Korg zero 8

http://www.korg.com/gear/prod_info.a...&category_id=2

I know I want one....anybody else heard anything about them?

It's very nice, but My Novation Remote SL25 will do me for now. At about 4 times the price I'd probably think twice about wether I really need it regardless.

Still it's probably one of the best pieces of gear to have come out for 6 months IMO. I love the Analog/ MIDI hybrid idea.

Control surfaces and MIDI controllers in gereral have come a long way lately, and I think this is only the tip of the iceberg :)

I will recieve mine any day now....!!

Waiting....waiting....waiting....

OK.

My initial impressions were....WOW!!

An extremely flexible piece of kit that allows me to use two machines and still have room for Ableton channels.

The effects pad is great and can be assigned in a variety of ways that offer flexibility and playability.

However, it is a bit noisy on the outputs with a definite hiss that seems excessive for a mixer of this calibre. I am investigating further. I know of one other user who also noticed the hiss/noise and finds it unacceptable.

I have yet to investigate the midi functionality but it seems straight forward and flexible.

I'll report back some more info later.

So far the noise issue has been noted by Korg and most likely will be fixed with a firmware update.
However, I have noticed that the noise is not present most of the time, only when you first start up the console.

Yesterday, I was able to map the inputs and outputs of the console so that my DAW app (Tracktion 2) could process the inputs from my hardware and then send it back to the console for output to main PA. This allowed me to use any VST sound processing plugin in realtime in order to process the raw audio from hardware before presentation to PA.
For someone on a budget this means that powerful sound sculpturing is available in software form rather than expensive hardware!! (so goodbye hardware comp and EQ and my Live rig just got a whole lot lighter!).

The firewire interface was able to be run at 48k sample rate with a set 6ms latency with no problems after running all day. I will try and trim down the latency further.

My Live rig now will consist of the EMX, ESX, Zero 8 and laptop. I will incorporate Ableton 6 after my next gig and start using it to add further sonic possibilities...

I want. Now time to ditch my MicroKontrol, and rob some grannies.

Good if you need a mixer that acceps external as well as something that operates as a controller.

But if it`s something for a lappy based pa it`s too much money and has more features than you need.

A Laptop and a Novation Remote Zero will do the job just fine