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The encoder fix is easy. It's happening because of an electromagnetic field building up between the power supply and the main PCB. Open it up and put a thin piece of plastic between the two, and it's fixed. People have even used baking parchment paper successfully.
I’ll also add, Syntaur carries pretty much any part for that, that could have issues, and prices are pretty cheap. I’m having issues with my arp fader, it doesn’t respond, and it has resistance when I move it. (Pretty sure someone hit it and maybe bent it) but if I can’t get that working, I’m going to order a new one e.
Mine also had potentiometer jitters. Backing sheet did the trick for me as well. The only thing that wears down after some time (talking about a decade here) are the rubber buttons. Otherwise it keeps exceptionally well.
Bought my current EMX for £80 in Cash-Convertors Bethnal Green in 2009. They were considered a "joke" and a "toy" back then, when everyone was obsessed with fancy plugins on Quad Core DAWs and vintage 80's x0x boxes... well, now EMX1 is vintage, and has a proven reputation on record and on stage. In 20 years this will be as revered as the tb303 is. It already reaches £1000 on ebay for mint examples. It defined the sound of the 00's and much of 10's. And the best thing about it is that it still has hidden tricks up its sleeves that no one has tried yet... bless you EMX1. You're the Gibson Les Paul '59 of EDM (the MPC2000 is the Fender Strat!) May your tubes stay warm for ever...
its mind blowing that no one has been able to create a groovebox with the power of this almost 20 year old synth engine, vacuum tubes, and p-lock style motion sequencing multitimbrality. so insane to have that formant synthesis, waveshaping, wavefolding, resonators, granular effects, maco osc, dope filters, distortion. even the syntakt doesnt have all of these features
@christdolphin69 Found you again! Man, I've been looking for one of these the past some years, but they are not as affordable as they were when I was 16..
this was my first synthesizer and the only thing I made music on for nearly a decade it is not perfect, I always look back and wish I would have purchased a monomachine about 5 years in but still, it has a place in my heart as for the fix, everyone suggesting deoxit and replacing encoder, it's all worth trying but as someone who's owned multiple of these machines, the most common fix is to open it up and place a sheet of baking paper between the circuit boards they have a tendency to touch each other over time, which can cause some weird glitching with the front panel interface, I forget if this exact problem is solved by this but if nothing else works, it is worth a try, I've done it before and it has fixed similar issues
I bought one of these at a pawn shop for $340 in 2015. I had been out of music for more then a decade so I shoved it away into storage. I didn't realize what I had! Thanks for the sonic workout! Can't wait to dig this baby out, clean the contacts, and get to work!
Encoder fix: if it is anything like my asrx encoders you gotta clean out the inside of the encoder with some contact cleaner, it isnt hard to do though! Open it up and using a small screwdriver lift up the 4 tabs that are holding down the top part of the encoder. Be careful as you don’t want to break them off. Use a qtip and contact cleaner to get all the little dirty bits out of there, on the wheel and the contact. Be very gentle! Put it back together and it should work great, make sure to push those tabs back down really good or it will be wobbly. Good luck!
@@dodgedforgottenn In my experience once you clean it the first time it will work smoothly for potentially years, although I am sure it depends the quality of encoder, how much use it gets etc
Encoder Fix: The issue that the Electribe X's have is that the circuitboard is way too close to the metal casing. As such, after using it a while, the faceplate will bend in just enough to make contact, shorting the encoders. There's a very easy fix to this: Open it up, take a sheet of parchment paper (or newspaper if you're a cheapass like me), and put it against the circuit board. Close it up, and you'll see an immediate difference nearly every time.
no this isn't the fix! its your ribbon cable going bad.......why does everyone think the faceplate is bending enough to short to the pcb??? literally been trying to fight this disinformation for nearly a decade. (btw the only reason you saw results its because when you opened the unit up you were forced to move/jiggle the ribbon cable, your problem will come back, and you can force it to by moving the cable with it powered on if you don't believe me)
I just replaced my encoder with a brandnew one - desoldering and soldering is easy, and it didn´t cost the world. Furthermore i renewed the valves. Now the whole machine works as brandnew, and it sounds amazing.
My EMX-1's encoder issue grew worse over time--same thing, jittering values during use. I had the encoder replaced and repaired, and it's worked fine since. Now I try to reduce the wear and tear on it by using shift functions to scroll through the sample list. It's handy when there's a lot of selections to move through. If that main encoder were larger, or had a jog wheel, that'd be quite something. According to the repair guy I went with, the encoder seems to wear down the notches inside when it's spun quickly. I tried to be careful with mine, but it was pre-owned when I got it, too, so who knows how wildly it was used in the past. Cleaning might work if those notches aren't actually worn down yet. I imagine as you clean it, you may notice if the notches on the encoder are smoothed down from use or abuse. I'm glad the older Electribes are getting some attention, though! Best of luck with the encoder issue.
i brought one of these in the late 90s, its safely stored away in my bros Attic because i felt it was going to be a classic at some point - glad to hear other agree with my prediction, thanks for reminding me how awesome it was
I love my emx-1 and use it on almost every track i make. It has features like 128 step patterns which a lot of modern boxes dont have. It is also pretty great as a midi master and I like to run a couple of synths off it. It is great to create tracks standalone just using it by itself, but superb to use combined with an esx-1 sampler!
i love how so much different music can be made with the electribes. i’ve been combining the sx and mx together, it’s a powerhouse. i want to buy a second MX and have double the synth channels.
