Need some help with equipment, kaossilator pro, kp3 or sp 404?

[pelle]

Hello, I'm a psy/goa trance addict that would need some tips from some of you guys or girls that make electronic music. I am a REAL newbie so help me out eh?

For a few months ago I bought a korg kaossilator (a dynamic phrase synthesizer) and I started doing some tunes on it, I think its great for making small loops but I lack some things:
*Playing music that is longer than 16 beats without restarting/clearing the song
*Modifying the sound in various ways since
*Better sound quality, compared to the drum/synth/general sounds in a normal song a kaossilator sounds much worse

What I want is some solution so I can play:
*equipment that doesnt need a computer or screen
*that I can play the music live without pre recorded stuff, just start playing. This is mainly because I love to just sit with some friends and take turns to make some tunes.
*I would rather not use a keyboard but prefer to use the arpeggio functions since its faster, but I can play a bit... (or is it needed?)

I am not interested in programs like Abelton live or Fruity Loops, since I dont particulary enjoy sitting in front of my computer when making music, neither do I think that it should take such time. I like the "on the fly" way much better.

Then I started to research different "sound machines", like in this song the guy uses a kaossilator, kp3 and sp 404 to make good tunes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdyZNm8U7dE
I think he uses the kaossilator to give sound, and as a synth using the arpeggio. Then he uses the sp 404 to save clips of the song (since its a sampler) and the kp3 to modify the sound.

Since I aim to make music that has the same style as my favourite artists like shpongle, kraftwerk and astral projection I think I would need a mixer/effects sampler to make the different goatrance sound "morphs" and also a sampler to make something longer than a few seconds and to join different parts of a song. It also seems I would need to either get a kaossilator pro because I dont particulary like the kaossilators sound quality.

The question I have for you is:
Is my assumption that all three equipment types are needed to make EDM music?
And is there any alternative gear in the approx same price class? (each of these components costs about 350USD)
Do you have any experience with the quality of these equipments?
Some of these products have overlapping functions, is there any way to avoid that?
Does the kp3 support mixing of each of the four tracks individually?
Can I adjust the volume on each unit individually?

[Nicky H]

Yah get one of these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZaqlSudOuw

[pelle]

Thanks for the answer Nicky, but could you elaborate on why?

Since my music vocabulary sucks I decided to throw up a small page with the sounds that I would like to make with my future "musicstudio" when playing around.

I recorded some bits from some trance songs and put them up on http://gambit.0sites.net/music/
And if you know the proper terminology for the sounds just tell me.

The EMX1 seems nice, although a bit expensive. But can it play the "oldschool trance" sounds? Can it add effects like the Korg KP3 to the sound?

[djfrogstar]

Ive got two of emx, and a esx and kaossilator pro and kp3...

EMX can do psytrance easilly

1. 5 synths... you can automate motion data
2. 9 drum parts... you can do builds and so forth and have an overview of the whole song structure
3. appegriator ribbon
4. its really cheap if you think about it.. 500$
5. lots of fx
5. The sound will be warmer than anything coming off a laptop because of the tube preamps.( i installed groove tubes and its has serious punch)


yes a kaossilator pro is good.. thats and added bonus you can feed into the electribe.. and use gates and stuff to modulate that even further

[ame]http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS391&q=elect ribe+emx+trance&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CulSvxP CHTOuSLI6EygSBj9D8BAAAAKoEBU_QM83s#hl=en&rlz=1G1GG LQ_ENUS391&q=electribe+emx+trance&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=vid:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wv&fp=96be009 0bc5489ce[/ame]

[pelle]

djfrogstar:
And the most important question, if I buy an EMX-1 do I need to have a sampler like SP 404 or KP3 or can it do simple sampling operations?

[djfrogstar]

its not the sampler version... The ESX is the sampler one( the red version)

[djfrogstar]

well the little kaossilator is pretty good.. no midi though... I have both the mini kp mini kaossilator and the pro versions.. also have the 404.. never even turned it on lol.. I got it right before moving from germany back to the states.. ,,, it has fx so combined with the kp3 you can get all that dmt face sliding stuff if thats what your after... but imho... the electribe is much more powerfull.. just because of having more control over each element...

alot has to do with the user and how they use it all...

[pelle]

Hello again.

I just wanted to say that I bought my EMX-1 a few days ago and I feel
very happy with it! Thank you for the great advice and.

When I came home with the Box I felt like a little boy again playing with my new toy
Sitting there and testing out all the settings was pure joy, and the machine sounds soo nice compared to my kaossilator, I am so happy that I asked on the net before buying since I wouldnt have found out this machine without you guys!

I already managed to get some groovy tunes together and I like to work with the EMX-1.