Stimming reviewing the ER-1 i had back in 2000, sold, when i switched to ableton and bought again 2 years ago, because i kept thinking about that awesome little machine = 1 instant like.
Four Tet was using one of these in his live set a few years back. He taljed about it on Why We Bleep, and there's footage of him using it too. Also, Legowelt touts this as a future classic on a RUclips video where he's giving a tour of all his synths. I think he runs it through a Boss Compressor/Sustainer pedal. If its good enough for those two, it's good enough for most people.
I had this red one, the blue one and the green one at different stages (early 2000s). The red one was my favorite, but I never liked the drum sounds that much, but I like the zippy-zappy Kraftwerk-in-a-box type sounds!
I remember making a mad dash in my lunch break down to Turnkey (a famous music store in central London) back in the day, to pickup one of these babies!
It was also my first machine , bought it in 2000 . A nice little bleep box but I sold it a year later after waldorf released the rack attack vsti , which was vastly superior both in sound and features . Good times ! For anyone interested , the electribe R was the inspiraton for the amazing sonic Charge's microtonic vst , according to Magnus the developer
I’ve had mine since 2005. I loved it so much that I ended up getting an ES-1 as well. the ER-1 is just so easy to use and it always sounds good. And it pair with other synths so well! Especially with the audio in tricks.
I always loved these, but when I saved my money for 6 months at a similar age, I bought a Yamaha AN200. It was a great synth, but sometimes I wish I bought that ER-1. I got a po-33 recently though- it’s a great, cheap successor to this machine.
I had this and the EA-1 and sold them to buy a used Virus A. I wish I’d kept them and paid for the virus another way. Such a fun machine to use and even better as the pair. I will own them again.
I'm just about to watch. I sold mine over 10 years ago. Let's see if Stimming makes me regret my decision. Edit: predictably, he makes it sound a damn sight better than I ever could. Not sure if I regret selling mine but do I wish I had a drum machine.
Grab yourself a Korg Volca Drum. $150 or less, sounds exactly like the electribe, even down to the waveguide delay and motion recording. It's just their modern equivalent and it's fantastic once you learn basic drum synthesis and go beyond presets.
After using the MX for about a year decided to obtain all of the electribes except the samplers, since they were used and not popular at the time I didn't have to spend more than $250 and most were much less. I've reprogramed all of the useful presets and still use them for remixes and in my DJ set's. It's a shame that Korg has abandoned them along with the Kossilators and Wavedrums as I think they still have potential today.
Lovely review. You pointed out every bit I could have said about it. I love the ER-1 for it's simplicity and characteristic sound. It's not a rave machine but wonderful for experimental beats and live performances. Each of the 4 drum modules could be everything. If only realtime record/save/change pattern was possible without stopping the machine.
It's indeed a rhythm synthesizer and quite funky and innovative for it's time. The late 90's were very much about virtual analog, pcm, the digital grooveboxes etc, not the thickest sounding stuff. Nowadays we are quite spoiled with lots of analog or hybrid options. I had both ER-1 and EA-1 from the beginning, they made a great couple and with some additional analog drum machines and synths i did some great livesets, good times!
You know you're old when people refer to 23 year old equipment as "classic" 😄 To me ER-1 was the opposite of easy: too much time had to be spent on designing the drums out of synths - so I shelved it for a decade and a half. At a time Akai samplers were the thing and to get good drums you'd use sample playbacks. Then when I started to be a bit more experimental with my creations, and after watching someone else do it, I re-discovered the ER-1: "'hey, you can design your own drums out of synth engines!" 😜 And I can honestly say that the reason I pounced on Korg Volca Drum (and highly recommend that one too!) was because of the ER-1. 3:00 - best phrase: "you still see it ...somewhere" 😄
The Korg Electribes are really like two halves of one groove box. People complain about the EA-1 but they really need to pair it with the ER-1. Both have such powerful features I use both a lot. They are like an Mc505 in two boxes with more controls.