Bought an EMX-1 today (in great condition) but immediately experienced buyer's regret as soon as I pulled the trigger because I started second-guessing whether I should have gone for the EMS-1. This video helped me feel better about my purchase. I guess the optimum thing would be to have both. I just have to keep reminding myself that there ARE things the EMX can do that the EMS cannot.
I love this box, it has everything, my kids love to play with it as well...wish there was something like this on the market with so well thought user interface and workflow
I have a EMX-1SD and ESX-1SD. My emx hasnt hasn’t had issues but the ESX had same encoder issue, I just pulled the knob then used contact cleaner. It has been working since.
If you hold down shift while moving the rotary it will allow you to skip in bigger chunks, so you can get to say the hi hat section quicker. This is what I do to get into the rough drum section, then use the rotary as normal to select the sound (eventually). I've the same skipping issue but not as bad. Scrolling from the Bass drums up to the Hi Hats is pretty tough for me unless I go super slow, so I use the shift function to get me in the rough area first.
Great video. I have several grooveboxes and the EMX-1 has always been one of favourites. One thingt I noticed: The Korg grooveboxes are not the only ones that can do 128 steps - the MC-707 can do that as well! (And it has a sampler to chop up samples, a looper and the Zencore synth engine - it's pretty awesome. My favourite groovebox of them all, I like it even better than the Syntakt.)
The EMX is a beast! It was my 2nd synth, got it in 2012 and it's still my favorite. Industrial, Breaks, Noise, Psycore, no problem with this gem! Great for jamming, you get awesome results in no time. Hook up a KaossPad and you got a simple yet powerful live setup. Thanks for the review!
@@djkanyon I also had the new one...sold it after a couple of weeks. What a downgrade xD I mean battery-powered to go experience and mini KaossPad aside... that thing is awful. The old emx otoh always makes me smile. Had some issues with the button contacts: graphite spray. Audio-outs were unbalanced: there's tutorials for calibration. Glad I never had the encoder sh*t mentioned in the vid. This old groovebox you can take apart, repair and reassemble as a noob or take to any vintage hifi shop and get help. Love it
Electribe 2 are shit. I have all series from 2001. But I stopped at MX and SX. I used often to control other machines.. from MX's five synth parts. But nowdays I have a keystep too.
@@scowlsmcjowls2626 the valve electribe..MX and SX are the best combo ever made. Electribe 2 sounds like a PC plug-in.. and I don't play with a soundcard.
@@Sandelec-gm2cl no no that one had the same engine as the microkorg so they corrected it. Look maybe its a matter of taste but i felt left down in a sense by it
I have three of these ,, In Perfect condition ,,,I bought fifteen years ago ,,,I love them use them for all kids of drums and synths with other synths they are built like tanks ...and sound amazing .
They're a lot of fun, i had two for a while and would sync them. Liked making drum and bass on them, just felt natural to come up with something quick rather programming everything meticulously on the computer.
This machine is an absolute beast when you really familiarize yourself with it and really unlock its potential, without anything else. I’ve been watching a lot of vids of people doing psytrance on it and am super impressed. I wish u had used mine a lot more over the years, but never really went deep into it. Three things I love, 1, you can use it as a midi controller for other synths, and 2, you can route any instrument out of the LR bus (no effects just dry) to send to external FX, and 3, you can use the built in fx on external instruments via the audio in. This was my first synth, I thought back in 2005, and it still works amazing.
Hey man if you're still looking, I fixed my main selector encoder last night by dousing the internal pot with pure alchohol, the electronics cleaning stuff. I wiggled it about 100 times vigorously, dried it out for an hour and it works fine now, touch wood. I'm.sure it will only last so long but its awesome right now 😅 Edit: I had exactly the same problem...now fixed without opening up the machine. did the same to the Arp slider and its much better now. 🎉
(4real) *ENCODER FIX >>>* The encoder wheel is completely fine do not try to fix this issue by cleaning any of its knobs and wheels! *Here is why:* The glitches R occurring cos residual current is induced in its circuit. Most of this electro-magnetism gets emitted from the analogue tube- and digital pre-amps build into the E-TRIBES. So in oder to isolate the encoder-mainboard (also carrying the front panel LCD-Display) from the magnetic field ---> get some baking paper(!) and put it between the front-plate layers who is A.) carrying the encoder-mainboard and B.) - the lowest layer where U can find the Faraday cage, housing the tube-amp. Baking paper is heat resistant and electrically isolating because of its silicon coating. It gets the job done perfectly! After fixing yo E-MX/SX U will also experience an even much more crisp looking LCD-Display which gets dimmed by the magnetic field radiating from the build in pre-amps, before the fix. It took me quite a while to find the right materials for this fix as U can imagine :-) _Booyaka!_
Did you experiment with swapping the tubes? It may provide some benefit. Also, there's some audio feedback trick people used to do, but I don't remember the details.
