I’ve been a fan of Korg for a long time. Very long. Long like, “I went to the Korg office in Melville, NY trying to get a tour and was shooed away like a gawking fly” long. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent playing around in the big music stores – gushing over the sounds of the N264, Triton Extreme-88, and the all-new M3-88 Key workstation behemoth (one day… it will be mine.. one day..). I’ve always seen the music on one side a badly playing hand (I’m not very good at music.. I just love trying), while the other does design and all things Adobe. I don’t know why – I just didn’t think I had the time or energy to put them together for something quick yet cool.

How wrong I was. Enter, the KAOSSILATOR.

Why am I interested in this?

(Pronounced: Chaos-ilator)
The KAOSSILATOR is a pocket sized instrument thing – battery powered and portable. It combines the synths technology Korg is good for, and their KAOSS pad. It’s pretty simple to use – dial in a beat and hit start (or tap one out if you’re rhythmically inclined). Drag your finger over the left and right sides of the pad to change pitch. Moving up and down over the pad controls a bunch of other things like cutoff, feedback, modulation depth, and so on. You can change keys for scale, do loop-based recording, and it includes instrument sounds.. all organized so that you can just drag your finger over it. If you use a trackpad on a computer, you can jam in no time.

So, why do I like this?
When working in multimedia projects (After Effects, Premiere, Flash, Audition) – I’m always on the hunt for two things: inspiration, and short music pieces. I’m addicted. I can never get enough of them! However, if you use the same tools as everyone else does – you are going to run into your 30 second sound intro somewhere on the internet. Trust me. Whenever I run into a track I’ve used in something, it just makes me think to myself “Man.. I totally should have been more original”.

The portability of the KAOSSILATOR lets me carry this thing around and noodle out ideas when I want. It’s not a keyboard (nor is it replacing one), but it’s got a great set of sounds for you to play with ideas. Portability and power – that’s a plus.

It’s got a dual RCA out, which means that it’s a short splitter away from me taking it into a computer to use as a fresh idea for a creation. And it’s all mine – I can even sound cool, if you like that techy sound. I think I’m going to use one on a “Web Only” Episode and just let you guys check out how to do it.

For more information on this, go and visit the Korg Website. You can get them at places like Guitar Center, Sam Ash, or any place cool music gear is sold.