MusicRadar

Like the microKorg, the microSampler comes with its own mic.

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• Review

Judging by the runaway success of the microKorg, it seems like the world really was looking for a small synth with a big sound. So what's next? How can Korg take the fun and portable music machine to the next level? By basing a new micro around the free-for-all world of sampling, that's how.

If you're going to do this, it's best to start off with plenty of sampling time – how about over 20 minutes, split over eight user banks? Each bank holds 36 individual samples, all of which can be played live on the 37-note mini keyboard or sequenced. And the onboard pattern sequencer features 16 patterns per bank, and can also be driven from an external source.

Look and feel

The machine has been given the style treatment with a distinctive recessed control panel, cool side arches and a gun-metal/blue plastic body. All in all it's got a bit of a futuristic SH-202 vibe about it, and the fact that it's battery powered adds to its cheeky, go-anywhere character.

It uses the same 37-note mini-keyboard as microKorg XL with blinking red LEDs above every key. All the dials and buttons are sunk in to the moulded bodywork, with chicken head pointers standing a little bit taller than the surface.

It's worth pointing out the pair of recessed inlets topside, which are ideal for your iPod or iPhone (perhaps to sample from?) but as there's no dock connector at the base of these they're equally at home carrying Twiglets or grapes, too. There's also an XLR mic-input in the middle of the front panel.

For programming, you get an LCD display, with a thoughtful power save mode that dims the lighting to make the most of your set of batteries.

On the back we have MIDI In/Out, headphone and line level stereo ins and outs on 1/4-inch jacks plus a little twist stick for setting the recording gain. Finally, there's a USB port which handles communication with the software editor/librarian and doubles as a MIDI interface for the unit.

Overview

The machine comes loaded with one bank of onboard sounds stored in ROM. Each bank consists of 36 individual samples, which can be played in two modes – keyboard and sample.

Keyboard mode is for playing polyphonically, and maps one sample over the entire keyboard. Polyphony is decent enough at 14 notes, but this drops to half when using the timestretching mode for the samples.

There's a dedicated dial to choose the sample, and as it rotates the little dots light up above the keys to show the position visually. Speaking of which, there are more buttons to jump between this Keyboard mode and the more enticing sounding Sample.