I don’t think he did, otherwise Mr.Blush Response would have said something. That would have been a stock EMX 1. Now the sounds he got out that thing…different story.
My first Electronic instrument and i love it, unfortunately it doesn't work so well anymore. I tried to fix it... I spent many hours on the electribe emx1 !
i think this was for the encoder issue but a friend of mine back in the day had to put parchment paper under the top panel between the it and the circuit board because there was something touching the panel or something like that that was causing it to short out.
Regarding the encoder, it will need opening the emx, you need to repair potentiometer or replace it, second option requires soldering, I just repaired.
Electribe emx1 and esx1 need more love. These groovebox are legendary like the tb303 or tr909 are. I remember owning my emx1 in 2009 and I still use it today. Others brands and korg themselves need to do more groovebox with soul like emx1 and esx1. These shit are easy to use like breathing. They have a soul.
I bought my Jasper's from Thomann. Shipped to Canada was really very reasonable. Just go for it. Will change how you work being able to have everything accessible.
I think some of you in the comment section have to know that this machine is indeed a legend within the french free party culture and tribe music scene idk about other genres or cultures I think they have a lot of different machines but in France, if you see people playing tribe live acts, this one and the ESX are THE classic machines you'll see half of the time, there is some kind of cult around it
What a friggin powerhouse... I had one like 18 years ago or something and I was too stupid to know how good it was... Although I sold it for more money than I got it for, a few years later...
had the same issue with mine. easy fix, just remove the encoder and clean up the grease. what happens is the internal grease eventually seeps out and makes it act wonky. you can look this up on the korg forums--that's what gave me the confidence to dig into mine. i'm having a separate issue now though, if anyone can help. a lot of the drum pads have become really unresponsive, like, i have to hit them pretty hard to get them to respond. it seemed to have happened overnight too. well not literally, but I had given the machine a break, maybe about a year, and when I used it again it wasn't the same. I took it all apart and cleaned the best I could while using no solvents, everything looked in tact. put it together and the problem persists. any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I got the EMX.. and i love to just take it on my lap in the living room and play around . Its a special device as you can master like and instrument and make complete tracks and live sets with it, some limitation will spark your creativity . and let not forget that it looks cool also ! :) There is a guy mihail shevchenko (enformin) who has master this device and done some crazy live sets on youtube !
If cleaning it doesent work, To replace the rotery encoder its like a $20 part and six ish solder points. Any decent electrical tech should be able to do it
Yeah, the trick is finding the right sized encoder, but once you do, dead easy fix. It’s a pain to take everything apart, but you gotta do that to clean an encoder so you might as well just get a good modern one that will likely last longer and replace it.
"YES." I have the 4 original Electribes and am consistently disappointed nobody has really done a modern take on them. They're so easy to use, have a lot of features, you can do a lot with the sound, and they were cheap (and usually still are, at least for now). Aside from the occasional encoder or pot, they've been reliable too. The E2 isn't necessarily bad, but it's absolutely not on the level of its own predecessors...
Love when reviewers are down to get nasty with it. Too many vanilla reviews out there. I get that clean tones can help educate more but I'm tryna push my gear and this emx-1 really seems to do some awesome stuff. Thanks!
I love this box man. Mine is so fucked up, the push buttons don't work nicely anymore and a lot of the knobs are busted as well, the encoder though, works perfectly haha. I really wish I could get it repaired but it seems hard in my area. 8 bar sequencer, make BIG ass kicks using the synth part and the LFO Slope waveform, the FX chaining section while limited, can get you some crazy results.
I had the red one. It had a glitch the encoder would fail and it would never work when selecting samples. I did an insurance job on it. Got rid. I remember being on the fence do I get the red or blue. The valve made this crunch. I liked the gimmick. Of the light shining on the tube it made it look good. As a sampler playing back samples it was nice. The memory wasn’t very big.. so you couldn’t put a whole sample CD on the machine. I remember being stung on an SD card as I thought these were impossible to find. I paid a few guys who worked in a computer shop 75 pounds just for the SD card. I didn’t have the internet then. I used a catalogue. And made a call to order 😂 if you like that sound this works well.
great machine but not for every genre, I easily made some nice stuff with it for a while, I even used the buttons to play solos, but I grew tired of not being able to get a wider, cleaner sound with it. I replaced the vaccuum tubes with vintage 1970s ones, that helped getting a milder distortion, but I still ended up selling mine. this demo sounds just like I remembered it, this muffled, distorted quality is not for me. so I wasn't wrong in changing that gear. however my current drum is digitakt, sounds better for the genres I play but it's slower to work with, too sensitive with the multiple functions for each button and keypress combinations.
Do you have any examples or able to describe how the character changed? Mine has the stock EHX Russian ones and they sound great on individual parts, external input, and the whole mix! If I had a bunch of matched pairs of tubes laying around I’d experiment a bunch but curious what others have achieved with theirs.
@AkaTengu there is less breakup and distortion and what there is is more pleasant and rounded/smooth. I swapped back to the old ones to double heck, then back to the new ones.
