The Very Under Appreciated Triton LE

[wheresgrant3]

The poor Triton LE. It never seems to get a fair shake on KSS. I've been a sometimes proud owner of a Triton LE for just over three years now. During that time I've had a love/hate relationship with this unit. As I plan to sell mine and upgrade to the Extreme, I wonder if I'll ever miss playing this little bastard!

 

Of course the answer is 'probably not', however I have seen some pretty bad knocks on the unit and some pretty riduclous claims ("the Alesis Q 6.2 has a better keybed and sounds over the LE") over the years, I figured I give up a few props that make this synth worth owning.

 

Sure it's keybed sucks, and it has no onboard controls for key tranpose, octave, portatempo...(in that respect, it's just as limited as it's older brothers). However there are some key advantages that makes it great to have in an aresnal with other boards.

 

It's weight.... 16lbs baby!!! That's all! It's light as a feather (clearly a result of it's {censored}ty key action ). In a softcase it goes from the trailer to the stage without so much as straining a eyebrow. Great if you have tons of gear to lug around.

 

Easy to program

Even without the touchscreen, the LE is pretty inuitive to navigate and program. I've made many new combi's from the existing factory presets, and have had no trouble tweaking programs into my own creations. Sure the lack of insert effects limits any serious programming junkie... but I've always prefered external effects and plug ins over ton the "all in one" solution.

 

Great sounds

Straight out of the box the LE was programmed to impress. Of course each patch is glittered with layers of reverb, delay and chorus, most of the sounds are very well done out of the box. For vintage sounds at gigs I find myself reaching for the LE before my XP30 w/ The Vintage Card installed. Fat Rez patches, bright electro leads, trancy arpeggios, huge pads, acid bass, and drums galore... for the synth curious on a budget the LE can easily cover everything from Devo to Prodigy.

 

Smart Media, smart media, smartmedia....

Coupled with the sampling option... this additional feature has been a "lifesaver" at gigs. Can tell you how convenient it is to quickly load a certain sample (I was too lazy to keymap every new sample I added during our sets) or back up and reload my user programs all using Smart Media. It's quick, efficent and stress less. I'm sure the Extreme will be even better (USB, Compact Flash) however I feel sorry for anyone who has to lug a scsi zip drive and load samples on a classic. Bummer dude!

 

The price.... LE's used are going between, $600-800. Although the Classic is still a better buy when considering the moss, the LE is still the board I would prefer to gig with given it's slightly updated sounds and smart media. Again... on weekends I'm playing Van Halen... not Chopin on it. I've lived with the plasticky keys this long... I could do it longer if I had to.

 

Anyway... I felt as though the LE needed a little defending. Of course the Classic still trumps the LE for power... the LE is still a great choice for a synth newbie on a budget who can't afford to shell out the bucks for a new Extreme.

[keyman_sam]

I am a previous triton Le owner. owned it for about 2 years and sold it b4 moving.

 

Yes, it is very under-rated here, and i'd say its mainly because of the CHEAP MATERIAL USED in the keys and the board.

 

I've had broken buttons with fairly light use and the joystick's ribbon broke once. The board also attracts dust like A FRIGGIN MAGNET.

 

apart from the quality of construction, it was a fantastic board. absolutely loved it! dead on easy to program. great effects and stuff and nice pads and WOW! those combis deserve a mention.

 

I didnt have the sampling option, but i cant imagine pressing those plasticky buttons for god's sake.

 

i've also NEVER had a polyfony problem. no matter how rich the strings/pianos were, it kept up and didnt miss a note.

 

did quite a bit of sequencing with it. pretty cool board and surely i'd recommend it for someone looking for a good board in the low price range.

 

 

BTW, i saw some tritons in the 600-700$ on e-bay, so i guess triton LEs must be selling under that.

[BillyWa]

I must say my Triton LE is much better than my Yamaha S30. The S30 keybed feels even worse to me and the pots are so finicky that I gave up trying to program it.

 

The LE was actually my first sampler!

