really groovy sounds. Effects and Motion Sequence is cool. Of course you can't compare it to expensive gear. But it's a good all-in-one machine!!! And, the valves are great!

KORG!

Yeah, it's not cheap. But I think it worth it!!

Don't know... never had to get support yet.

Very, very sexy!!!! :-)

LFO has no effect on drum section. That really . Most electronic styles of today are stagnant, in a drum sense. If you want that "Cyber-Electro" groove, you'll have to use one of the onboard effects (which by the way isn't as organic-sounding as an LFO). The knobs are small and made of cheap plastic. The Yamaha DX-200, for example has fat/rugged rubber knobs.

Sounds are slightly toyish. A typical drawback on a post 90s instrument. A real 808/909/Linn Drum, or real vintage synths etc. don't sound like toys to me. Digital Technology sounds airy and flat no matter how much knob ajustment you try. To me, analog still crushes digital. Companies of today try to emulate the classic legendary machines, but only succeed in doing so with a unit that costs over $1900 US.

Have had good and bad experiences.

Progressive/Ambient Tech-House