Do you have to’re a fan of Korg’s Volca lineup, then there’s a respectable chance you may have heard the title Retrokits sooner than. The company builds a bunch of useful devices for benefiting out of your digital music setup, nevertheless its particularly designed MIDI cable that gives choices like velocity administration to the Volca FM have confirmed pretty frequent. The newest member of its lineup though, is sort of a bit additional daring.
The RK-008 is a full fledged MIDI administration coronary heart. It’s an eight observe MIDI sequencer and recorder, which allows it to be the glue that retains your rig collectively. It moreover has a built-in metronome that may help you retain in time alongside along with your gadgets, which is crucial since all MIDI information is recorded unquantized. (Though you could quantize it after the actual fact, after which undo within the occasion you need to return to your distinctive sloppy having fun with.)
Each observe can report on various channels, so you could actually administration various items from a single observe, leaving the other seven open for… rather more items? You probably may even report eight parts all through the eight tracks, then consolidate them right down to no less than one, liberating up additional room for sequencing. And naturally you could overdub or overwrite any performances.
Each of the tracks may be manipulated independently too. Allowing you to quantize them, add swing or transpose them. And it’s all non-destructive, so you could merely undo your modifications.
There’s moreover a simple step sequencer built-in to the RK-008. It’s most likely not gonna work for superior chords, nevertheless does the job merely constructive it seems for 4 on the bottom drums.
There’s two MIDI inputs and two MIDI outputs on the once more, plus a separate devoted sync port. Tracks may be assigned to no less than one or every outputs, which is helpful within the occasion you’ve got obtained that one drum machine that insists on having each instrument on a separate channel. The two in ports means you could merge MIDI from fully totally different sources, however moreover use fully totally different controllers for numerous gadgets.
It’s pretty a operate document as is, and Retrokits says there’s nonetheless additional to be revealed, which is extraordinarily spectacular for one factor that seems like pocket calculator from the Eighties — and I suggest that as an excellent issue. The RK-008 seems half MPC, half HP calculator, might most likely slot in a pocket and however seems in a position to controlling an entire reside music rig.
There are nonetheless some glorious questions though, most importantly when it could possibly come out and the way in which loads it could possibly value. Nonetheless hopefully we’ll uncover out forward of later.
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