Once again Korg has put out something very impressive! It's new keyboard called the Karma.. Go to www.sweetwater.com to look at it. Interesting color too. Never seen a board this color before. Check out the features on this beast....

Squeak

Oops my bad guys!!!! wrong site... It's at www.music123.com I was just at the sweetwater site, and that one was fresh in my mind.. Sorry about that guys...

Squeak

it looks close to the trinity .the color looks like a dark red.and the screen seems to be colored just like the KN6000.

------------------
vic

infact I was wrong about the colored screen ...


[This message has been edited by vic83 (edited 01-19-2001).]

Hey Vic, nice job hunting this Karma down! In the expanded image on the music123 site, the screen does appear to be multi-colored.

I had been complaining about how the PA-80 lacked expansion slots and a MOSS option. The Karma has them. I have been complaining about Yamaha and Solton with their lack of real time controllers; Karma has them. And they are used for reducing the fatigue associated with arps and auto-accompaniment.

Unfortunately (for me), only 61 keys (without speakers) and no vocal harmony. But it will sure be interesting to see how this new "arranger" concept plays out. So far, this is the big news from NAMM!

I thought the karma is a synthsiser!

------------------
vic

All arrangers are synthesizers. They add to synthesis technology the ability to generate rhythmic and melodic patterns as a function of chord recognition. Arpeggiators and drum machines play rhythmic and melodic patterns, but without chord recognition. Current groove machines have arpeggiators with real-time control over the groove of a rhythmic pattern; groove machines, like the Yamaha DJX series, are mostly used for techno and trance music. I have looked briefly at U.S. Patent 6,103,964 (to Stephen Kay), which appears to cover some of the technology used in the Karma. The Karma might be a glorified groove machine, but it sounds like it will be applicable to the wide range of music that arrangers typically address. It is hard to tell whether it has any actual chord-recognition ability.

However, unlike the Korg PA-80, which held back on its Triton implementation, the Karma appears to be a Triton with Auto-Accompaniment. It can exchange sounds with the Triton, and accepts Triton expansion boards and the MOSS board. 32MB of ROM is standard, as on the Triton. Expansion is available to bring it to 64MB, which is currently state of the art.

As far as I can tell, there is no mass storage, and nothing is said about custom "Generated effects". So the Karma may not be amenable to the friendly style-making and exchange communities that we have been developing in the arranger community.

As the proud owner of a Wavestation AD, I hope this is not another great technology that gets abandoned by Roland.

[This message has been edited by Clif Anderson (edited 01-20-2001).]

Clif,

I am sure that Karma is a nice-sounding instrument, if you like Korg sounds - to my ear the previous Korgs all sounded to synthsy, though I am still waiting to hear the PA-80.

However, for all its arpeggiators, I don't think Karma is an arranger keyboard, although it may be helpful in adding variety and randomness to the music. It is possible that you may simulate the accompaniment, but to me the amount of work and the end result would be similar to just sequencing the song.

Regards,
Alex

PS what do you think Korg will call the rack-mountable version? Karma on the Rack? or Rack of Karma?

Hi Alex

I am afraid you are probably right about the limitations of the Karma for accompaniment. Still, I hope someone will allow real-time control of style parameters, such as groove.

Does anyone know if the Karma keyboard has
actual style pattern built in that can be used
as a basis for its algorithmic features. Are
those features real time or just available when
sequencing? I think the next generation of arrangers
will have to combine pre-set styles (as we currently
have) with some built in real time algorithm to vary
those styles. Most arranger keyboard players get tired
of the styles because they become too predictable and this is true to day when there are many styles available. Style morphing on the Roland keyboards helps a bit but real time algorithms to vary the style (and not just the groove, but the pattern, harmony, voicing) are needed.

Has anyone played the Karma?

Sam