List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: Price Unavailable
Today's Bonus:
- New sounds and new loop phrases have been added; finished in a rich, deep red color
- Real drumhead and textured rim playing surfaces offer inspired performances
- Innovative technology combines DSP synthesis and PCM samples; plus effects
- 150 preset + 150 user programs; Live Mode stores up to 12 favorites for instant recall
- Jam along to the 140 loop phrases or to the MP3/CD/AUX input; headphone output
Click Here to Read More Reviews >>
I bought one of the 'standard' wavedrums a while ago. Although I knew that a electronic drum would never really replace an acoustic hand drum, what I saw of the wavedrum convinced me that it had a lot of potential. I have enjoyed it immensely, and it has proved itself very useful. My main music type that I play is kind of a world fusion type, as well as Christian worship (contemporary obviously, but more in the vein of Kevin Prosch or Misty Edwards than standard Christian music. Spontaneous at times, incorporating several kinds of genres and instruments). The wavedrum fit in perfectly. Before, I had my whole set up at big events.. often times a drum set with a doumbek, some types of cajons, a riq, djembe, and a jingled darbuka handy nearby incase I wanted them. In set up B, I used a special cajon with a microphone I placed inside, and some of the same hand drums. Both set ups were a LOT to carry. The wavedrum has allowed me to lighten the load. The oriental even more so, because those added features really pack a punch.Now like I said, the wavedrum is NOT a replacement for any of these drums, and I don't think it was intended to be. If you are a doumbek prodigy, you're going to play a real doumbek. The subtle technique used in those instruments is just something you need the real thing for if that's what your primary goal is. However, the wavedrum does emulate things very well. Better than any other electronic drum I've seen. I can get doum, tek, and ka depending on how I strike the drum in the 'doumbek' wavedrum algorithms. And the added algorithms and PCM sounds over in the Oriental over the original wavedrum are even more expressive. If you're not a world hand drum virtuoso trying to be a virtuoso, and you play many of these instruments live on a regular basis, I'd really look into this.
That being said, if you want the best from this, you will have to learn to tweak the sounds. It's not that hard, it's just time consuming. I started to recreate all the sounds that I wasn't too fond of, and tweak the ones I was fond of to improve them. I've found the chimes and cymbal/jingle effects are very high quality in the oriental, and I keep finding myself adding them into many of the sounds! It's getting ridiculous.
If you're going to buy a wavedrum, get this one over the original. It is worth it, particularly if you like Arabic/eastern percussion. Or, if you're a serious performer who already has the original, you could do what I did and use this in conjunction with it. You hook up 2 via the headphone out of one, and the aux in of the other (provided you turn up the aux in volume on the receiving wavedrum). It has proven very useful to me, and many people who hear some of the incredible embellished sounds it can make are just blown away.
Buy Korg WAVEDRUMORT The Expanded Wavedrum Designed for Arabic Music Now
I got it into my silly head a while back that I wanted to take up drumming, and like a fool I dove headfirst into this little item. Strange waters for a beginner to go treading into, but I don't regret the purchase in the least. These are very deep waters, and I'm utterly delighted to be in them.I'm very interested in synthesizers and am familiar with the quality of Korg instruments. After a lot of research on youtube.com and reviews in many publications over all versions of the Wavedrum, I felt that the Oriental Limited Edition was the one to go for with its 50 additional programs over the original (total 150), 9 additional algorithms and the availability of an additional 50 user defined presets (total of 150). After a few weeks of playing it, I replaced the head with a Remo 10" Weatherking Black Suede Ambassador which seems to be a close match for the Korg Wavedrum Black Limited Edition's Remo head. Was this necessary? Had I worn out the original head? Not in the least. This is one tough, durably made instrument. I just wanted to try a different head. Changing the head is a two or three minute operation and the tools necessary to do it with were provided with the instrument. There is an instructive demonstration on youtube.com for this. The new head added quite a different character and playing feel to the drum. Personally, I quite prefer the Black Suede Ambassador. Not a bad addition at $14ish dollars.