[Jez]

I owned my LE for little over a year before selling it on for something older that played nicer. The main reason I got rid of it was because it was built really cheap, the whole thing rattled, creaked, and I thought the keys were going to snap when I applied aftertouch. O_O

 

Sounds were mostly okay, but it never seemed to feel "right". You know when you just bond with a synth and think "yeah, she's the one"? Well it never happened. And if it doesn't happen after the first couple of gigs that rings alarm bells for me.

 

That and the salesman who sold it to me tried to bull{censored} me into buying a MOSS board. I could've wasted a lot of money there if I was a proper newbie.

 

Him: Can I interest you in the MOSS upgrade as well?

 

Me: Err... I just ordered the "LE", MOSS option is for the other tritons

 

Him: No no, it will definitely definitely fit, there's some really awesome sound capabilities with -

 

Me: There's no connector for it ANYWHERE on the keyboard O_o The manual does not even list it as an optional part. I think I'll leave it thanks.

 

Jesus christ.

[tdempsey]

grant -

 

that's a relief to hear, because sometime this summer I will most definitely score a used Triton LE, it will trump my Roland JV-1080 and I'm looking forward to the sequencer/sampling.

[flat earth]

Triton LE:

 

Pros:

Probably the best sounding all round budget keyboard around. (Despite what alot of people would have you believe, it beats the XP30 and Fantom XA IMHO).

 

Cons:

Outragiously bad keyboard action, fairly poor construction. oh and dont forget....... (Yawn)Piano sound isnt that hot (end Yawn). ...... it aint that bad btw

[Jez]

I've heard far worse pianos tbh... and if piano sound/good keyboard feel is a priority to you, buying an LE is a stupid thing to do anyway

[johnskoutaris]

I own a triton le76.I never had problems.Nice sounds except the piano(awfull).LE is the best choice for its money but i am definetely going to sell it for a motif es6.

[keyman_sam]

Originally posted by Jez I owned my LE for little over a year before selling it on for something older that played nicer. The main reason I got rid of it was because it was built really cheap, the whole thing rattled, creaked, and I thought the keys were going to snap when I applied aftertouch. O_O Sounds were mostly okay, but it never seemed to feel "right". You know when you just bond with a synth and think "yeah, she's the one"? Well it never happened. And if it doesn't happen after the first couple of gigs that rings alarm bells for me. That and the salesman who sold it to me tried to bull{censored} me into buying a MOSS board. I could've wasted a lot of money there if I was a proper newbie. Him: Can I interest you in the MOSS upgrade as well? Me: Err... I just ordered the "LE", MOSS option is for the other tritons Him: No no, it will definitely definitely fit, there's some really awesome sound capabilities with - Me: There's no connector for it ANYWHERE on the keyboard O_o The manual does not even list it as an optional part. I think I'll leave it thanks. Jesus christ.

 

 

Jez, you know what? you aint the only one.

 

When i was in india, this f***** salesman tricked me into buying this by saying that it can hold 200 songs in its internal memory.

 

him : You know, if you buy the triton LE, you can record upto 200 songs with its internal memory.

 

me : are you sure? without an external media??

 

him : yes yes. you can switch it off and on and still the songs will be there. its in the internal memory. so, you wont need an external storage till you finish those 200 songs. haha.

 

me : oh cool, then i think i'll buy it.

 

f**** salesman, i hate them. dunno JACK about keyboards and smells a newbie and tries to pull a stunt. ofcourse after i buy, he wont even recognize me. :rolleyes:

[Etienne Rambert]

I own one.

 

Some good sounds.

 

Too many stupid dance, trance, Hip Hop loops. Not enough bread & butter sounds.

 

My kids love to play it. I almost never use it.

 

My 21 year old son plays guitar & piano. He borrowed the LE to record piano & couldn't use it. He ended up getting the old Story & Clark tuned & re-keyed and recording with it.

 

I give it thumbs up though for an easy interface. After the Korg N-Series fiasco, they learned their lesson. I figured out how to navigate the LE in 4 minutes on the showroom floor.

[Yoozer]

 

Originally posted by marcellis After the Korg N-Series fiasco

 

I liked the keys of the N5. Worst mistake ever - leaving out resonant filters.

