KORG KARMA

Aug 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By David Battino

Click here to access files referenced in this article

After unleashing the Triton proX, winner of the 2000 EM Editors' Choice award for keyboard synthesizer, Korg probably could have coasted for a few years. The obvious next step would have been to play the specs game, repackaging the Triton technology with more oscillators or sample ROM and a snazzy new name.

Instead, Korg tripled the Triton's CPU power but left the proven audio engine, devoting the additional mojo to a sophisticated MIDI processor that redefines how the synth interacts with its player. There's also good news for those who haven't been able to afford a Triton: Korg shaved $750 off of the new instrument's retail price by trimming some features many musicians won't miss.

The result is a monster of a keyboard called Karma. Playing it reminds me why I got into electronic music: the Karma provides that magical combination of instant gratification and enormous potential that makes you want to jam until your fingers fall off.

If you've seen the Karma and dismissed it as a mondo arpeggiator or a hip auto-accompaniment keyboard, you're wrong. Arpeggiators simply spit out sequences of notes, whereas the Karma shapes those notes in real time to reflect what you're playing, altering tempo, Velocity, filtering, and more. For example, the Karma's Magic Flute Combi generates trails of pulsating, arpeggiated echoes from each note you play in the top three octaves of the keyboard. When you change the chord in the bottom two octaves, the flute echoes automatically transpose to fit. Flick the joystick, and a percolating guitar arpeggio in the lower region transforms into a strum.

Auto-accompaniment keyboards also alter their prerecorded riffs in response to chord changes, though generally just by making simple transpositions or riff substitutions. The Karma can trigger riffs too, but they can be altered in real time by MIDI or set to evolve automatically. The latter option makes the Karma similar to algorithmic software such as SoundTrek's Jammer or PG Music's Band-in-a-Box, except that Karma doesn't make you input chord progressions first.

KARMA SUTRA

Although it looks reddish in many photos, the Karma is actually an attractive pinkish purple (see Fig. 1). The center section is made of brushed aluminum, and the end caps are plastic. A plastic door at the top left pops open to reveal two sockets for Korg's growing range of EXB-PCM sample-ROM expansion cards ($240 each). The door feels flimsy, but you probably won't be opening it often. Nonetheless, the door makes adding expansion cards easier than with the Triton. Compared with the Triton, though, the Karma's back panel is short one pair of assignable audio outputs (see Fig. 2).

A slot on the underside of the Karma accepts the EXB-MOSS card ($600), a physical-modeling synthesizer board derived from the Korg Z1. Except for the KARMA Real-time Controls section (eight knobs and three switches that control the MIDI processor), the rest of the knobs and switches are functionally equivalent to those on the Triton, though more of them have assignable functions. The Karma also includes four illuminated Chord Trigger buttons.

If you've used Korg workstations in the past dozen years, you'll recognize the Karma's logical, menu-driven screen layout. Unfortunately, the instrument comes with four densely written manuals, which, in combination with an often cryptic display, make learning to use the Karma slower than necessary. However, Korg posted searchable PDFs of the manuals on its Web site, and the Karma user-group site has many helpful tips (see the table “Online Karma”).

The Karma easily loaded the Triton patches and songs I downloaded from Korg's Web site and transferred to disk. (In Korg's nomenclature, patches can be one- or two-oscillator Programs or multi-Program Combinations [Combis] that contain as many as eight Programs arranged as splits, layers, or multitimbral sequencer templates.)

Loading Triton patches revealed how much the Karma's real-time MIDI processor enhances its sound. All the Triton patches come up with a generic arpeggiator preset, whereas Karma's versions of the same patches are complex, dynamic symphonies of sound that twist and evolve under your fingertips.

TRITON TRUE?

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of what makes the Karma unique, it's important to describe the differences between the new instrument and its progenitor, the Triton. (See the January 2000 issue or visit www.emusician.com for a Triton review.) The relative importance of the Karma's missing features versus the power of the new MIDI-processing capabilities depends on your needs as a musician.

Sampling. The Triton offers stereo sampling, and its audio inputs can be used for real-time signal processing. The Karma provides no sampling or sample importing. Because so many music styles depend on sampling, I wish the Karma had a flash RAM slot and could import samples from a computer.

Outputs. The Triton has six analog outputs to the Karma's four. But with the Karma's flexible routing and high-quality effects, two fewer outputs are not that much of a disadvantage. (The effects are identical to those on the Triton.)

Interfacing. The Triton has a serial MIDI interface to a Mac or PC and the option to install a SCSI port; the Karma has neither. However, without sampling capabilities, the Karma would gain negligible benefit from SCSI.

