Never knew such a thing was made. Looks like a lot of fun. Can you imagine what bands would have done with one of these back in the mid 80's. Nice review as always.
It’s not multi-touch. I don’t think you can combine two loops, but you can layer as many sounds as you want onto either channel/button. You can save loops, load them up again later and add to them and then re-save them again as a different loop.
Watching an older video like this really shows, how your video making skils have improved over the years. Keep up the good work, especially love your videos on old and forgotten odd devices!
Holding down function and using the slide strip does indeed work for selecting the functions.... unfortunately I didn't fully test every option. There are also shortcuts to the load/save menu by holding the function button and pressing loop 1 or 2. So apologies for the incomplete information, but as I mentioned, this video was a but of a rush-job. I've added an annotation to the video to explain this.
Many thanks for this info, I should really have really spent more time looking through the manual. I'll try an add an annotation to the video. I suppose more than musical ability, the user needs to be able to follow a beat and understand which sounds compliment each other. There definitely has to be some feeling there for what separates a good loop from a bad one.
I did think about royalty free music as a good use for this. I didn't get a penny for one of my most popular videos, the Open Pandora (200,000 views) because I used a piece of iMovie's copyright free piano music which youtube then erroneously matched with a completely different song of a Spanish bloke singing over a piano. So I won't use any copyright free music again, in case it accidentally matches with another song. I'm sure my musical creations from the Kaossilator won't match anything.
It never ceases to amaze me that you are able to find these devices. Like you, I have no aptitude for creating music, but I found this review both informative and entertaining. Thanks for posting. :)
9:27 ...the disadvantage you mention is easy to get around. The Quick Command for Load/Save Loops is just hold down the fnc button and press either I or II. You zip right to that function in the menu. To adjust Loop Length quickly, hold down I or II and slide on the slidebar (do not touch the pad or you'll accidentally record something). In the Kaossilator instruction-sheet (if you can find your language!) it does reveal quick commands to get to several menu items.
The Kaossilator 2 is the yellow one, producing sounds to record sound-loops. There is a red one of the same size called a Mini Kaoss Pad 2, which has few sound effects of its own but mainly effects that process and modify a sound input or .mp3 songs stored on the memory card. It is tremendous fun to jazz up the sound of your familiar music collection.
Great! I did my own review, "First Look" which focussed on the menus and especially info on quick commands which are important for quick change-ups during a live performance. Disadvantages: smaller pad than the K1, can't use a stylus like before -- and you'd better glue the little white plastic leg-pads securely or they may fall out on you! Advantages are many: more programs, new arpeggiator settings, 2 banks instead of 1, memory, built-in speaker and mic.
I've seen this complaint. The instructions for the Mini Kaoss Pad 2 say specifically that the output is deliberately limited to avoid draining the batteries any faster. You may want to add amplification. Probably the same for this Kaossilator 2 since the casing and battery power are the same.
There's no quantization in a Kaossilator. It is true the arpeggiator will hammer out notes in a consistent pattern according to the bpm, but you still have to start it in the right place. It will not correct or match up bad playing to the correct beat. You have to keep the beat yourself -- or break the rules like I did in my video Jazz Trance #5, playing triplet notes by hand or doing arpeggiator starts at odd places. For totally locked-on notes, get a Tenori On!
@@H.EL-Othemany The hell is wrong with you? I'm starting to think you all are just bots, being a waste of electricity. EDIT: seems you are alive, but there seems to be alot of people who say things like that in comments for no reason these days.
The answer is that sound on the K2 gets recorded only as a .wav file. You can also only play outside .wav files. On the Mini Kaoss Pad 2, though, it will take .wav or .mp3 . It is tremendous fun to take your whole mp3 collection and process the sound with the many MKP2 effects. You can even play freaked out Buddy Holly if you want! The small touchpad doesn't matter so much there except for the Pitch Looper and again you have the usual problem of hitting the right note on a small pad!
Be interesting to see what you made of the Mattel Optigan, it was a 1971 organ that used acitate like records to create backing tracks on an early type of musical keyboard, it some how read the audio using a light shining on an LDR. Mainly sold in the US, so never had chance to try one.