[Jez]

I'd take an N5EX over a Triton LE any day of the week.

[keyman_sam]

i've used both Triton LE and an N5.

 

N5 has THE simplest interface. there's like nothing on that board to go through menus. you have straightdorward interface and hooked up with a sequencer, its awesome, BUT

 

the key action sucks again. my school teacher had an N5 and he had 3 keys broken and 4 buttons not working.

 

its becuase of that poorly constructed board that i refuse to give N5 a thumbs up.

 

otherwise, its a darn good board.

[Etienne Rambert]

Jez: "I'd take an N5EX over a Triton LE any day of the week."

 

So would I. But I owned an N-364. Stupidest, most counter-intuitive work station design I've ever encountered.

 

Putting an XG bank in the N-5EX was brilliant. (It's the one with the XG bank, right?)

 

I would trade my LE for one. I am always looking for the Nx5r sound module. I'm still in the market for one. All those great Korg sounds and XG with it. Plus no stupid loops like the Le.

 

The display died on my N-364. I could barely see it. It had a lot of good sounds though. If it had an XG bank, I would have kept it. But with the display gone, I traded it for an Le.

 

[GigMan]

Originally posted by tdempsey grant - that's a relief to hear, because sometime this summer I will most definitely score a used Triton LE, it will trump my Roland JV-1080 and I'm looking forward to the sequencer/sampling.

 

I too am a Triton owner for about 3 yrs. and I would echo all of Grant's sentiments: great sounds, easy to work with (if I had time), extreeeeeeemely light and portable, it's just that the keybed is very light + action is much less resistant than I'd like, being from a piano-playing background.

 

Tim -

If you don't wind up buying Grant's Triton Le (or someone else's for that matter), PM me, maybe we can strike a deal over the summer: I wouldn't mind selling my Triton LE (once I figure out what to replace it with - Triton Extreme, Motif ES, Fantom X) if it would find a good home... - and if you're in NYC area maybe we can even avoid shipping it.

 

[tdempsey]

Tim - If you don't wind up buying Grant's Triton Le (or someone else's for that matter), PM me, maybe we can strike a deal over the summer: I wouldn't mind selling my Triton LE (once I figure out what to replace it with - Triton Extreme, Motif ES, Fantom X) if it would find a good home... - and if you're in NYC area maybe we can even avoid shipping it.

 

Thanks GigMan, we'll see what happens this summer when the cash is in hand... in person is preferable (I'm in Rockland County).

[GigMan]

 

Originally posted by tdempsey Thanks GigMan, we'll see what happens this summer when the cash is in hand... in person is preferable (I'm in Rockland County).

 

 

Okie-doke.

 

BTW, Tim - you have a real nice web site. Looks like you do a little bit o' everything: design/graphics/animation/illustration/multimedia/sounddesign, etc...

[cold truth]

soundwise, this thing has "cheap" written all over it.

 

pianos are ok, there a few decent organs and a couple of nice little string patches. drums are horrible with a few minor exceptions. there is NOTHING about this board that stands out EXCEPT its pads and motion synth sounds....which are truly excellent.

 

now, if the point of having this board is to play gigs using mainly pianos..... i am sure there are much better options in the price range. if its being used as a production sound source... there are much better products in this range, namely a motif es rack. if it is being used as the all-in-one workstation, its ok but its effects section is SEVERELY limited with ONE insert effect but a solid mastering section, I will say that much.

 

all in all this board does have a few strengths but it lags so far behind in so many areas

[keyman_sam]

Well, if you put on the orchestral sounds board, you get a LOT of stuff.

 

Sounds like rhodes, clavs are meh...ok, but thats just in the program mode. in the combi mode, you can do a heck a lotta stuff, like arps and what not.

 

 

i think its worth the 999 price tag for what it does.

[bobtheknob]

Just a reality check: the LE has some good sounds, mainly due to the clever programming of the Korg guys, but what it's important to note is that the LE only has 1 "chip", while the rest of the Triton Series and the Karma have 2 "chips". I don't have the technical details on what the chips are, but the deal is that the second chip is used for 4 more Insert Effects. So the Le has just 1 Insert effect available (and 2 Master Effects), while the other Tritons and Karma have 5 Insert effects (and 2 Master Effects).