Display. The Triton's touch-sensitive display is 320 by 240 pixels, whereas the Karma uses the same 240-by-64 screen as the Triton-Rack. The smaller display is frustratingly cramped and cryptic; some letters are only 3 by 4 pixels. Unlike the Triton-Rack, the Karma has navigation buttons that are so distant from its data-increment buttons that you have to use both hands to make adjustments.

Keyboard. The Triton is available in 88-, 76-, and 61-key versions (as well as a rack-mount model), but the Karma comes only in a 61-key configuration. The Triton's Yamaha action is crisper than the Fatar action on the Karma. I thought that would bother me, but I became used to the Karma keys quickly. However, the Karma's Aftertouch is a bit squishy.

Power supply. The Triton's power supply is internal; the Karma has a line lump.

Ribbon. The Triton has a ribbon controller, and the Karma has a boatload of performance knobs and switches, giving it the advantage.

Arpeggiators. The Triton has dual polyphonic arpeggiators. The Karma has the vastly more powerful MIDI-processing technology called Kay Algorithmic Real-time Music Architecture (KARMA).

GIMME A KAY

Korg licensed KARMA from musician and programmer Stephen Kay, who has been refining the software for seven years; he's won six patents so far. Kay is also the creator of some brilliant factory demos for Korg synths dating back to the O1/W. He developed KARMA to assist in his own compositions.

At the heart of KARMA are 1,190 Generated Effects (GEs), algorithms that transform the notes you play or changes you make to a knob, a joystick, or another MIDI controller into new musical gestures. For example, if you play a three-note chord with the Spanish Gtr C6-> Program, you hear it arpeggiated over two octaves. Move one finger to a new note, and depending on the note's Velocity relative to the previous Velocity value, the new arpeggio plays faster or slower, which is quite expressive. Release the chord, and the arpeggio slows down and fades away.

If you play some notes in the keyboard's top octave (above C6), their pitches are ignored, but each new key press advances the arpeggio pattern by one note. I spent hours playing the Program. While your left hand grabs simple block chords, your right is free to control timing and Velocity; the result is less thinking and more expression.

The real magic comes when you apply Karma's other controllers to the sound. Each GE has more than 400 parameters, as many as 16 of which are mapped to the Karma's hardware controllers (see Fig. 3). In the Spanish Gtr Program, available parameters include Swing Percentage, Note Duration, Note Randomize, and Clock Advance. A Scene button lets you store two sets of knob-and-switch configurations per Program and flip between them. So far, I've been describing Scene 2 of Spanish Gtr; in Scene 1, Clock Advance is disabled, so playing chords produces a strum rather than an arpeggio. Those control capabilities are in addition to the familiar Triton knobs for filter cutoff and other sound shaping.

The eight knobs are laid out in two rows of four, but the corresponding onscreen knobs are laid out in two columns of four. That arrangement took some getting used to. On certain GEs, some knobs are configured to switch among a small number of values; however, the display doesn't indicate how many values are in the list, which makes it tricky to dial in precise settings. For example, Knob 3 might call up four snare patterns, but you will have to experiment to discover which of them is active at the 12 o'clock position. I wish it were possible to name the controller assignments myself; during performance, “Dive Bomb Amount” might jog my memory faster than “Bend End %.”

GE BRINGS GOOD THINGS

I mentioned some of what an arpeggio GE can do, but 14 additional categories of GEs include Keyboard, Bell/Mallet, Acoustic Mono, Ethnic, Guitar, Bass, Synth, Pad Motion, Sound Effect (SE), Gated, and Drum Pattern. Because they're hooked into the synth engine, the GEs can control pitch bend, LFO depth, envelopes, filtering, and more. The idea is to produce idiomatically correct instrumental parts, and generally, the GEs succeed. Adding KARMA to the normally tame Harmonica Program produces fuzzed-out scoops and tonguing effects. In the Marimba Vel/AT Program, high Velocities trigger mallet rolls, with Aftertouch controlling their tempo and volume.

You can run as many as four GEs in a Combi or song, making the Karma really come alive. Some Combis are so rhythmically dense that they play themselves, emulating jazz trios and progressive-rock jams. I mapped a footswitch to toggle KARMA on and off so I could catch my breath. On other Combis, the accompaniments are more subdued. I happily played David Gilmour esque solos on the New Breed of Gtr Combi while a KARMA-generated drummer improvised a backbeat and tom fills. Incidentally, several Karma factory patches are so loud that they distort internally. Lowering the volume slider will fix that during performance; for a permanent repair, lower the Level slider on the Performance Edit screen and resave the patch.