I've just picked up the Android version of the Kaossilator for $20. A little pricey for an app but so far it is fun to play with. I'm not a real musician by any stretch but I do enjoy playing around with electronic instruments.
Here's something you can try with one of these devises: put a post-it note on the touch pad and you can use a pen to lightly find what notes you want, and then made a darker mark. It's fun when you can repeat riffs.
The touchpad can only produce ONE sound at a time. Touching the pad in more than one place makes it average the finger-positions and use that position. You can record and add (overdub) sounds on two independent loops, whose beats are synchronized. Press once to turn a loop on or off, press and hold to record (or hold and touch slide-bar to vary loop length for a slicing effect.)
Another informative vid Techmoan. I'm at about the same level as you are with musical ability but that really looks like fun. Gonna get one. You know your vids are costing me a fortune! ;)
A small box with a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Love it. No doubt there's a whole raft of this sort of thing in this price range? Any Roland competition for instance (purely out of interest)?
I do not know why but the song at 7:23 reminds me of a section of the Top Gear theme tune (the bit where Jeremy Clarkson used to explain what was going to happen in the episode over the top of the song).
Have you tried the korg mini kaos pad 2 it goes really well with that kaossilator 2 . It is an effects prosser and sampler which goes great with the synthesizer, drum machine and sequencer / looper that that is .
I agree with you there, this kind of thing would be perfect for UA-cam music. I don't have the time, patience or inclination to work out how to use full audio creation software but I could muck about with one of these for hours anyway, no doubt getting something useful along the way. Now if I could find an App version of this for my touch screen phone...
Good thing about this is you don't necessarily need to have musical ability (much). It translates a little technical ability into music for you and sounds pretty good even if you don't know how to play a real instrument. I remember when you had to have a room full of machines linked with dozens of cables to do the same thing.
Love your reviews! i have no use for something like this but it was good to actually know what this actually is. Just a quick question unrelated to this. Any chance you can do a review on something that can scan old photo films, and puts them into a digital format? I have a old film camera but i hate having to go to asdas/tescos to get the film produced. thanks Marc
How about a review of an External Hard Drive? I recently bought this 1TB Toshiba drive, and I want to know if I made a good choice or what. So I request a review of an External Drive. Any brand/model. If that's OK with you. -Cheers-
I have one,.. buts it wasn't completed the last one,... I though that the 2nd generetion woulb b better n the sounds was more xtra ordinary,.. but.. the make the new one... I am still learning till now...
If you're reading this Korg engineer, I have an idea on how to improve switching between functions. In the next firmware update, make it so you can hold down the function button and use the slide strip.
I have a Kaossilator 1! It's clear Korg aimed to make something more portable than the first one, with an exclusion of RCA out and a better pocket form factor. This model clearly does more, but really loses some important hardware I think as others have pointed out. Still, a nifty thing to pocket with you if you need to create beats on the go.
The issue I had with the kaossilator was the pad is not accurate enough if you want to reliably hit notes unless you have a quantization setting on that splits the pad into just a handful of notes. So it's good if you want to experiment but poor if you have an idea for a melody and want to play specific notes.
This thing is pretty cool. Probably better off getting the morphwiz app for ipad or android. Its £6.99 so its pretty cheap (assuming you already have a tablet) and its got more features.
Is he Skrillex?! I have heard that alias before but on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game for Wii. An awesome player; great on your team, but the other team has No Fun In Stalingrad.
It's not MIDI-controllable. Doesn't appeal to the music PROGRAMMER, but for the spontaneous audio improviser type. You're recording only sounds and must keep the beat yourself. The Korg Kaossilator Pro, a big 3-pound model with green lights and 4 recording banks, has some MIDI functions with it.
It's kinda neat, I feel like they could have literally put a few extra buttons on it so you can skip right to the chords and bass, etc without having to scroll through the whole thing, but that's just me.
I owned the original Kaossilator. While it was fun to play with, I ultimately sold it to partially finance purchasing the Kaossilator Pro. When I saw that Korg was releasing a Gen 2 Kaossilator, I just had to have one, what with all the upgrades and such. here is the link to it in case anyone is interested:amzn.to\18aTVXK
Never knew such a thing was made. Looks like a lot of fun. Can you imagine what bands would have done with one of these back in the mid 80's.
Nice review as always.
