Korg has been known for its workstations and classic synths for years. I had always dreamt of owning some of the gear since I knew what it was and what it did, but throughout the 1980s and 1990s I was always a student with no fundage and no hopes of attaining such gear!

Fastforward to 2010. I'm now all "grown-up" (and I say that very loosely) with a career (or three) and have my necessary cash flow to attain those musical dreams built of silicone and transistors. I started to aim for the newest Korg workstation, but began recalling my dreams of the old Korg Trinity and its sound. I always preferred the sound of the Trinity to the Triton, even though the Triton was supposed to be a huge upgrade. There's just something warm and "crunchy" about the Triton's sound that seemed better to me.

So, I was surfing through the GearSlutz.com forums and ran across a music school that was selling off some of their inventory. I saw the Triton TR-Rack for sale and checked out the post. After seeing the price, less than 1/10th the original price, I grabbed it as quickly as I could and ran before anyone realized what had happened and changed their minds!

Okay, so we're talking about a 12-14 year old technology that I'm putting into my 21st century studio. How does that work out? Very well, thank you very much. Some of the sounds are very dated and could easily supply every sound I needed for a retro 1980s-1990s pop festival. They're all here: DX Piano, Orchestra Blasts, 808 style bass hits, vinyl scratched bass loops, Moog style sine waves and basses, electric pianos (which are pretty darn good, I have to say), and so much more.

Working around the included dated soundset I was able to conjure some wonderfully warm string ensembles and automatically crank out some soundtrack type music with little effort. This thing just inspires and makes me sound even better. In fact, I'm thinking of grabbing a second one and adding that to any virtual synths and orchestras I have.

Hardware vs. Software

So, the old question remains: Why hardware? If you've never used hardware before, you'll never know the joys of instant response, no startup times, no waiting for samples to load, and no worrying about your hard drive crashing! These units were so integrated that everything happens easily and there are no worries of trying to remember where you stored your favorite preset on the hard drive. Plus, the sound is just different. Something about going out into the real analog world to return to the cold corners of the digitial domain makes a huge difference in the sound. I've even started doing this with my virtual instruments (running them out to external rack gear and recording the results). Trust me, there is still magic in hardware. And, at this price, you can't afford NOT to try it out. Check on eBay or your local trade lot. You'll be able to find these things as cheap as $200 and you'll more than get your money's worth.

The Korg sound is still alive and kicking in my studio. You should add some hardware spice to your rack as well.