When it comes to animated synth pads, the Karma is a behemoth. Dial up the /\Gods Bathtub/\ Combi, walk your fingers up and down the Chord Trigger buttons, and you'll see what I mean. No synth since the Wavestation has caught my ear that way. The Wavestation stood out in a mix often too much because of its percolating textures, but the Karma makes sounds that evolve timbrally and harmonically.

You might wonder what one-finger chord buttons are doing on a professional synth. The four Chord Triggers have some surprisingly useful applications. Each button can store a chord with as many as eight notes. You can enter the notes all at once or individually, which means that you can capture spread-out harmonies that would be impossible to play otherwise.

Korg provided appropriate chords for most Programs and Combis, which makes auditioning sounds a snap. Many preset chords feature luscious harmonies. Whenever I found one, I called up the Note Activity screen, revealing the chord's name and the notes for an instant music-theory lesson (see Fig. 4).

The Chord Triggers are also handy for soloing, firing off difficult chord progressions, and preserving interesting harmonies you stumble across while improvising. By pressing the Latch button, you can free up your left hand to operate the knobs and joystick while your right hand wails.

BEYOND SEQUENCING

While playing the Karma, I repeatedly happened upon fortunate sonic accidents, not to mention licks no human could play. Luckily, the built-in 16-track sequencer makes capturing and developing such moments reasonably convenient. You can copy a Combi to a song with four clicks, setting up eight tracks with the proper sounds and effects. (Strangely, copying a single Program to a song requires dozens of keystrokes.) When you punch Record, the sequencer memorizes the notes and control data that you and KARMA generate. Even spiraling harp glissandi show up in the event list as editable notes.

Recording multiple GEs (such as a drum pattern, guitar strum, and bass line to accompany your soloing) requires you to arm multiple tracks. There's a hidden danger, though, because enabling the Multitrack Recording mode arms all 16 tracks. The Karma's sequencer then divides its available memory by 16 and then again by 2 to allow for the Undo buffer. In this case, the 200,000 available MIDI events are suddenly reduced to just 6,250 per track. Because KARMA generates so much MIDI data, you can easily max out the memory after 32 bars or so. If that happens, everything you've played since you last hit the Record button is erased without warning. Even though previously recorded data remains intact, the threat of unexpectedly losing a take in progress is a major annoyance. I wish that the sequencer displayed a real-time memory meter and saved recordings in progress.

The work-around is to determine which tracks need to record data and then disable the rest. A slicker method is to turn the Local Control parameter off and loop the Karma's MIDI output through an external sequencer. The returning MIDI data then triggers the KARMA effects, and only the notes you play and Control Changes (CC) you make are recorded in the external sequencer. To capture the whole shebang in the external sequencer for detailed editing, leave the Local Control parameter on.

You can do some fairly deep editing in Karma's sequencer, which is identical to the Triton's (with a less informative screen). You can transpose pitch and scale the Velocities of ranges of notes (a handy feature for remapping drum parts), quantize with variable intensity (though not with swing), create CC ramps, and more. A Pattern feature allows you to record single-track performances and quickly insert them at different sections in the song; Korg supplies 150 preset Patterns. The innovative Real-time Pattern Play/Recording (RPPR) feature lets you trigger Patterns from the keyboard as a sequence plays.

THE BEST IS YET TO KARMA

After devoting seven years to KARMA, Stephen Kay isn't about to give up. He and Korg are discussing the possibility of releasing software that will let Karma users create new GEs. (The synth has memory to store more GEs, but it will require an OS update to load them.)

Kay also hopes to release a standalone software version of KARMA (see Fig. 5), though it's hard to imagine how it will integrate as tightly with a generic MIDI setup as with the Karma keyboard. “It helps to have a flexible system like the Triton sound engine, in which many things, such as the filter settings and various parameters of the insert effects, are controllable via MIDI,” Kay says. “It also helps having an international team of programmers spending more than a year creating all the GEs and Combis.”

I suggested that a standalone version might be tighter if it included a software synth or ran on Korg's OASYS sound card, and Kay was receptive. “I have many plans for KARMA,” he says. “I'm already working on new features.”

Keep your eye on Korg's Web site for downloadable Karma OS updates. Users of Karma OS 1.0.2 or earlier should grab the latest version (currently 1.0.4), which fixes a sustain-pedal issue that eats up polyphony. Updating the OS is easy; just download three files, transfer them to three floppy disks, and feed the disks to the Karma sequentially.

