Elteto.net

Even with ultra-realistic virtual instruments available, there seems to be no perfect replacement for the Korg Triton.

It is rather overwhelming having to purchase a terabyte size hard drive to dedicate just to the East West Quantum Leap Play collection. Clocking in at 628 gigabytes, (NTFS , default allocation size) this monster lineup is impressive in many aspects, not the least of which is quality Even though virtual instrument acquisition can be rather addictive, as one always salivates for the latest and the greatest sounds out there, it feels like there is nothig more one could want with an expanded Korg Triton Rack and the Quantum Leap Play titles. I tend to prefer natural sounds and patches based on them, and Korg has always been more to my liking than other brands such as Roland, even though Yamaha's Motif XS has been nothing short of revolutionary.

I see a number of eBay listings of hardware sound modules with the seller stating that he or she is "going all virtual". In some cases, I can understand this, but with a Triton Rack, there is nothing quite like it out there in VST land. If a composition requires electronic or analog synth touches, the Triton has plenty to offer, and its organic, multi-instrument combinations still set examples for the rest of the market. As far as house, trance and electronica go, the Trance Attack expansion board is still a much better deal than buying gigabytes of house loops and samples. You still get the loops, of course, but you do not have to slice, match or stretch, as all loops in the expansion are pattern-based and controllable. Furthermore, each sound can be tweaked individually, and the overall mix can be adjusted. With an optical output to connect to any Toslink compatible audio interface, you do not ever have to leave the digital domain. The Orchestral Collection expansion board set ("...a staggering 32Mbytes of sample data."!) offers a library of high-quality orchestral sounds, inspiring with a selection of loops and arpeggios. You can mix any of the patches into your own combinations, with endless possibilities.

I certainly do not use my Triton for sampling, as its 96 megabyte memory is somewhat limited today, especially compared to three-gigabyte patches in some of the Play titles, but Korg managed to get stunning sound out of PCM synthesis. It may also be a bit annoying having to disconnect the rack and packing it up to go on the road, not to mention having to take a power supply, cables and a MIDI interface along, instead of just throwing a laptop in a backpack, but for serious music-making and performances, the extra effort is more than worth it. Plus, a dedicated sound module is always more solid than anything computer-based. Slow loading times, jittery direct-from-disk sample playback, hardware and software crashes are not typical of rack modules.

One might ask, why not just sample the Triton Rack? Some producers have attempted to do just that, but that completely loses the features and capabilities of the module. Even if each individual program is sampled, you can no longer adjust the sounds, only process the static samples. You also lose the control over arpeggio patterns and expressions in combinations. Individual instruments and performances react differently to velocity, aftertouch, zones, and even polyphony. You would have to recreate all that in software form on a computer. Since the rack already has it all in a more stable platform, why bother?

On the subject of the Triton Rack, as I found out from a recent issue of Sound on Sound, Diane Warren uses one. With so many songs and awards to her credit, she probably knows what tools work well for composing hits.

While virtual instruments have revolutionized music production, the example of the Triton Rack shows that dedicated sound modules do not have much cause to fear their own extinsion anytime soon.