Korg tr61?

Is Korg tr61 best in his class considering Yamaha Roland and the rest?

I owned one. Sold it.

I'm replacing it with a Motif XS7...after Christmas when I can enjoy my money again

This is how I see the ranking of the Big Three's Junior Workstations, just in terms of sound and playability (not counting the sequencer or sampler):

Roland Juno G

I think the MO6 has the best keybed of the three and the best stock ROM for my uses. The TR definitely is better for trance and techno kind of stuff and the Juno G has a really large and easy to use sampler. The MO6 and the TR61 don't have samplers, although you can buy an expansion for the TR61.

What SUCKS about the TR's, though, is that their resale value is {censored}. Look at them on eBay, nobody is bidding.

I have a Korg TR-61 myself, and my opinion about it is devided into good and bad.

Good: the sounds, the sounds of the TR are great, especially the presets.

You're able to create the most eleborate sounds you can think of, big

plus for the TR.

Bad: User-friendlyness. It takes a million menu's to make even the most

simple of changes, like octave or transpose. It's even harder to quickly

change the split and layer function.

All this makes it an unfriendly stage-piano. It's not possible to quickly

make changes during a gig.

The worst thing is its program-layout. It is not possible to move programs around (to give them different numers and such) without an external program like LeLibby (for your computer).

Furthermore, if you switch between each of the modes (Combination, Program, Global, Media, Sequencer etc.) while playing, your sound immediately dies out. Again, this is terrible for live performances! If you want to change the velocity of the keys during playing --> BANG! Your sound is gone. (untill you continue playing of course)

Another problem with the TR is that when you make changes on the control knobs, those settings will be lost once you switch from Program or Combination to Global mode (to make other crucial settings)

All in all, for home and/or studio use, it's great, but for live performances, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

That depends on your needs. in my case, I needed an affordable, lightweight board with full multi-sample capability. The TR61 is the only one that features this capability in it's price range (?). I can sample =every= key separately for as long as ram holds out. This was important to me so I could sample the Mellotron faithfully, note-for-note or define my own sample range per edit. Some boards claim sampling, such as the Juno-G, but they are single-point samples that, beyond 4 or 5 keys north or south, are not of much use. Korg has a promotion going on now that includes this lovely option for free.

Oh, well, by now your decision is made. Enjoy!

I have a Triton LE, which is basically the same as the TR, and fail to see how it is user-unfriendly. I use it at gigs frequently (every 2-4 weeks) and it serves me well. Not to mention the countless other performers who use either the LE or the TR.

You can move programs about as well (it's more like copying them to a different slot) and seeing as the D Program bank has free spaces you can set any sounds that you are going to use in there for easy access if you don't like push buttons that much. Even if you want to re-arrange the sounds in the banks, you can just swap the ones you wish to switch by copying them to the D bank them copying them from ther into the position you want.

For the program/combi switching you've got to remember that it's not just switching from one sound to another, it's jumping between operating modes (not to mention from up to 8 sounds to 1). Finally the changes to the control knobs can be saved, just go to the menu and "Write Program".

I have a Korg TR I bought around Thanksgiving. I use it mostly in my studio. However, sometimes I do play out. I don't know how many sounds you use on a gig, but one idea I had was to create a sequencer song template with the sounds I want on the different tracks. Then I can just position the pointer over the track selection and use the wheel to select the one I want. Would work if you needed less that 16 for the gig or at least part of the gig.

I would say depening on what music you do, it may be the best in the class, I bought it for the sounds and because I did not want to lug around the Triton Extreme. The TR is definately a great board for the certain sounds, if you want the most realistic pallet of sounds go with the MO6, I am not familiar with the Roland G, but I hear the Fantom Xa is not bad.