@@EarlyMist thanks for getting back on this! So I'm guessing you can push them harder and get the tube compression but not keep it cleaner? Now you really got me interested again in trying some other tubes. Right now the raw gritty breakup is nice but I'm building some gnarly distortion circuits that may benefit from something a bit smoother and round to accompany them :)
Hard to describe. Best to experiment. My whole unit needs a pull apart and clean like this guys. I actually laughed out loud watching the main selektor dial shennanigens 😅 because I have the exact same thing...and a dodgy power connector. And I havent tested everything else even though I've made three basic track on it.
They rock even more I'd u pop in some Mullard tubes... I wish Korg was wise enough to include the filter drive model on more of their gear produced thereafter from these EMX1'S. Cause it's a huge part of why these Korgs are as good for dirty techno 4 sure imo
I had a SX sampler version and the encoder would jump the menu and make it unusable i never had the skills back then to open it and replace the encoder but thinking it might be something else not just the encoder. I sold mine
Oh no!! This video will thrust prices even higher! :) I have used it live for many years and it's a real classic and a perfect design, as shallow and as deep as you could need. The ribbon arp has not been replicated afterwards (sadly! hey Elektron...) Replacing the original with the JJ tubes makes the sound round and warm. The drum samples sound brutal in big sound systems, and the synth is amazingly flexible. The only con is the bad reverb, but a minor detail. It's astounding that this was released in 2003. Beware of getting the SM versions (pre 2010) cos the SD versions have an electrical problem that generates glitches in the knob data, which renders the unit pretty useless in the end.
Thanks for being 1 more person that drove the price of these up to a level where most of us can no longer afford them. Ive been using the EMX-1 for over a decade, but now I can afford a replacement because they ALL fail eventually. I hate that theres a bunch of people paying almost $1,000 for these just to treat them like a fucking Boss DR-660, sing them at 2% of their potential. Congrats hipsters, you ruined yet another special thing for the OGs.
💙 YEAH! Still using my EMX this year, and favorite ESX! It's a high point for playability, beat making, jamming. 📮 Wouldn't an Electribe 3 with Elektron or TR8s type modern sound quality be great? (Even just re-issue the old ones! With an official fix for the "knob drift bug" which you are experiencing. Causes - control wear out, but also the two circuit boards of the machine slightly touching. It can be DIY fixed with non-conductive "oven paper", but an official fix would be our dream.) See my channel for LOTS of Electribe, including industrial and IDM
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Wow 😮 ! What do you put on the Master ?
The encoder fix is easy. It's happening because of an electromagnetic field building up between the power supply and the main PCB. Open it up and put a thin piece of plastic between the two, and it's fixed. People have even used baking parchment paper successfully.
I’ll also add, Syntaur carries pretty much any part for that, that could have issues, and prices are pretty cheap.
I’m having issues with my arp fader, it doesn’t respond, and it has resistance when I move it. (Pretty sure someone hit it and maybe bent it) but if I can’t get that working, I’m going to order a new one e.
Mine also had potentiometer jitters. Backing sheet did the trick for me as well. The only thing that wears down after some time (talking about a decade here) are the rubber buttons.
Otherwise it keeps exceptionally well.
@@DiemenAuteven then it’s an easy fix, some conductive paint on the pads contacts and you’re good to go. Same stuff they use to repair TV Remotes.
Think it would be the same fix for my microkorb knob??
Bought my current EMX for £80 in Cash-Convertors Bethnal Green in 2009. They were considered a "joke" and a "toy" back then, when everyone was obsessed with fancy plugins on Quad Core DAWs and vintage 80's x0x boxes... well, now EMX1 is vintage, and has a proven reputation on record and on stage. In 20 years this will be as revered as the tb303 is. It already reaches £1000 on ebay for mint examples. It defined the sound of the 00's and much of 10's. And the best thing about it is that it still has hidden tricks up its sleeves that no one has tried yet...
bless you EMX1. You're the Gibson Les Paul '59 of EDM (the MPC2000 is the Fender Strat!) May your tubes stay warm for ever...
You're a legend on these boxes.
its mind blowing that no one has been able to create a groovebox with the power of this almost 20 year old synth engine, vacuum tubes, and p-lock style motion sequencing multitimbrality. so insane to have that formant synthesis, waveshaping, wavefolding, resonators, granular effects, maco osc, dope filters, distortion. even the syntakt doesnt have all of these features
That's why I consider adding an EMX to side with my Syntakt...
Are you forgetting about the octatrack…
@christdolphin69 Found you again! Man, I've been looking for one of these the past some years, but they are not as affordable as they were when I was 16..
I know its only POV, but Monomachine bite Em1x enough.
This ranked as one of my favorite reviews ever
this was my first synthesizer and the only thing I made music on for nearly a decade
it is not perfect, I always look back and wish I would have purchased a monomachine about 5 years in
but still, it has a place in my heart
as for the fix, everyone suggesting deoxit and replacing encoder, it's all worth trying
but as someone who's owned multiple of these machines, the most common fix is to open it up and place a sheet of baking paper between the circuit boards
they have a tendency to touch each other over time, which can cause some weird glitching with the front panel interface, I forget if this exact problem is solved by this
but if nothing else works, it is worth a try, I've done it before and it has fixed similar issues
Been eyeing this for a while now - thanks for this review ! :-)
The things Mistabishi did with this box were impressive.
to true. ive looked at all the setting's of his patterns. really complex stuff. the guy is a genius sound designer.