IS IT CHEATING?

I've heard the Karma described as “a beer commercial in a box.” I've also seen some discussions online about Karma leading to the “death of musicianship.” I've come to believe the opposite is true. Yes, it is easy to get impressive-sounding results right away, but unless you make some effort, they'll start to sound stale pretty quickly. The Karma is meant to be played. You need to dive in and wield those knobs to bring out its (and your) true personality.

I have read hundreds of posts from Karma owners, doubters, and cravers. Some have rejected the Karma because it doesn't have Triton features such as sampling and an internal power supply or because they didn't grasp that KARMA is far more than a fancy arpeggiator. The happiest ones seem to be those who just let KARMA wash over them, building on its collaborative suggestions. One enthusiast wrote, “It's as if I had another musician to jam with who came up with some cool, original ideas.”

Admittedly, the Karma has a few problems. As a workstation, it comes up a bit short; you'll need to add a computer or hard-disk recorder to create productions with vocals or instrumental overdubs. When I ran the Karma in tandem with my sampler, it added a whole new dimension of realism and character. However, if you have even basic keyboard skills, if you've been frustrated by the obstacles you need to overcome to record your ideas, or if you don't mind getting a platter of new ideas delivered every time you punch up a preset, the Karma is worth a close listen.

I predict that thousands of open-minded musicians will be scooping up Karmas. If you make the effort to master KARMA's real-time controllers, you'll be rewarded with an evocative yet personal sound.

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By the time you read this, David Battino should be putting the finishing touches on EM's 2002 Desktop Music Production Guide, which storms the beaches on October 4.

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Korg
Karma
keyboard workstation
$2,250

FEATURES	4.0
SOUND QUALITY	4.5
EASE OF USE	3.5
VALUE	5.0

RATING PRODUCTS FROM 1 TO 5

PROS: Excellent, dynamic sounds. Astonishing interactivity. Expandable.

CONS: Cramped, confusing display. Exceeding sequencer's memory limit erases data. Dense manuals. No digital-audio output.

Manufacturer

Korg USA
tel. (516) 333-9100
e-mail product_support@korgusa.com
Web www.korg.com

KARMA 'N GET IT

For exclusive Karma demos and royalty-free samples produced by KARMA creator Stephen Kay, click on EM Links at the top of this article.

Karma Specifications

Polyphony	62-note in single-oscillator mode; 31-note in double-oscillator mode
Multitimbral Parts	16
ROM/User RAM Programs	256 (GM2)/640 (768 with EXB-MOSS option installed)
ROM/User RAM Combis	0/768
Drum Kits	64
Sound ROM	32 MB (425 multisamples + 413 drum samples)
Filters	4-pole resonant lowpass; 2-pole combination lowpass/highpass
Effects Processing	(5) insert effects (102 types); (2) master effects (89 types); (1) stereo master 3-band EQ
MIDI Effects	(1,190) KARMA GEs, expandable
Sequencer	(16) tracks; (200,000) events; (200) songs; (150) preset/(100) user Patterns per song; 192 ppqn resolution; RPPR function
Keyboard	61-key; transmits Velocity, Channel Pressure
Controllers	(4) dual-function knobs; (2) switches; (1) joystick; (1) slider; (8) KARMA knobs; (2) KARMA buttons; (4) Chord Triggers; (1) Scene 1/2 button; (1) Latch button; (1) Tempo knob
Audio Outputs	(4) ¼" unbalanced TS; (1) ¼" stereo headphone
Additional Ports	MIDI In, Out, Thru; (1) damper pedal; (1) assignable footswitch; (1) assignable footpedal
Storage	3.5" floppy drive
Dimensions	43.3" (L) × 4.7" (H) × 12.6" (D)
Weight	22 lbs.

Online Karma

Here are some of the best places to experience the Karma on the Web.

TITLE	URL	FEATURES
Karma Discussion Group	http://groups.yahoo.com/group/korgkarma	Lively Karma forum with tutorials by Stephen Kay.
Karma Flash Demo	www.korg.de/karma/index.html	Music clips; Karma close-ups from Korg Germany.
Karma Lab	www.karma-lab.com	Stephen Kay's site, bursting with MP3s and background details.
Karma Radio	www.mp3.com/stations/karmaradio	Streaming and downloadable music by Karma Discussion Group members.
Korg USA	www.korg.com	Streaming video; downloadable software, MP3s, and manuals.
Tritonhaven	www.tritonhaven.com	Triton resources, including Karma-compatible patches.