Recording - November 2014 - 33

saved per pad. There's also a built-in
arpeggiator with a variety of modes, and
internal or external sync with tap tempo.
The touchpad and ribbon are the centerpiece of the taktile keyboards for a reason.
Not only can the touchpad be set to provide
two different control messages for X and Y
movement, but it can also be set to Touch
Scale mode, where left-to-right (X) movement
can play notes on a predefined scale (e.g. C
Ionian) while up-and-down (Y) movement
controls a sound parameter such as filter cutoff. The ribbon can be tapped at either end
to increment or decrement parameters, or
swept from side to side for rapid scrolling.
Finally, there's Track Pad mode, where
the touchpad and ribbon turn into a two-button trackpad, complete with reversible twofinger scrolling and tap-to-click, that automatically works with Windows or Mac
applications-I'm using it right now as I type
this article in Microsoft Word! This function
seems like a gimmick until you set the controller in front of you as you work with your
DAW; suddenly you're not lifting your hands
away from the controls to select functions
and set parameters, and your workflow can
speed up significantly.
As a synthesizer
Pressing the Sound button turns off some
of the TRITON taktile's control functions and
converts the left side of the front panel into
controls for the internal sound engine.
There are 512 presets; they can be
tweaked from the front panel controls in
real time, but you can't save your changes.
The eight faders/pots control volume, filter
cutoff and resonance, attack, decay,
release, and the two Master FX processors
(which do different things in every preset).
With 512 programs to scroll through,
including a wide variety of General MIDI
drum kit maps, it's important to be able to
quickly get to sounds you like. Fortunately
it's easy to set any preset to one of 16
Favorites slots, selected with the Function
buttons, and recall it instantly later on. You
can also use the touchpad to control one or
two parameters as you play, or to play
Touch Scales with the internal sounds.
As for the sounds themselves-what
can I say? The TRITON was and is a
beautiful synth with rich, detailed timbres
and all kinds of great tonal choices, from
basic keyboards to orchestral instruments,
synth sounds, guitars, basses, DJ effects,
drums, percussion, and sound effects. It's
great to have those sounds accessible
inside a USB control surface and
playable from your DAW, even if you
can't route audio from the sound engine
directly into your DAW over USB.
Final thoughts
My complaints and nitpicks over the
TRITON taktile are few and far between.
On the TRITON side, with its reliance on
bus power, the synth's output level is a bit
RECORDING November 2014

anemic, but fortunately it's also very clean, so it can stand to be amplified a bit at your
interface or console. The synth engine has a fairly limited set of control points; each pot
and its associated fader both control the same parameter, which seems like a waste.
On the taktile side, the user interface involves a lot of scroll-and-click while peering
at the tiny display, and gets old pretty quickly; certain functions, like Chord Scale variation setting, can't be performed from the KONTROL Editor software. There's no visual indicator for whether trigger pad Bank A or B is currently selected without playing
a pad. And the keybed doesn't transmit aftertouch, which is a problem for players who
rely on it for expressive synth playing.
Those quibbles are minor at worst and won't bother everyone who uses the controller. I found the TRITON taktile to be a real treat, whether in use with my DAWs or
just played for sheer enjoyment. I highly recommend you give it a spin and see (and
hear!) what it can do for you.
Prices: taktile 25, $249.99; taktile 49, $349.99; TRITON taktile 25, $349.99;
TRITON taktile 49 (as reviewed), $499.99
More from: Korg, www.korg.com

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Recording - November 2014

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