He used to go out and play entire live sets to big crowds with just the EMX1.
Best demo I’ve heard of this… I’ve gotta get one now 🤯
Lol, really? There are some ridiculously beautiful EMX videos on TH-cam.
My Emx-1 is one of my prized possessions; I’ll never sell it.
Agreed!
amen
I bought one of these at a pawn shop for $340 in 2015. I had been out of music for more then a decade so I shoved it away into storage. I didn't realize what I had! Thanks for the sonic workout! Can't wait to dig this baby out, clean the contacts, and get to work!
Encoder fix: if it is anything like my asrx encoders you gotta clean out the inside of the encoder with some contact cleaner, it isnt hard to do though! Open it up and using a small screwdriver lift up the 4 tabs that are holding down the top part of the encoder. Be careful as you don’t want to break them off. Use a qtip and contact cleaner to get all the little dirty bits out of there, on the wheel and the contact. Be very gentle! Put it back together and it should work great, make sure to push those tabs back down really good or it will be wobbly. Good luck!
How long will this usually be good for before it needs to be re-cleaned?
@@dodgedforgottenn In my experience once you clean it the first time it will work smoothly for potentially years, although I am sure it depends the quality of encoder, how much use it gets etc
In the Electribes the problem normally is not the encoder itself but a loose ribbon cable.
Search for: Korg EMX Knob Jitter in 2017
You can grab replacement encoders online - have your local synth shop swap it out
Super common issue with these electribes
e.g. th-cam.com/video/Zd_NHbw3-Mw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=uNsaY-sySOjFklHN
Encoder Fix: The issue that the Electribe X's have is that the circuitboard is way too close to the metal casing. As such, after using it a while, the faceplate will bend in just enough to make contact, shorting the encoders. There's a very easy fix to this: Open it up, take a sheet of parchment paper (or newspaper if you're a cheapass like me), and put it against the circuit board. Close it up, and you'll see an immediate difference nearly every time.
no this isn't the fix! its your ribbon cable going bad.......why does everyone think the faceplate is bending enough to short to the pcb??? literally been trying to fight this disinformation for nearly a decade. (btw the only reason you saw results its because when you opened the unit up you were forced to move/jiggle the ribbon cable, your problem will come back, and you can force it to by moving the cable with it powered on if you don't believe me)
Took Joey less than 5 mins to conjure all-out industrial mayhem.
i know it made my fucking ears bleed, i had to stop the video.
@@shonkyboyill take the industrial ear bleed over some ambient jam anyday
The beauty of that is did anyone know you could do what he just did with it. Too damn cool.
I just replaced my encoder with a brandnew one - desoldering and soldering is easy, and it didn´t cost the world. Furthermore i renewed the valves. Now the whole machine works as brandnew, and it sounds amazing.
My EMX-1's encoder issue grew worse over time--same thing, jittering values during use. I had the encoder replaced and repaired, and it's worked fine since.
Now I try to reduce the wear and tear on it by using shift functions to scroll through the sample list. It's handy when there's a lot of selections to move through. If that main encoder were larger, or had a jog wheel, that'd be quite something.
According to the repair guy I went with, the encoder seems to wear down the notches inside when it's spun quickly. I tried to be careful with mine, but it was pre-owned when I got it, too, so who knows how wildly it was used in the past. Cleaning might work if those notches aren't actually worn down yet. I imagine as you clean it, you may notice if the notches on the encoder are smoothed down from use or abuse.
I'm glad the older Electribes are getting some attention, though! Best of luck with the encoder issue.
How is it possible that I'm just talking about this box with a friend and you did a video on it an hour ago haha. Stars have aligned...
i brought one of these in the late 90s, its safely stored away in my bros Attic because i felt it was going to be a classic at some point - glad to hear other agree with my prediction, thanks for reminding me how awesome it was
The. Best. Musical. Instrument. EVER BUILT.
All hail ye Olde Blue Psytrance King!
Love the enthusiasm btw, I totally understand when you're making a banger tune and in the flow :)
I love my emx-1 and use it on almost every track i make. It has features like 128 step patterns which a lot of modern boxes dont have. It is also pretty great as a midi master and I like to run a couple of synths off it. It is great to create tracks standalone just using it by itself, but superb to use combined with an esx-1 sampler!
the mx as the master synth is really cool, i’ve combined it with the model D, really fun.
i love how so much different music can be made with the electribes. i’ve been combining the sx and mx together, it’s a powerhouse. i want to buy a second MX and have double the synth channels.
Bought an EMX-1 today (in great condition) but immediately experienced buyer's regret as soon as I pulled the trigger because I started second-guessing whether I should have gone for the EMS-1. This video helped me feel better about my purchase. I guess the optimum thing would be to have both. I just have to keep reminding myself that there ARE things the EMX can do that the EMS cannot.
I love this box, it has everything, my kids love to play with it as well...wish there was something like this on the market with so well thought user interface and workflow
I have a EMX-1SD and ESX-1SD. My emx hasnt hasn’t had issues but the ESX had same encoder issue, I just pulled the knob then used contact cleaner. It has been working since.