It’s not multi-touch. I don’t think you can combine two loops, but you can layer as many sounds as you want onto either channel/button. You can save loops, load them up again later and add to them and then re-save them again as a different loop.
Watching an older video like this really shows, how your video making skils have improved over the years. Keep up the good work, especially love your videos on old and forgotten odd devices!
Holding down function and using the slide strip does indeed work for selecting the functions.... unfortunately I didn't fully test every option. There are also shortcuts to the load/save menu by holding the function button and pressing loop 1 or 2. So apologies for the incomplete information, but as I mentioned, this video was a but of a rush-job. I've added an annotation to the video to explain this.
Many thanks for this info, I should really have really spent more time looking through the manual. I'll try an add an annotation to the video. I suppose more than musical ability, the user needs to be able to follow a beat and understand which sounds compliment each other. There definitely has to be some feeling there for what separates a good loop from a bad one.
I did think about royalty free music as a good use for this. I didn't get a penny for one of my most popular videos, the Open Pandora (200,000 views) because I used a piece of iMovie's copyright free piano music which youtube then erroneously matched with a completely different song of a Spanish bloke singing over a piano. So I won't use any copyright free music again, in case it accidentally matches with another song. I'm sure my musical creations from the Kaossilator won't match anything.
An epic little device, synthesizer in your pocket.
The original Kaossilator had phono line outs, this one only has the headphone socket....which goes plenty loud enough.
It never ceases to amaze me that you are able to find these devices. Like you, I have no aptitude for creating music, but I found this review both informative and entertaining. Thanks for posting. :)
Korg also do the Kaosspad, but that's about it......other than various iPad apps.
9:27 ...the disadvantage you mention is easy to get around. The Quick Command for Load/Save Loops is just hold down the fnc button and press either I or II. You zip right to that function in the menu. To adjust Loop Length quickly, hold down I or II and slide on the slidebar (do not touch the pad or you'll accidentally record something). In the Kaossilator instruction-sheet (if you can find your language!) it does reveal quick commands to get to several menu items.
The Kaossilator 2 is the yellow one, producing sounds to record sound-loops. There is a red one of the same size called a Mini Kaoss Pad 2, which has few sound effects of its own but mainly effects that process and modify a sound input or .mp3 songs stored on the memory card. It is tremendous fun to jazz up the sound of your familiar music collection.
I fixed it.
The Koassilator isn't meant to be a serious instrument. It's supposed to be a toy to have fun with. You are doing it right!
Tell that to all the DJs using it.
I've been subscribed so long that videos I watched originally on this channel are now about retro gear.
There is a Kaossilator Pro+ that came out recently. It still has the tank-like case and more voices, but the same kind of controls with 4 sound-banks.
Great! I did my own review, "First Look" which focussed on the menus and especially info on quick commands which are important for quick change-ups during a live performance. Disadvantages: smaller pad than the K1, can't use a stylus like before -- and you'd better glue the little white plastic leg-pads securely or they may fall out on you! Advantages are many: more programs, new arpeggiator settings, 2 banks instead of 1, memory, built-in speaker and mic.
I've seen this complaint. The instructions for the Mini Kaoss Pad 2 say specifically that the output is deliberately limited to avoid draining the batteries any faster. You may want to add amplification. Probably the same for this Kaossilator 2 since the casing and battery power are the same.
There's no quantization in a Kaossilator. It is true the arpeggiator will hammer out notes in a consistent pattern according to the bpm, but you still have to start it in the right place. It will not correct or match up bad playing to the correct beat. You have to keep the beat yourself -- or break the rules like I did in my video Jazz Trance #5, playing triplet notes by hand or doing arpeggiator starts at odd places. For totally locked-on notes, get a Tenori On!
you were breaking traps like J Dilla
Would be a good device to have with you when you travel back in time to seem really futuristic
I did dispute it.....but they upheld the infringement claim. Its just one of those things.
Don't you mean Bang, another video? I've been trying to catch up on unfinished projects this weekend, I needed the space on my hard drive.
For someone with no musical knowledge, you managed to sound better :)
@@H.EL-Othemany The hell is wrong with you? I'm starting to think you all are just bots, being a waste of electricity. EDIT: seems you are alive, but there seems to be alot of people who say things like that in comments for no reason these days.