How qualified am I to give this review? Apart from being an owner of the object, probably not very. I can only give you my own experience with it and I don't have much to compare it with. I've never studied drumming and what I now know is mostly derived from watching videos and DVDs on drumming technique. Yes, I'm a percussion dilettante with little experience with drums apart from a few hours spent with a pair of drumsticks on a practice pad in college that belonged to my music major roommate. To tell you the truth, in size and shape this instrument is a lot like a practice pad. Unamplified it sounds about like one too. With its thick, strong aluminum rim attached to a dense, plastic body, I believe it's a lot tougher than a practice pad. All my hand drum experience is with a knock-off, Indonesian made djembe.
Do I use it for anything practical? A little. Mostly I just have fun with it. I do a little freelance game development at times and I love making sound effects. This fits right in with that. It's also a great way to blow off steam. Any solid object that won't hit you back is good for blowing off steam, but not so many of those sound as good as this does.
I wonder how the Wavedrum would play if it were attached to a wooden djembe-like body. I've observed that it's good at picking up sounds from my drum stand when I strike it. I think attaching this to a traditional, wooden drum form like a conga, djembe, doumbek or darbuka could be a productive field of endeavor. I've been having fun running a clip-on piezoelectric contact microphone through the Wavedrum's aux input and attaching it to things like stainless steel water bottles, paper towel rolls and even sheets of copier paper to explore their percussive qualities. Could not such a mic be run through a wooden base be used pick up some interesting hand slaps and mallet blows? All you need for such a thing already exists in the Wavedrum. I think you, the engineers at Korg, or a third party developer could have an interesting Wavedrum accessory on their hands with this idea. You heard it here first!
To make the most of this instrument is going to take you a lot of work. Fun work though. It will take you quite a while to exhaust your exploration of the 150 instruments it 'contains.' It's going to take you longer to master programming your own drum patches. I'm not saying that it's so difficult as all that. I mean that the number of variables available to you is huge. Even more so with the Oriental Limited Edition. You're going to need to have your owner's manual at your side to do it, and it requires study. Indeed it does. Study that I find is richly rewarded with all the amazing sounds I can get out of it.
Many have noted that this drum is not a substitute for the many many ethnic instruments that it is able to emulate. Of course it's not. But it is a musical instrument in its own right. It has its own unique qualities, properties and characteristics. Just as it is not a replacement for all of those drums, those drums, for all their virtues, cannot replace this one either.
Thanks for reading such a long review! I deeply enjoy this instrument. I just wanted to convey that.
Read Best Reviews of Korg WAVEDRUMORT The Expanded Wavedrum Designed for Arabic Music Here
All the stuff that was already said. :) The Oriental edition is the Wavedrum with just about twice as many great sounding programs, algorithms and loops. It takes hours to explore all the tasty sounds in a Wavedrum; double that for the Oriental. But like all good drumming exercises, soon your thoughts stop and you begin to heal. Namaste!Want Korg WAVEDRUMORT The Expanded Wavedrum Designed for Arabic Music Discount?
This is a very responsive electronic drum. This version should probably be called the Middle-Eastern edition because the focus was more on that than say Taiko or Chinese drums. So if you're expecting Chinese/Japanese/Korean kinds of drums, you won't find that many on here. However, the Middle Eastern style drums are pretty cool and responsive. There are drums from Africa and other places too.Pros:
More sounds to choose from than the Original or Black edition of the Korg Wave Drum.
Very responsive.
Sounds great.
Detects what you are playing with (sticks, mallets, brushes, chopsticks)
You can do cool sound bending tricks by pushing on the head.
There's bumps that you can scrap on the rim to make different noises.
Cons:
Switching from patches takes a long time unless you save it to the pre-loaded banks (like 5 or 6 seconds, which means you need to set things up for shows)
Headphone and outputs are a little low in volume even when the volume is set to max. A mixing board can fix this.
The snare drums on here probably shouldn't be used since it is not the bounciest drum head to play on (due to whatever's under the actual swapable drum head)
0 comments:
Post a Comment