If you hold down shift while moving the rotary it will allow you to skip in bigger chunks, so you can get to say the hi hat section quicker. This is what I do to get into the rough drum section, then use the rotary as normal to select the sound (eventually).
I've the same skipping issue but not as bad. Scrolling from the Bass drums up to the Hi Hats is pretty tough for me unless I go super slow, so I use the shift function to get me in the rough area first.
Great video. I have several grooveboxes and the EMX-1 has always been one of favourites.
One thingt I noticed: The Korg grooveboxes are not the only ones that can do 128 steps - the MC-707 can do that as well! (And it has a sampler to chop up samples, a looper and the Zencore synth engine - it's pretty awesome. My favourite groovebox of them all, I like it even better than the Syntakt.)
I was able to fix that encoder on an electribe with a couple blasts of contact cleaner.
Encoder-fix:
Its not the encoder itself but a ribboncable inside that connects the 2 boards which becomes loose.
Search for: Korg EMX Knob Jitter in 2017
The EMX is a beast! It was my 2nd synth, got it in 2012 and it's still my favorite. Industrial, Breaks, Noise, Psycore, no problem with this gem! Great for jamming, you get awesome results in no time. Hook up a KaossPad and you got a simple yet powerful live setup. Thanks for the review!
I didn't buy one coz i was waiting on Electribe 2... What a mistake it was!
@@djkanyon I also had the new one...sold it after a couple of weeks. What a downgrade xD I mean battery-powered to go experience and mini KaossPad aside... that thing is awful. The old emx otoh always makes me smile. Had some issues with the button contacts: graphite spray. Audio-outs were unbalanced: there's tutorials for calibration. Glad I never had the encoder sh*t mentioned in the vid. This old groovebox you can take apart, repair and reassemble as a noob or take to any vintage hifi shop and get help. Love it
@M0RGue0Nslaught have you any video about your productions with MX??
Dude... nothing beats old Electribes. Tube compression rocks, sound engine is so much better then nowadays on E2S. You said it best - It IS a legend.
Electribe 2 are shit.
I have all series from 2001.
But I stopped at MX and SX.
I used often to control other machines.. from MX's five synth parts.
But nowdays I have a keystep too.
No your completly wrong. This is actuall the middle gen electribe not old
@@scowlsmcjowls2626 the valve electribe..MX and SX are the best combo ever made.
Electribe 2 sounds like a PC plug-in..
and I don't play with a soundcard.
@@Sandelec-gm2cl no no that one had the same engine as the microkorg so they corrected it. Look maybe its a matter of taste but i felt left down in a sense by it
I have three of these ,, In Perfect condition ,,,I bought fifteen years ago ,,,I love them use them for all kids of drums and synths with other synths they are built like tanks ...and sound amazing .
Hell yeah loving the crazy sounds you’re getting there
They're a lot of fun, i had two for a while and would sync them. Liked making drum and bass on them, just felt natural to come up with something quick rather programming everything meticulously on the computer.
A true spirit Polygon WINDOW 😊😊😊😊😊
This machine is an absolute beast when you really familiarize yourself with it and really unlock its potential, without anything else. I’ve been watching a lot of vids of people doing psytrance on it and am super impressed. I wish u had used mine a lot more over the years, but never really went deep into it.
Three things I love, 1, you can use it as a midi controller for other synths, and 2, you can route any instrument out of the LR bus (no effects just dry) to send to external FX, and 3, you can use the built in fx on external instruments via the audio in.
This was my first synth, I thought back in 2005, and it still works amazing.
Hey man if you're still looking, I fixed my main selector encoder last night by dousing the internal pot with pure alchohol, the electronics cleaning stuff. I wiggled it about 100 times vigorously, dried it out for an hour and it works fine now, touch wood. I'm.sure it will only last so long but its awesome right now 😅
Edit: I had exactly the same problem...now fixed without opening up the machine. did the same to the Arp slider and its much better now. 🎉
Been loving my EMX-1 for years! And the tubes!
i f love your punky reviews!
We found one in the schools archive so we bought a midi cable for it and got it working today🤩 trying to figure out how to use it
(4real) *ENCODER FIX >>>* The encoder wheel is completely fine do not try to fix this issue by cleaning any of its knobs and wheels! *Here is why:* The glitches R occurring cos residual current is induced in its circuit. Most of this electro-magnetism gets emitted from the analogue tube- and digital pre-amps build into the E-TRIBES. So in oder to isolate the encoder-mainboard (also carrying the front panel LCD-Display) from the magnetic field ---> get some baking paper(!) and put it between the front-plate layers who is A.) carrying the encoder-mainboard and B.) - the lowest layer where U can find the Faraday cage, housing the tube-amp. Baking paper is heat resistant and electrically isolating because of its silicon coating. It gets the job done perfectly! After fixing yo E-MX/SX U will also experience an even much more crisp looking LCD-Display which gets dimmed by the magnetic field radiating from the build in pre-amps, before the fix. It took me quite a while to find the right materials for this fix as U can imagine :-) _Booyaka!_
We now need a RadiasTribe for our sonic future !
Did you experiment with swapping the tubes? It may provide some benefit. Also, there's some audio feedback trick people used to do, but I don't remember the details.
