Korg Triton ? A good choice ?

The Korg Triton is a music workstation synthesizer featuring digital sampling and sequencing first released in 1999. The Triton uses Korg's HI Synthesis tone generator, and is available in several models with various upgrade options. The Triton is world famous among many musicians for being a benchmark of keyboard technology, and is widely featured in music videos and live concerts. In the NAMM Show 2007, Korg announced the Triton successor: the Korg M3.

The Korg Triton line may be seen as the direct descendants of the previous Korg Trinity line of workstations. They are aesthetically and functionally very similar. The Trinity had similar naming conventions with the Triton Classic, with Pro and Pro X being designated to models featuring 76 and 88 keys respectively.

The original Triton introduced many improvements over the Trinity, like 62-note polyphony, arpeggiator, onboard sampler, faster operating system and more realtime controllers. However, to much surprise of musicians and magazines, it lost the sequencer audio tracks, digital input and output, and the digital filter section was downgraded, thus limiting sample-based synthesis. The original piano samples, which are a crucial element of evaluation on expensive synths and music workstations, were even more criticized; although the integrated sample RAM could compensate for this. As time passed, some of these shortcomings were fixed, like the digital connectivity, and better piano samples were shipped with newer models; however, the sample-based synthesis filter section was not improved. Some limited 2-track audio recording was added to later revisions of the Triton Studio, while the Triton Extreme added in-track sampling support, which allows stereo samples to be recorded in context with a MIDI sequence and automatic triggering of the samples at their proper locations in the sequence during playback. While less robust in function and usage, in-track sampling did mitigate the lack of full audio recording in the Triton Extreme.

Ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian in collaboration with KORG sound designer Jack Hotop created Sherinian's signature guitar lead sound on the KORG Trinity in 1996, and expanded it to the Triton in 2000 

It can be seen from its dynamic design what this keyboard can do and what are its possibilities and capabilities

A very significant difference between Trinity and Triton is the new machine's 62-note polyphony. This really might turn Trinity owners greenish with envy, as Trinity offers only 32 notes -- a decision for which reviewers took Korg to task. The company were adamant, however, that their priority with Trinity was to ensure the finest sound quality and most comprehensive effects implementation, so resources were directed towards these areas rather than towards providing masses of notes. So what's changed? Have Korg compromised their original vision to provide the extra notes? It seems not.

Korg's pre-Trinity AI2 (Advanced Integrated) workstations made use of 32-note polyphonic tone generator ICs which also incorporated filtering and effects. Two chips yielded 64-note polyphony. For Trinity, things changed: to achieve the sound quality they wanted, Korg used discrete chips for different functions -- samples, filtering, DSP -- on a processor board. Achieving 64-note polyphony in Trinity would have required two of these boards, which would have been "phenomenally expensive" according to Korg UK. Since Trinity's launch, however, Korg have been beavering away to achieve Trinity sound quality on one chip. The resulting 32-note polyphonic TG96 IC has been three years in development, incorporates everything, and has made Triton's increased polyphony possible. As in earlier years, they simply use two chips, though in the case of Triton this produces 62-note polyphony for reasons connected with its built-in sampler. Multitimbrality remains at 16 parts.

In other respects, Triton's sound-generating side -- now called Hyper Integrated (HI) synthesis -- should be as familiar to seasoned Korg synth users as Trinity's. (For a fuller description of the Korg method, check out SOS's two-part Trinity review, mentioned earlier.) Briefly, just like Trinity, Triton is sample-based: at the bottom level of sound creation are raw sampled waveforms. Up to two of these can be combined (as 'oscillators') in a Program, and up to to eight Programs can be layered, split or crossfaded in a Combi, which can also be multitimbral if desired. There's also the option of velocity-switching between the two oscillators in a Program, plus, if you can handle it, the ability to velocity-switch between two waveforms in each oscillator, with no adverse implications for polyphony. Oscillators may also be delayed, treated to random tuning (where each time an oscillator sounds, its pitch is slightly different) for recreating the effect of an analogue synth with unstable tuning and, new to Triton, reversed, so that a waveform plays backwards. Strangely, the Trinity's reverse factory waveforms have made their way over to Triton even though the latter has this facility.

Though Trinity was not General MIDI-compatible in its original form, a disk full of GM sounds could be loaded for GM compatibility. Triton goes further, with a GM sound bank already on board. This is divided into sub-banks providing the alternate voices required for XG and GS, the Yamaha and Roland extended GM formats. There's even a sequencer mode for playing Standard MIDI Song Files direct from disk, though since Triton doesn't support all GS/XG sound maps and messages, Korg don't guarantee that all GS/XG data will always play back correctly. (We tried a few XG files and they played back properly.) GM Programs, by the way, can be freely used in Combis and sequences.

Anyone unfamiliar with Trinity's sounds can rest assured that they are beyond reproach in terms of quality -- and this extends to its successor. The presets are imaginatively and creatively programmed, and source samples have excellent clarity and sparkle, with basically undetectable loop points. The Korg bods who worked on voicing apparently used Jupiter Systems' acclaimed Infinity sample-manipulation software to ensure the smoothest loops.

Recent models of this series are:

EXB-MOSS - the ultimate 6-voice DSP tone generator
EXB-SCSI - for external SCSI storage devices
EXB-mLan - digital audio and midi transfer for rack model
EXB-DI - optical ADAT output with 48kHz word clock in for rack model