 

With clever programming, this can still sound good. But if you are trying to use this as your main board, for sequencing, having only 1 insert effect vs. 5 insert effects is quite limiting. You might want to put a compressor on your Kick drum, delay on your guitar, chorus on your e.pno, big reverb on just the snare, etc. - can't do it on an LE.

 

That's the main reason why it's a lot cheaper than all the other Korgs.

[wheresgrant3]

/

 

Very true! For sound creation it definately lags behind the Triton. It is also close to half the price as well. Which is why I've always looked at it for it's performance features rather than it's workstation features. For constant gigging it's great. Lightweight, powerful, sounds great. Even with all of the hop hop combi's I was able to mangle some great performance patches and splits for arena rock style songs. Best of all I would load each song into my sequencer and pull them up as needed during a gig, opposed to typing each program or patch in using the numerical keypad. I'd get our setlist the day before, arrange all the combi's and programs in order of the setlist. Very convenient and easy.

 

 

For an all out workstation on a budget, someone would do well to find a used Triton Classic or Motif 6. However that's only 50% of the reason why people buy synths. For someone who gigs constantly or wants a Triton for the road while they leave their expensive Studio at home, a used LE can be an affordable alternative. I have even considered keeping my LE to gig with and leaving my new Extreme at home. But I can't afford to keep both.

[GigMan]

Grant -

Do you always hold to that exact setlist? What happens if you guys decide to change it up a little?

[wheresgrant3]

We change it every gig. In fact, almost every week we are guaranteed to have 1 or 2 new songs or bring back 2 or 3 older songs we haven't done in a while. No one ever sees the same show twice. It's part of our draw. We rotate setlist duties between three of us in the band. The key is that we always have next weekend's setlists done by Monday so we can go over changes in practice on Thursday. We email it to everyone so they have a few days to bone up on older songs or learn the newer material. We even have a secured page on our website that has a schedule of new tunes on deck and where we plan to play them, It's usually six weeks out. It's a cool system and for the most part (outside of a cancelled practice, or someone out sick) it keeps us on our toes, people at our shows and our sponsors very happy.

 

So where does this leave me with setting up songs in my LE. Well I play synths on 50% of the songs we play (guitar, trumpet, bongos on the rest), and the LE about half of that with the XP30. However, I don't reprogram the songs in my sequencer every week. Most of the songs I usually play synths on are usually these long, interconneted song medley's we jam on. For instance there is a dance/ funk medley we play that starts out with "I Will Survive", and ends with "Play that Funky Music". In between we play stuff by Salt N Pepper, The Ohio Players, Dave Matthews, Nelly. It's totals 12 songs and 27 minutes of nonstop music and I have no less than 9 different patches I use. We also have an 80's new wave medley and a classic rock one we play that I have setup similar. I store the patches I use in songs on my sequencer and I arrange those songs in order. So then I have all of the combi's and programs set up for these medley in order and it leaves me time to pull patches on my XP30 manually. It works great and I don't have to drop out or skip a beat while changing patches.

 

Whew! That was long.... does that make sense?

[GigMan]

That's cool & I'm sure you + the boys put on a great show and it sounds like you do put a lot of thought/effort/time into song selection/variation/continuity and all that...

 

But what I mean is this: what if someone in the band (the singer?) decides on the spot - at the gig, in the middle of a set - to change things around from what your pre-defined (for a week) set list says...

[tdempsey]

But what I mean is this: what if someone in the band (the singer?) decides on the spot - at the gig, in the middle of a set - to change things around from what your pre-defined (for a week) set list says...

 

GigMan, you hit the nail on the head, I'm keenly interested in this as well. We mix it up constantly on the spot and that's why every gig is fresh.

 

So the speed of which I can pull up a Bob Marley patch to play something we haven't trotted out in a while - or to handle a request - is integral to my plan to integrate keys (I'm a bass player by trade). The user interface has to be dead-simple.

 

Sounds like Grant has a day in advance to setup patchs.

 

P.S. Thanks for checking out my site!