323 drum machine & PS-02 November 10 2001 at 4:30 PM
I just scored a 323 off Ebay and been playing with it a day or so.
I like this drum machine in of itself, it has some great sounds in it. I have resisted getting another drum machine as I've been enjoying my Korg ER-1. I think the ER-1 with its all synth tones will be the bomb combined with the 323 with its mostly traditional samples on board.
I successfully imported a PS-02 rhythm preset and edited it in the 323 and exported it back to the PS-02 card.
I need to experiment more with this, as the manual is very brief on this, and I've seen little user info on using the two together so far.
I know theres limits in terms of time signatures, especially. Also you can only use 4 tones at a time on the 323 if you want the PS-02 to be able to play it all. There were 12 or so kits on the 323 that are "PS-02 compatible", however it seems that the sounds didn't export, only the pattern information.
There's lots of limits to the implementation of using these two together, and I hope that's improved. That said, it makes for a more complete creative environment being able to roll your own drum and bass patterns. Its kind of awkward but after some practice it will be possible to fairly smoothly export and import a bunch of patterns, to 'personalize' the PS-02.
Not having a lot of time to experiment, and the manual and website being pretty bare bones (at least the English site), if there's anybody who's been using these together, could you answer a couple questions?
1. If you play a new bass pattern on the 323 it has to be played in the key of C to be used correctly on the PS-02. There's no mention of what algorithm the PS-02 uses to make a certain chord type and how to work with that in the 323. I probably will be able to reverse engineer this, but if you have some info it would be appreciated.
2. Is the 323 capable of exporting sounds to a PS-02 card or is it only capable of editing pattern data?
3. Can you rename the rhythm pattern, or is it absolutely required to keep the same PS-02 name for a given pattern.