Synth Site |  Korg |  Electribe ES-1

soundquality of the "preset"samples is very good.....default patterns and songs are also of very good quality...it really sounds good...no strange compression-artifacts or something..the ES-1 probably has flash-RAM to maintain the sample-memory.... or maybe some standard samples in ROM...

interface is very easy to get used to...just select one of the 9 parts (and 3 parts extra, accent, slice and audio-in), and you will see the positions of the hits in the pattern....easy to program....real 909 like stuff......recording of sequences can be done in realtime or with the grid....if i remember correctly i didn't had to stop the sequence playing to reprogram it...can be done while playing.....

when a part is selected you can enable effect and modify effect-parameters, filter, pitch, level and pan..there is a global delay that can be BPM-synced...

changes to the above parameters can be recorded in realtime with the motion-sequencer.....very easy to use....

didn't checkout the way patterns are used for songs, but you can easily mute and solo the parts, and i guess/hope that these mutes can also be recorded as part of the song....

one negative point: i was hoping that the price would be like the ER-1 and EA-1, but it was higher...1350 dutch guilders for the ES-1, and 899 guilders for the ER-1 and EA-1, so the ES1 is 1,5 the price of the older electribes...

sampling-rate is 32KHz, no other samplerates i believe, but there is a decimator-effect to get those lofi bitrate-effects...

it can resample through all the effects and motion-sequences....it also can slice up a sample-loop in different hits (like recycle) and you then can modify the seperate parts of the loop in realtime....(slice option)

conclusion: this is a very fine tool...very creative..and the pitch-parameter doesn't limit you to only beats, but also melodies can be programmed...

Olaf