I don’t think he did, otherwise Mr.Blush Response would have said something. That would have been a stock EMX 1. Now the sounds he got out that thing…different story.
The arp strip is amazing for drum fills.
My first Electronic instrument and i love it, unfortunately it doesn't work so well anymore. I tried to fix it... I spent many hours on the electribe emx1 !
i think this was for the encoder issue but a friend of mine back in the day had to put parchment paper under the top panel between the it and the circuit board because there was something touching the panel or something like that that was causing it to short out.
Nice one. Xosar uses Electribes.
For encoders knobs try the Deoxit D5. This was the ONLY product i used that saved the encoders on my novation nova keyboard.
Regarding the encoder, it will need opening the emx, you need to repair potentiometer or replace it, second option requires soldering, I just repaired.
That sounds wicked. I'm kinda surprised Korg hasn't tried to re-release this bad boy.
They have, and failed
they did. they re-release electribe's - they were all shit.
Those newer ones don't count. Cause they look and play like a completely different inferior instrument. I had one and hated it.
Check Electribe 2 Blue ;)
shit@@aki_gong6271
You deserve a shit ton more subs!!!
Electribe emx1 and esx1 need more love.
These groovebox are legendary like the tb303 or tr909 are. I remember owning my emx1 in 2009 and I still use it today. Others brands and korg themselves need to do more groovebox with soul like emx1 and esx1. These shit are easy to use like breathing. They have a soul.
Nice video, can you advise what is outdated on it?
What would it take to "recreate" the emx1 in modular gear?
This is the best energy I’ve ever seen in a review. When you say “yes!” it rocks so much 😅 def subscribing and I’m not even in this genre cheers!
Try deoxit on the encoder. That fixed the exact same issue on my dsi polyevolver. Worth a shot.
I own one and this is an amazing machine. If you need more modern sequencer (with odd bar lengths etc), it is absolutely compatible via midi 😼
Is that a Jaspers stand? I’m always jealous of a stand like this that can hold drum machines but I can’t find anything like it in the US.
I bought my Jasper's from Thomann. Shipped to Canada was really very reasonable. Just go for it. Will change how you work being able to have everything accessible.
I think some of you in the comment section have to know that this machine is indeed a legend within the french free party culture and tribe music scene
idk about other genres or cultures I think they have a lot of different machines
but in France, if you see people playing tribe live acts, this one and the ESX are THE classic machines you'll see half of the time, there is some kind of cult around it
Was that all on a drum beat preset .A bit of hardhouse ravey synth at the end
What a friggin powerhouse... I had one like 18 years ago or something and I was too stupid to know how good it was... Although I sold it for more money than I got it for, a few years later...
People really didn't take them seriously back in the day.
You made this look like so much fun to use 😜
Love the review! Does anything come close to this that is sold new? Thank you
had the same issue with mine. easy fix, just remove the encoder and clean up the grease. what happens is the internal grease eventually seeps out and makes it act wonky. you can look this up on the korg forums--that's what gave me the confidence to dig into mine.
i'm having a separate issue now though, if anyone can help. a lot of the drum pads have become really unresponsive, like, i have to hit them pretty hard to get them to respond. it seemed to have happened overnight too. well not literally, but I had given the machine a break, maybe about a year, and when I used it again it wasn't the same. I took it all apart and cleaned the best I could while using no solvents, everything looked in tact. put it together and the problem persists. any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I got the EMX.. and i love to just take it on my lap in the living room and play around . Its a special device as you can master like and instrument and make complete tracks and live sets with it, some limitation will spark your creativity . and let not forget that it looks cool also ! :) There is a guy mihail shevchenko (enformin) who has master this device and done some crazy live sets on youtube !
If cleaning it doesent work, To replace the rotery encoder its like a $20 part and six ish solder points. Any decent electrical tech should be able to do it
Yeah, the trick is finding the right sized encoder, but once you do, dead easy fix. It’s a pain to take everything apart, but you gotta do that to clean an encoder so you might as well just get a good modern one that will likely last longer and replace it.
Still have EMX's brother - Korg ESX sampler. Played tons of gigs with that, quite hands on, but too heavy for touring unfortunately :(
"YES."
I have the 4 original Electribes and am consistently disappointed nobody has really done a modern take on them. They're so easy to use, have a lot of features, you can do a lot with the sound, and they were cheap (and usually still are, at least for now). Aside from the occasional encoder or pot, they've been reliable too.
The E2 isn't necessarily bad, but it's absolutely not on the level of its own predecessors...
You turn CHAOS into ART !
Cheers 🥂
Love when reviewers are down to get nasty with it. Too many vanilla reviews out there. I get that clean tones can help educate more but I'm tryna push my gear and this emx-1 really seems to do some awesome stuff. Thanks!
may have some luck using the shift+encoder to skip to the parts you want - even with the hokey encoder, GL!
I love this box man. Mine is so fucked up, the push buttons don't work nicely anymore and a lot of the knobs are busted as well, the encoder though, works perfectly haha.
I really wish I could get it repaired but it seems hard in my area.
8 bar sequencer, make BIG ass kicks using the synth part and the LFO Slope waveform, the FX chaining section while limited, can get you some crazy results.
