Excellent sampler, perfect for drum machines

When my drum machine craze started (thanks to The The's song "Giant"), I was looking for something similar to a LinnDrum or Oberheim DMX/DX; the initial candidate seemed to be the Digitakt, but there was a problem: the Digitakt is/was unable to load samples on all 16 pads unless you were doing a sequence, which severely limited its use (especially considering the multi-sound nature of the Linns, Oberheims, and E-Mus). So on the search went, until I happened upon the new electribe (lower case is deliberate!), this one. I had heard about some of the drawbacks (including the fact that the samples had to be stored on the SD card), so I was weighing my options (even considering an HR-16 as well). In the end, the pros far outweighed the cons, and so I bought the electribe sampler. Turned out that most of whatever limitations this thing had didn't bother me (the SD card limitation still does, though), and uploaded almost all the sample-based drum machines, as well as recreating their original layouts as intended by their makers; I immediately put it to use, recreating many of the '80s drum patterns and a few '90s ones and even "Feels", the then-recent one (and even creating a few of my own, using it as a sketch pad for drum patterns).

SD card shortcoming aside (which is why I give it four stars instead of five), this is a good drum machine (which is what I use it as, instead of the sampler it purports itself to be). Definitely kills the Digitakt (or at least did at one point, I'm not sure), and you should get one.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Good sampler, but not enough memory for 2015 and weird MIDI connectors

The "New" Electribe Sampler is a good device and it borrows some of the synth features of the Electribe Synthesizer. Since the Synth and the Sampler seem to be build on the same Hardware basis, people can hack the Sampler into the Synth version and vice versa. I think Korg should have put all the synth features in the sampler and just made one device. But this way, they can sell you both devices, I guess.

The Sampler will load your samples from an SD card when booting up. This can take a while. it may may depend on the speed of the SD card.

I found myself to max out the memory quickly. So I had to remove samples and do looping and stuff. I think in 2015, we should not need to worry about memory in a sampler anymore. Today's smartphone's have between 8 and 64 GB of RAM! So yeah, a big minus there.

The Electribe Sampler does not have the traditional MIDI trio. It has 3.5mm MIDI jacks. One in and one out. It comes with adaptors to the regular midi size. I do not trust this too much, but it works. - Let's see for how long.

Typical for Korg's Electribe series is, the ease of use. This one is also easy to grasp. However, the process of importing samples could have been made faster.

really helpful

when i don't know what to do and i need something really easy to sketch a song, i always go to my electribe sampler. maybe not the best in sound modelling, but i like it, is straight forward. and is perfect for live performances,

Like it, don't love it.

Purchased one of these through Sweetwater (3 month payments woo!) and maybe i'm too used to my older electribes but I can't get comfortable working with this thing. Maybe I will warm up to this with more use but I find myself picking out the ES1 over this thing.

Cool, but requires some patience

I use this primarily as a drum machine, but the added synth features are nice to play with. Very different from previous Electribes and requires a bit of patience to navigate, but sounds very nice and the form factor is very attractive. Also plays nicely with Ableton Live.

Great Piece of kit

Very Cool Sampler. Easy to jump right in , but deep enough to keep you interested.

there is a great Facebook Site about the Korg Electribe 2s https://www.facebook.com/ElectribeSampler?fref=ts

there is a great Facebook Site about the Korg Electribe 2s https://www.facebook.com/ElectribeSampler?fref=ts