Brett Siler wrote:ofajen wrote:
This week I picked up yet another Korg PME 40X board with three modules I didn't already have: the relatively uncommon Octave V, along with the Digital Delay and Distortion:
Cheers,
Otto
I always wondered what one of these sounded like. They look cool.
They sound about as good as anything that messes with the sound, IMO. The PSU and switching is all in the base unit, and the power supply is 15V. The modules slide in and out and just contain the active circuitry. The input impedance of the base unit is 1 megohm, so you don't load your instrument signal down. I"ve used them for decades on everything from synths to Stick to bass and guitar. Now that I'm using an Otari 8-track on the "low" level setting, I can run signals directly from these boards into the tape inputs or process tracks directly off the machine at mix time. I suppose it's my analog equivalent to plug-ins.
The Octave V is interesting in that it has divide by 4, 3, 2, 1 and .5, and each one has both volume and distortion controls.
The Dist(ortion) Wah is really insane. The filter sweep can go up or down, starting about anywhere, with a controls for sensitivity, resonance and distortion and it has modes for LPF, HPF, bandpass and BP + lows.
The Compressor is amazing in that it is simple to use, and has proper set up so that guitar and similar instruments can have moderate to ridiculous sustain while still having decent control over the amount of attack.
The Analog Delay is good and I'm really liking this Digital Delay.
The Graphic EQ is really good, too.
The Flanger has positive and negative feedback and creates some really cool sounds.
I'm just getting to know the Distortion box and it's really cool. The tone control doesn't just seem to be a simple low pass filter. All the way up it seems to keep the highs but kill the lows, while sweeping down brings back the lows and rolls off highs. Hard to describe, but it offers a lot more range of tone than I expected.
The Overdrive has a delicious crunch, especially once it goes through the amp. The tone seems to be more or less a LPF, so the range of tones is mainly from the drive setting and how you play.
I kinda wish they'd made a tremolo module, but hey, that's what the Traynor's for.
Cheers,
Otto