I love my ER-1. Brings back so many memories of hanging out with my friends at guitar center just jamming out in the synth section for hours. I agree it sounds a little thin but you can fix some of that in post and get some great 90s vibes with it. Great video... keep em coming!
Fabulous video Stimming, also my first purchase back in the day. I suggest getting the shaman firmware put on it, this allows much more control and freedom to put your own samples onto the unit.
as can be heard from your demos, the electribes were huge in early 2000s mnml / micro house. In an old interview Thomas Melchior says an electribe is the one piece of kit he'd recommend new producers
I also had one of these as my first hardware synth along with the EA-1, at about the same age and price too! You can certainly get some interesting stuff out of them...
The samples are limited, but it's fun using them in unusual ways. They fit to the philosophy of the machine. In recent years an alternative firmware came out, which allows you to load different samples but I haven't tried it.
I have that app too, and while it is a very good emulation its just not as fun and instant as the hardware ER1 is, though the beat mod chaos pad on the app is great. 👍
Had it and A/B’d it with the iOS version and it sounded better on iOS. Controls aside, I’m still happy with the ER1 being nicely represented in a cheap app.
This might be a dumb question but I’m wanting to buy one of these on eBay is there anything I should know before buying? Because the sounds are really cool from what I watched!!
Sold mine but want to get one again. I actually like the crappy pcm sounds a lot. Add some external drive and/or compression > Techno beast. Quite stupid though it's not possible to copy an entire pattern (only single parts). I think that was the dealbreaker for me back then :D
I had v1 emx , very metallic sounding. iPad version sounds identical. The electribe wave they have done on iOS makes excellent drums if you again ignore the stock
I have both ER-1 models and I love them as fun machines, but I agree that their is a plastic character to their sounds - interestingly it's also present in the MS2000 which Korg came out with around the same time. Maybe they are using similar chips or algorithms or something. Like the DRM-1, you can wake it up a bit with some good external reverb and/or drive. Still I got each of the machines pretty cheaply, and they are a great way to develop evolving beats. I love that you can make such a wide variety of sounds with so few knobs. You can be methodical, but just as easily end up with something cool if turn on the motion recording. close your eyes and see what happens.
Lol I just bought one a fortnight ago, I find the old school sequencer really hard to use as someone who came into electronic music through Ableton and my first hardware was a novation circuit
The bass drum on this machine can be set very well, like an 808. The snare needs tweaking but it's reasonable. The presets, however, stink. You must create your own sounds, making it unique to you, and not a lot of drum machines have that.
That's what i love about your reviews, they're brutally honest. You've firmly encouraged myself to never buy one, thank you. It's seems comparable to a lot of mid 90s - 2020 cheap electronic musical equipment, it has a certain novelty value which can potentially be tweaked to produce something of worth, yet ultimately is devoid of the extra dynamic a more sophisticated piece of equipment would deliver. IT'S CHEAP AS CHIPS.
Didn't expect childhood Stimming beats.
I use the ER-1 with my Digitakt and other stuff and imo it still blasts out epic techno groove with ease. Almost 25 years old and still kicking!
This is why i love reviews by Stimming
The notification announcing a new stimming test stay in my top 3 of most enjoyed notification i guess
Er-1 is so fun to use! had one in 2005, and now have it again and ES-1.
Stimming reviewing the ER-1 i had back in 2000, sold, when i switched to ableton and bought again 2 years ago, because i kept thinking about that awesome little machine = 1 instant like.
Really dig that you played your old patterns! thank you. cheers.
Superb review @MStimming, thanks ❤
The first ever hardware you bought - me too! I remember putting a deposit in a pawn shop and saving up for weeks to buy it! I was still at school...
LOVE this machine!! got mine 2 years ago in almost mint condition :))
Great and joyful demo! I have a feeling a bunch of viewers are going to hunt for an ER-1 after this.
Four Tet was using one of these in his live set a few years back. He taljed about it on Why We Bleep, and there's footage of him using it too.