Infact a better demo than many musicians do...ive ben one over thirty years....could not do this!
The answer is that sound on the K2 gets recorded only as a .wav file. You can also only play outside .wav files. On the Mini Kaoss Pad 2, though, it will take .wav or .mp3 . It is tremendous fun to take your whole mp3 collection and process the sound with the many MKP2 effects. You can even play freaked out Buddy Holly if you want! The small touchpad doesn't matter so much there except for the Pitch Looper and again you have the usual problem of hitting the right note on a small pad!
just watched your car review and BUM, another video! :) Love your reviews! ;)
Looks far different from the original! Very nice indeed.
Be interesting to see what you made of the Mattel Optigan, it was a 1971 organ that used acitate like records to create backing tracks on an early type of musical keyboard, it some how read the audio using a light shining on an LDR. Mainly sold in the US, so never had chance to try one.
I've just picked up the Android version of the Kaossilator for $20. A little pricey for an app but so far it is fun to play with. I'm not a real musician by any stretch but I do enjoy playing around with electronic instruments.
Here's something you can try with one of these devises: put a post-it note on the touch pad and you can use a pen to lightly find what notes you want, and then made a darker mark. It's fun when you can repeat riffs.
The touchpad can only produce ONE sound at a time. Touching the pad in more than one place makes it average the finger-positions and use that position. You can record and add (overdub) sounds on two independent loops, whose beats are synchronized. Press once to turn a loop on or off, press and hold to record (or hold and touch slide-bar to vary loop length for a slicing effect.)
Another informative vid Techmoan. I'm at about the same level as you are with musical ability but that really looks like fun. Gonna get one. You know your vids are costing me a fortune! ;)
You should be Top Gear Narrator!
Only without saying "Cock!" every time he messes up...
A small box with a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Love it. No doubt there's a whole raft of this sort of thing in this price range? Any Roland competition for instance (purely out of interest)?
I remember a few years ago seeing the Kaossilator3 combined with a Bass in the form of the Ibanez Kaoss
I'm not sure that would make for an interesting review. I use a Drobo at the moment and it does the job for me.
Nice of Ringo Starr to post this.
Funny. You really know how to press my buttons (the wrong ones).
I do not know why but the song at 7:23 reminds me of a section of the Top Gear theme tune (the bit where Jeremy Clarkson used to explain what was going to happen in the episode over the top of the song).
I was stuck in the house over the weekend.
They are .wav files.
The app is available in iTunes. Works great with awesome graphics.
Have you tried the korg mini kaos pad 2 it goes really well with that kaossilator 2 . It is an effects prosser and sampler which goes great with the synthesizer, drum machine and sequencer / looper that that is .
7:25 that is some dope oldskool
I agree with you there, this kind of thing would be perfect for UA-cam music. I don't have the time, patience or inclination to work out how to use full audio creation software but I could muck about with one of these for hours anyway, no doubt getting something useful along the way. Now if I could find an App version of this for my touch screen phone...
Very good review, I like the colour of it too, and it is good that is now has a mini sd card slot.
I got a stupid question.
What do you use this device for ?
7 years later, I also want to know
Your little song was great haha!
Good thing about this is you don't necessarily need to have musical ability (much). It translates a little technical ability into music for you and sounds pretty good even if you don't know how to play a real instrument. I remember when you had to have a room full of machines linked with dozens of cables to do the same thing.
Love your reviews! i have no use for something like this but it was good to actually know what this actually is. Just a quick question unrelated to this. Any chance you can do a review on something that can scan old photo films, and puts them into a digital format? I have a old film camera but i hate having to go to asdas/tescos to get the film produced.
thanks
Marc
If youtube is insecure...there is very little I can do to fix it.
Can you hook this into an audio interface or PA speaker system for louder output? Think it would be the ultimate portable music device if so.
I'm looking at the Kaossilator Pro+ appears a bit bigger with feedback in the form of light.
back in the 80' it would have been a wonder machine for 'the art if noise' or ABC there was sampling a lot.
Fascinating gadget. Great review.
How about a review of an External Hard Drive? I recently bought this 1TB Toshiba drive, and I want to know if I made a good choice or what. So I request a review of an External Drive. Any brand/model. If that's OK with you. -Cheers-
What format does the sound get recorded to on the SD card? Liked the show. Thanks.