I had the red one. It had a glitch the encoder would fail and it would never work when selecting samples. I did an insurance job on it. Got rid. I remember being on the fence do I get the red or blue. The valve made this crunch. I liked the gimmick. Of the light shining on the tube it made it look good. As a sampler playing back samples it was nice. The memory wasn’t very big.. so you couldn’t put a whole sample CD on the machine. I remember being stung on an SD card as I thought these were impossible to find. I paid a few guys who worked in a computer shop 75 pounds just for the SD card. I didn’t have the internet then. I used a catalogue. And made a call to order 😂 if you like that sound this works well.
YESSSSS
I bought new one (ESX) in 2011 for 480 Euro. And yesterdeay preowned EMX for 600 Euro !! This is crazy.
is there a way to exchange the stock drum samples?
YES.
great machine but not for every genre, I easily made some nice stuff with it for a while, I even used the buttons to play solos, but I grew tired of not being able to get a wider, cleaner sound with it. I replaced the vaccuum tubes with vintage 1970s ones, that helped getting a milder distortion, but I still ended up selling mine. this demo sounds just like I remembered it, this muffled, distorted quality is not for me. so I wasn't wrong in changing that gear. however my current drum is digitakt, sounds better for the genres I play but it's slower to work with, too sensitive with the multiple functions for each button and keypress combinations.
you almost got a korgasm. LOL
i love this machine. is my most precious good.
Where can i get a good sample pack
You should replace that encoder or fix it. I've had my emx-1 for 15 years and have never had an issue with it
I replaced the ax7 whatever tubes with ecc something or other and they sound WAY better when driven hard. Like night and day
Do you have any examples or able to describe how the character changed? Mine has the stock EHX Russian ones and they sound great on individual parts, external input, and the whole mix! If I had a bunch of matched pairs of tubes laying around I’d experiment a bunch but curious what others have achieved with theirs.
@AkaTengu there is less breakup and distortion and what there is is more pleasant and rounded/smooth. I swapped back to the old ones to double heck, then back to the new ones.
@@EarlyMist thanks for getting back on this! So I'm guessing you can push them harder and get the tube compression but not keep it cleaner? Now you really got me interested again in trying some other tubes. Right now the raw gritty breakup is nice but I'm building some gnarly distortion circuits that may benefit from something a bit smoother and round to accompany them :)
Hard to describe. Best to experiment.
My whole unit needs a pull apart and clean like this guys. I actually laughed out loud watching the main selektor dial shennanigens 😅 because I have the exact same thing...and a dodgy power connector. And I havent tested everything else even though I've made three basic track on it.
Re the tubes ,my best guess is they are breaking up more harmonically evenly, as opposed to odd harmonics.
2025 still glad to have mine since 2007 😊
love how into it you are man, fucking awesome
They rock even more I'd u pop in some Mullard tubes... I wish Korg was wise enough to include the filter drive model on more of their gear produced thereafter from these EMX1'S. Cause it's a huge part of why these Korgs are as good for dirty techno 4 sure imo
I had a SX sampler version and the encoder would jump the menu and make it unusable i never had the skills back then to open it and replace the encoder but thinking it might be something else not just the encoder. I sold mine
yeah...favorite groovebox of all time
Oh no!! This video will thrust prices even higher! :) I have used it live for many years and it's a real classic and a perfect design, as shallow and as deep as you could need. The ribbon arp has not been replicated afterwards (sadly! hey Elektron...) Replacing the original with the JJ tubes makes the sound round and warm. The drum samples sound brutal in big sound systems, and the synth is amazingly flexible. The only con is the bad reverb, but a minor detail. It's astounding that this was released in 2003. Beware of getting the SM versions (pre 2010) cos the SD versions have an electrical problem that generates glitches in the knob data, which renders the unit pretty useless in the end.
I may add, the ESX is still one of the best samplers out there too!!!!!!
Thanks for being 1 more person that drove the price of these up to a level where most of us can no longer afford them. Ive been using the EMX-1 for over a decade, but now I can afford a replacement because they ALL fail eventually. I hate that theres a bunch of people paying almost $1,000 for these just to treat them like a fucking Boss DR-660, sing them at 2% of their potential. Congrats hipsters, you ruined yet another special thing for the OGs.
love your energy
The Drumlogue is sort of a A/D continuation of the Electribes, but not the same amount of control. We would pay for a more capable machine!
Hermoso y demoledor 🔥
Joey, when you gonna demo the Electribe 2? I would love to see you smash that lol
YESSS!!!
💙 YEAH! Still using my EMX this year, and favorite ESX! It's a high point for playability, beat making, jamming. 📮 Wouldn't an Electribe 3 with Elektron or TR8s type modern sound quality be great? (Even just re-issue the old ones! With an official fix for the "knob drift bug" which you are experiencing. Causes - control wear out, but also the two circuit boards of the machine slightly touching. It can be DIY fixed with non-conductive "oven paper", but an official fix would be our dream.) See my channel for LOTS of Electribe, including industrial and IDM
When the ADHD kicks in
Yes
Only sixth destination for LFO, for each player, poory but need check that machine in real anyway.
Greetings Blush and everyone!
YES
bro you are twisting and pressing the &$^£ out of it. no wonder it's playing up. even the music is as aggressive as the way you use it.