Also, Legowelt touts this as a future classic on a RUclips video where he's giving a tour of all his synths. I think he runs it through a Boss Compressor/Sustainer pedal.
If its good enough for those two, it's good enough for most people.
Dude! It’s so true that these presets ended up being used a bunch. Crazy. I haven’t heard them in forever cause I deleted most of
I had this red one, the blue one and the green one at different stages (early 2000s). The red one was my favorite, but I never liked the drum sounds that much, but I like the zippy-zappy Kraftwerk-in-a-box type sounds!
I remember making a mad dash in my lunch break down to Turnkey (a famous music store in central London) back in the day, to pickup one of these babies!
It was also my first machine , bought it in 2000 .
A nice little bleep box but I sold it a year later after waldorf released the rack attack vsti , which was vastly superior both in sound and features .
Good times !
For anyone interested , the electribe R was the inspiraton for the amazing sonic Charge's microtonic vst , according to Magnus the developer
cool to find out Villalobos used this, you can really hear it.
He said this?
@@martinsp90He did. I thought he meant Villa-Lobos and was like WTF.
Bought it when it first came out, still own it, and many of the knobs are worn down like pencil erasers.
I’ve had mine since 2005. I loved it so much that I ended up getting an ES-1 as well. the ER-1 is just so easy to use and it always sounds good. And it pair with other synths so well! Especially with the audio in tricks.
howabout the mk2...any notable improvements? worth $200? already have an EMX-1!
Its the very same other than the Ring Mod is now a Cross Mod on the MK2 and it has new patterns
I always loved these, but when I saved my money for 6 months at a similar age, I bought a Yamaha AN200. It was a great synth, but sometimes I wish I bought that ER-1. I got a po-33 recently though- it’s a great, cheap successor to this machine.
I love your video. I too was thinking of running effect pedals but does the ER have more than just the two outputs?
I had this and the EA-1 and sold them to buy a used Virus A. I wish I’d kept them and paid for the virus another way. Such a fun machine to use and even better as the pair. I will own them again.
Never sold it. One of the best
A guitarist's first groove box - bought in way back 99. Loved it!
I'm just about to watch. I sold mine over 10 years ago. Let's see if Stimming makes me regret my decision.
Edit: predictably, he makes it sound a damn sight better than I ever could.
Not sure if I regret selling mine but do I wish I had a drum machine.
Grab yourself a Korg Volca Drum. $150 or less, sounds exactly like the electribe, even down to the waveguide delay and motion recording. It's just their modern equivalent and it's fantastic once you learn basic drum synthesis and go beyond presets.
@@Leo9ine yes volca drum is fantastic. I still live the er-1 though.
Is this Stimming’s channel??
love this dude!
After using the MX for about a year decided to obtain all of the electribes except the samplers, since they were used and not popular at the time I didn't have to spend more than $250 and most were much less. I've reprogramed all of the useful presets and still use them for remixes and in my DJ set's. It's a shame that Korg has abandoned them along with the Kossilators and Wavedrums as I think they still have potential today.
Lovely review. You pointed out every bit I could have said about it. I love the ER-1 for it's simplicity and characteristic sound. It's not a rave machine but wonderful for experimental beats and live performances. Each of the 4 drum modules could be everything. If only realtime record/save/change pattern was possible without stopping the machine.
superb video, the ER1 sound reminds me of Model 500’s Deep Space album
Great piece of kit, just bought my second one on reverb
Watching this video made me better understand where Stimming's beatmaking style comes from. Time to re-watch him reviewing other drum computers :)
What's the album you mentiin around the 7:00 mark? I can't quite make it out.
Came here to make the same comment!
Villalobos - Alcachofa
It's indeed a rhythm synthesizer and quite funky and innovative for it's time. The late 90's were very much about virtual analog, pcm, the digital grooveboxes etc, not the thickest sounding stuff. Nowadays we are quite spoiled with lots of analog or hybrid options. I had both ER-1 and EA-1 from the beginning, they made a great couple and with some additional analog drum machines and synths i did some great livesets, good times!
