The long wait for the Kaossilator Pro

I ordered a Kaossilator Pro as soon as they where announced, but Sweden didnt get that many and my order also accidentaly got lost so I decided not to buy one (used the money for something else instead).

A year later or so I got one cheap from someone who got one already and lost interest in it. It was in mint condition when I got it.

It’s a nice toy, but should not have been called Pro, but rather “Big Bro” or “Larger but no batteries”.

There are a loads of reviews on it on the internet but if you’re wondering if you can make noise on it, the answer is yes. Drone? yes. Dubstep? not really.

The main downer for me is the echo’s and reverbs, why these where not broken out and gotten an on/off switch I do not know.

Sooner or later I’ll post an album made on the Kaossilator Pro, but not today, I’ve only got 7 songs so I’ll have to make 50 more before there are enough good ones.

Also, it would be cool to try it out with a real band, like, sampling on the fly and such. But I’m glad I did not pay retail on the releasedate – price for it.

One thought on “The long wait for the Kaossilator Pro

  1. That’s quite interesting, Johan, as I’ve had a very similar experience with a Kaoss Pad 3 that I acquired nigh-new for about 75% of retail value.

    I figured it would be an amazing addition to my DJ setup – having had good experience in the past integrating effects units from my studio pile – but my overall impression is very poor.

    For sure, the red LEDs look pretty and complement my red gooseneck lights and translucent red timecode vinyl.

    However, the user interface is finicky, non-obvious and needs both hands to perform many tasks which is highly awkward whilst trying to fly some vinyl into sync. Choosing an appropriate effect is difficult – the supplied sheet lists them in a tiny font which is unreadable in sub-par lighting. Getting the input & output levels balanced is nigh impossible as the gain of the different effects varies wildly and with differing parameters set from the pad area.

    The resampling of input has a touch of latency making capturing of loops tricky (and the input/output gain mismatches exacerbate this problem). I’d maybe like to trigger pre-recorded loops but loading them from the SD card slot takes minutes (!) and blocks the entire unit from working for that time (!) limiting oneself to just 4 for an entire set.

    The final, ultimate straw is that I simply do not like the digital sound of most of the effects. Maybe I am spoilt by my studio gear – none of which is that high-end! – but the KP3’s effects all sound cheap, tinny, and overblown.

    I know some people, like Beardyman, can do amazing things with it but as an adjunct to a techno DJ setup it’s simply not working for me and I’m not using it much, if at all. There’s far more simple, controllable, musical fun to be had with the analogue filters on the Allen & Heath DJ mixer.

    I haven’t given up on it, hoping that it’ll click for me at some point, but it is annoying. Some of these problems could so easily be fixed by a little bit of care in the design & testing. I can only imagine how galled I would be if I had paid full price.

    Sorry, rant over now. 🙂

Leave a Reply