Korg Sound On Sound sneers at multitrack recording, offers unlimited tracks

Multitrack digital recorders might not be front and center of the gadget lover's mind right now, but slap that "unlimited" modifier in front and all of a sudden interests are piqued and ears prick up. Korg has made official its new Sound On Sound Unlimited Track Recorder, which will do exactly what its name suggests while keeping each overdub separate for future modification or retuning. You'll be able to fit up to 26 track hours on a 16GB MicroSDHC card and a dedicated guitar input is available alongside mic and line-in ports. Another useful-sounding feature is Sound Stretch, which should allow you to alter speed to between 25 and 150 percent of the original recording without altering pitch. Price is tentatively set at £230 ($375) for a March 2010 release.

[Stiksi Posted Jan 15th 2010 5:02AM]

If it can sync tempo to an external clock or at least be triggered by an external device, it would truly be a great thing in a small package!

[NoBox Posted Jan 15th 2010 5:09AM]

Put at least one XLR on it and then I'll be interested...?

[Philip Han Posted Jan 15th 2010 7:18AM]

@NoBox Zoom H4n... I don't see why anybody wouldn't buy it. For the price ($300) it's just simply unbeatable.

[cobaltage Posted Jan 15th 2010 8:35AM]

@NoBox An XLR would make the unit much much larger.

[Information Central Posted Jan 15th 2010 6:17PM]

"An XLR would make the unit much much larger."

Yes, but a 1/4" TRS connector wouldn't. The MicroTrack (which otherwise admittedly sucks) manages two TRS jacks with phantom power, a full complement of RCA jacks, and 1/8" jack on a dinky recorder.

Not offering balanced mic inputs is the same mistake being made on all of these portable recorders, over and over and over. You'd think both consumers and manufacturers would learn.

[NoBox Posted Jan 15th 2010 6:24PM]

@Information Central Good point well made!

[cocopuffz Posted Jan 15th 2010 6:44AM]

I donno. I'd still rather have a Laptop with Logic 9 or ProTools/FLstudio 9 & a decent USB/FW audio interface. IF you're gonna be carrying around a decent Mic & XLR cabling with you, you're gonna have a bag big enough for all of that. Plus editing & EFX on the fly etc...

I suppose if you don't have a decent laptop this could be handy.

[Scotty1 Posted Jan 15th 2010 9:11AM]

@cocopuffz I can slap a Zoom on top of my Video-dSLR. Not so much a laptop.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 15th 2010 8:29AM]

kinda niee

[Dr Yusuf AlKindi Posted Jan 15th 2010 9:12AM]

back in the day, a new band would have to scrape together money to get studio time to make tapes to press vinyl, to manufacture 45s to sell at their shows. Then came DAT, and now withthis, any talented Berklee School of music drop out can turn his Alston apartment in to a digital studio. Actually any kid anywhere can turn his garage in to a recording studio on the cheap. The question is, with this sort of access, will it lead to a wave of new music coming from all sorts of alternatvie and unsigned bands. This and the internet could make music more interesting (or lead to more noise)

[Stereobot Posted Jan 15th 2010 11:23AM]

@Dr Yusuf AlKindi What? No offense, but where have you been for the last 10 years? Record studios are failing for this very reason. Tons of Indie music, tons of it is crap, but still it is cool people are more easily able to record their art at home.

[Stereobot Posted Jan 15th 2010 11:20AM]

I can tell you right now - coming from an audio engineer and a musician of 15+ years, no one is going to buy this fucking thing, not for $375.

So what if it you can record infinite tracks - is someone going to record a 1000 guitar tracks on it? How would any one record drums on it? Why would anyone need the time stretching on this thing? Think about it - when would anyone actually need that feature on a device like this? It is cool on Ableton Live, but this thing is far from Ableton Live.

Multitrack recording with a GUI like that is so early 90's. Someone can buy an inexpensive PC laptop, a used I/O box and cheap recording software for about $500, probably less.

If the device was $150 or less, I can see people impulse buying it, but anyone looking to spend $375 on recording gear would be better off spending a little bit more to get a whole lot more functionality and usabiltiy.

[cobaltage Posted Jan 15th 2010 11:34AM]

@Stereobot I think Korg is counting on the egocentrism of lead rock guitarists for sales. I'm not in the music business, but I've been to Guitar Center, and I think Korg has got a shot.

Plus, these things never sell for MSRP. It will be at least $150 less on the street.

[pwnified Posted Jan 15th 2010 1:39PM]

I created an algorithm to support unlimited tracks and has already been used in "MultiTrack - 16 Track Recorder" for iPhone and iPod touch, and has been available since September 2009. I imposed the 16 track limit so that it doesn't become unwieldy when scrolling through all those tracks, but internally there is no limit. Plus, it shows the waveforms and many other features.