He cracks me up in this one.
the es-1 is absolutely worth buying though, because of that BEAUTIFUL 12 bit sampling straight into the adc. so crunchy and nice
I wonder how it compares to the liven lofi 12 / 12 xt
Its a great sounding box that is actually pretty flexible.
You know you're old when people refer to 23 year old equipment as "classic" 😄
To me ER-1 was the opposite of easy: too much time had to be spent on designing the drums out of synths - so I shelved it for a decade and a half. At a time Akai samplers were the thing and to get good drums you'd use sample playbacks. Then when I started to be a bit more experimental with my creations, and after watching someone else do it, I re-discovered the ER-1: "'hey, you can design your own drums out of synth engines!" 😜 And I can honestly say that the reason I pounced on Korg Volca Drum (and highly recommend that one too!) was because of the ER-1.
3:00 - best phrase: "you still see it ...somewhere" 😄
The Korg Electribes are really like two halves of one groove box. People complain about the EA-1 but they really need to pair it with the ER-1. Both have such powerful features I use both a lot. They are like an Mc505 in two boxes with more controls.
Love this machine! The Mk II is even better, they fixed the modulation between the first two voices there.
I love my ER-1. Brings back so many memories of hanging out with my friends at guitar center just jamming out in the synth section for hours. I agree it sounds a little thin but you can fix some of that in post and get some great 90s vibes with it. Great video... keep em coming!
C'est machines sont collector's à présent, je viens de m'acheter l'Electribe ER-1 MKII et l'EA-1 MKII ❤️
Fabulous video Stimming, also my first purchase back in the day.
I suggest getting the shaman firmware put on it, this allows much more control and freedom to put your own samples onto the unit.
there is a video about he shaman firmware on the «Bad Gear» (or better gear) channel ;-)
The Volca Drum gets a lot from that one, I think. Interesting ! As always.
6:56 what album is this he mentions here? too many search results for "villalobos".
Nevermind. Found it. Villalobos - Alcachofa
as can be heard from your demos, the electribes were huge in early 2000s mnml / micro house. In an old interview Thomas Melchior says an electribe is the one piece of kit he'd recommend new producers
I had the MK2 when it came out, still regret selling it. I got the iOS version for the nostalgia :)
iElectribe on iPad is also cool:
Jamming with Korg iElectribe on iPad
ruclips.net/video/h1ze-DV_avc/видео.html
I also had one of these as my first hardware synth along with the EA-1, at about the same age and price too! You can certainly get some interesting stuff out of them...
15:54 four tet's evening side?
super, wie immer... 😊
Excuse me sir, the hats on the ER-1 are great, I love them! Especially once motion sequencing gets involved.
Standard 08/15 hat 🤭
The samples are limited, but it's fun using them in unusual ways. They fit to the philosophy of the machine. In recent years an alternative firmware came out, which allows you to load different samples but I haven't tried it.
what's the album you mentioned at 6:58?
can you upload another video please. you're very fun to watch, and you show off some gear that I don't think I'd have been interested in otherwise
I used the iOS version from Korg on a track and it worked very well
I have that app too, and while it is a very good emulation its just not as fun and instant as the hardware ER1 is, though the beat mod chaos pad on the app is great. 👍
@@aikighost of course, the ER 1 hardware can’t be beat !
It was my first as well!
Was actually just using it tonight. Needs restorative help for sure.
Also bought mine twenty five years or so ago. Probably around when you got yrs.
When A38 came up I smiled so big and then you said, "You know this one?" Did you see me?!?!
You can also get this one as an App for iOS, sounding almost the same.
I often have mine plugged through some pedals and routed directly into my sampler inputs for "bloopy inspiration" 🤣
Had it and A/B’d it with the iOS version and it sounded better on iOS. Controls aside, I’m still happy with the ER1 being nicely represented in a cheap app.
i paired it with my Novation Drum station, and barely used the internal osc, because i wasn't good enuf to get anything out of it.
soulcapsule did they magic tracks back in the days with the elctribes ;-)
I always wanted one of these, I bought an mc-303 off someone I knew instead...
