Examining the Korg KR-55 and KR-55b Retro Analogue Rhythm Equipment

I have just lately procured and have been using the two the Korg KR-55 and KR-55b on some new Anjelicas Little one tracks. I seriously loved the fingers on use and retro audio of these two equipment. If you are into electronic, electronica, new wave, electro, synthpop, dance or pop tunes in normal you will like adding these appears to your tunes productions.

Produced in (1982), the Korg KR-55b was the successor to the common (1979) Korg KR-55. Korg ended up 1 of the businesses at the reducing edge of analogue know-how when all people was attempting to recreate the audio of a serious drum package. For its time it was innovative and incredibly effortless to operate. It experienced twice the allotted 48 drum programs of the KR-55 with a extremely handy change for shifting the swing time on some of the styles selected. On the other hand, on the KR-55 all of the patterns could use this swing operate considering the fact that now the new device had routed the swap for accessing the new bank of 48 preset drum designs. Also, the drum styles had been not similar to the authentic KR-55 with simply a new set of 48 plans additional for very good measure. For some this might be disappointing. For other individuals this expanded the styles of an or else restricted preset drum sample arrangement. Definitely, a person would need to have to individual each drum machines to realize this.

Interestingly, it could be utilised as a result in machine for other Korg synthesizers such as the Korg Delta. It had a foot peddle jack socket on the back again for plugging in a foot peddle for stopping and starting up the drum device and inserting drum fills in reside performances. The peddle came with the authentic device as standard as I bear in mind. It even had 6 knobs for controlling the drum volumes.

It was similar in lots of strategies to the Roland TR808 analogue drum equipment in phrases of its unwanted fat bass drum and electro like hi hats and snare and many others. So why did it not stand the exam of time like the Roland TR808 has?

Well both of those drum equipment experienced in the mid (1980’s) from the overriding want by artists to use the then really trendy digitally sampled seems from serious drum kits provided by, for case in point, the Fairlight Songs Laptop or computer.

Having said that, what may perhaps have saved the Roland TR808 was the heavy use of the drum equipment by the then new electro and hip-hop artists from the Usa particularly from New York.

Also, much more damming to the Korg KR-55 and KR-55b was the reality that the drum machine was preset and could not be programmed. It played in mono and had no different outs for each individual person drum and did not have any midi implementation.

Inspite of its downsides, it has held a cult like standing. Many feel that Depeche Mode utilized the KR-55 on their very first album Speak and Spell. To my ears I suspect this is legitimate. Also, they are pretty scarce these days and make an fascinating alternate to the done to demise TR808 and with contemporary pcs the seems and drumbeats can be conveniently recorded and edited in application deals such as Cubase or Logic. You can even get retro suits to maximize the sum of outputs the drum equipment has. They can be introduced for all over £150 or allows say $200-300. It is a fairly low-priced price considering what you can do with it as soon as you carry out it into a modern-day studio location.