What type of amplification can you use, if you want to play the kaossilator live in concert, or at least in a coffeehouse?
it also has a mic on it too. Oh man this is good.
The kits sound quite tasty.
is there any way to get 16 measures of time instead of 8?
I think External HDD are pretty cut and dry. It either holds your data or you get another brand.
How big is the x-y touchpad? Please could you tell me as I am thinking of getting one. Thank you. :-)
My biggest complaint with the kaossilator is that it doesn't output midi
I have one,.. buts it wasn't completed the last one,... I though that the 2nd generetion woulb b better n the sounds was more xtra ordinary,.. but.. the make the new one...
I am still learning till now...
If you're reading this Korg engineer, I have an idea on how to improve switching between functions. In the next firmware update, make it so you can hold down the function button and use the slide strip.
Pretty fun looking thingy.
That's a nice gadget to help you create your own tunes while you are riding a bus or train. ;-)
150 voices, including drums and drum-patterns. For me it was $170 Canadian which is close to US.
this is ideal for youtubers whom has problems with music with this anyone can make music :D
I have a Kaossilator 1! It's clear Korg aimed to make something more portable than the first one, with an exclusion of RCA out and a better pocket form factor. This model clearly does more, but really loses some important hardware I think as others have pointed out. Still, a nifty thing to pocket with you if you need to create beats on the go.
Nathan Speer I have the one for effects.
Are you the guy who they used to make that text to speech voice thats always used in montage parodies etc?
y eso que donde se conecta o como funciona en el teclado
do you find it useful.
I assume you make little tunes with it for songs and stuff ?
So you can not record with this?
Give you a thumbs up ,, as usual and just realised you sound like John Peele
Looks like fun!
though there's probably a $5 app for it on your phone
redtails There's only an app for the Nintendo 3DS, which cost 30 GBP
play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.korg.kaossilator.android and similar apps.
There's the Kaossilator app for both iOS and Android
It's not £5 tho lol I prefer hardware I'm getting one of these
Oh man, I wanted a kaossilator for years :/
The issue I had with the kaossilator was the pad is not accurate enough if you want to reliably hit notes unless you have a quantization setting on that splits the pad into just a handful of notes. So it's good if you want to experiment but poor if you have an idea for a melody and want to play specific notes.
Is this same as kaos 1...
This thing is pretty cool. Probably better off getting the morphwiz app for ipad or android. Its £6.99 so its pretty cheap (assuming you already have a tablet) and its got more features.
Is he Skrillex?! I have heard that alias before but on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game for Wii. An awesome player; great on your team, but the other team has No Fun In Stalingrad.
I think the song you wrote was the inspiration for Get Schwifty.
Nice device!
Does it sync?
The description on the box kinda reminds me of the Synth and Son device from GTA Vice City world.
"You don't know you're a musician until you try!"
Łukasz Piotrowski I made that song just by pressing a button!
It's not MIDI-controllable. Doesn't appeal to the music PROGRAMMER, but for the spontaneous audio improviser type. You're recording only sounds and must keep the beat yourself. The Korg Kaossilator Pro, a big 3-pound model with green lights and 4 recording banks, has some MIDI functions with it.
Can it play mp3 files?
It's kinda neat, I feel like they could have literally put a few extra buttons on it so you can skip right to the chords and bass, etc without having to scroll through the whole thing, but that's just me.
Send it to 8-bit guy.
FlyingSurprise This video was 2012
Sybrand Botes sendto8bitguy
Costco batteries :)
more tat reviews please
Could you review a new 1080p car dvr on the market? it's on DealExtreme sku 130173
Looks like a nifty gadget, could make the next drum n bass club banger with that, if I had some, er talent
you have a great ear.
I owned the original Kaossilator. While it was fun to play with, I ultimately sold it to partially finance purchasing the Kaossilator Pro. When I saw that Korg was releasing a Gen 2 Kaossilator, I just had to have one, what with all the upgrades and such.
here is the link to it in case anyone is interested:amzn.to\18aTVXK
Mostly as a musical sketchpad/groove machine.
You are welcome.
2???? :O how I never heard of this.