This might be a dumb question but I’m wanting to buy one of these on eBay is there anything I should know before buying? Because the sounds are really cool from what I watched!!
Sold mine but want to get one again. I actually like the crappy pcm sounds a lot. Add some external drive and/or compression > Techno beast. Quite stupid though it's not possible to copy an entire pattern (only single parts). I think that was the dealbreaker for me back then :D
I love my Electribe ER-1, and actually the Claps are not that bad ;-)
I had v1 emx , very metallic sounding. iPad version sounds identical. The electribe wave they have done on iOS makes excellent drums if you again ignore the stock
the very first hardware piece I bought was the es-1 haha miss it
you can apply some external reverb to a dedicated trig in the sequence ??
YES!
I have both ER-1 models and I love them as fun machines, but I agree that their is a plastic character to their sounds - interestingly it's also present in the MS2000 which Korg came out with around the same time. Maybe they are using similar chips or algorithms or something. Like the DRM-1, you can wake it up a bit with some good external reverb and/or drive.
Still I got each of the machines pretty cheaply, and they are a great way to develop evolving beats. I love that you can make such a wide variety of sounds with so few knobs. You can be methodical, but just as easily end up with something cool if turn on the motion recording. close your eyes and see what happens.
The EA-1 uses the same sound engine used in the MS2000.
for anyone that likes/loves the er-1 and has eurorack, def check out analog re-creation of the er-1 engine - the blue lantern asteroid mini synth
1:49 Shari Vari?
I have hated this since I bought it millions of years ago. Now I use it quite a bit.
I got me one in 01" I think 250 or 350. My first machine.
Yo Shtimmles perlon 135 is a re release of alcachofa x
Great vid! Really wanna ask what's the machine on your right hand side that you can apply reverb on some drums individually?
I still have mine 🎛
Now i want to add it to my mc303.. why i saw this?))))
Nice .. next review the korg emx 1 ! ;)
Gene belcher approves this video
Great video! What audio interface do you use?
Please do the Jomox Alpha Base
muy buen video saludos desde tijuana BC
Tatsächlich war das auch mein erstes Gerät.
i sold one of these back in the 90s to jody wisternoff back in his way out west days with nick warren
@stimming Have a look at the Korg Modwave. Speaking about 'almighty ER-1'... They've come a long way.
I just found one at Goodwill for $7.50US
DAMN IT
I miss mine
Lol I just bought one a fortnight ago, I find the old school sequencer really hard to use as someone who came into electronic music through Ableton and my first hardware was a novation circuit
@@ringtangting I think it's because you have to stop the pattern to change swing or the bar amount. Makes it unusable for live performances for me
Getting Paul Woolford- Erotic Discourse vibes from this one.
The bass drum on this machine can be set very well, like an 808. The snare needs tweaking but it's reasonable. The presets, however, stink. You must create your own sounds, making it unique to you, and not a lot of drum machines have that.
So tonight I am going to sequence like it's 1999.
any bandcamp account with dank er-1 magic?
The electribe can sound wacky when you go crazy on the knobs but it shines when the changes are small. This wasn’t the best demo.
19:05 got what I came for
Nobody ever really gives this machine justice.... so in there own goofy world
Oddly, I hit like before I watch at this point.
oh yes oh yes!
That's what i love about your reviews, they're brutally honest. You've firmly encouraged myself to never buy one, thank you. It's seems comparable to a lot of mid 90s - 2020 cheap electronic musical equipment, it has a certain novelty value which can potentially be tweaked to produce something of worth, yet ultimately is devoid of the extra dynamic a more sophisticated piece of equipment would deliver.
IT'S CHEAP AS CHIPS.
It ain't cheap, it's priceless ;)
Er-1 OR Model:Cycles?
ahhh you jerk. I'm actively trying to get my hands on one of these and you just helped raise the price. :(
😄