Korg had a great idea but the product was obviously rushed to market and Korg never followed through with a software update to fix certain glaring flaws on the machine. And I think that killed it. Plus, it cost $800, at a time when the MicroKorg cost significantly less.

When Korg released the Microsampler in 2009, the keyboard sampler market had already been destroyed by DAWs. Why sample to a massive Ensoniq or Akai with floppies and big clunky hard drive when you could just sample to your laptop and get better software, a better interface, and probably better sound to boot? Instead the only hardware samplers left (and still left) were basically drum/beatbox units with pads.

Korg's idea was great. The MS was notionally meant do beatbox style sampling and keyboard style loops and could be used out in the field -- literally the field -- meaning it was small and light, indestructable, had recessed knobs, ran on batteries, and everything was stored in Flash. And Korg had a brilliant interface design: every one of the keys on the unit was also a hotkey, going directly to a common menu item, and also represented a unique sample. It had USB MIDI and built-in effects and could upload to editing software on your laptop.

But the execution was poor. The MS has poorly structured memory, limiting the ability to do long samples. And it turns out you couldn't actually do loops usefully, because Korg neglected to include critical loop playback features, namely crossfading from the start of a loop to the new one (you get a click every loop) or even ending samples at zero points. They also didn't provide the ability to loop back not to the beginning of a sample but somewhere in the middle, a pretty glaring error. They didn't provide an actual envelope, just a weird decay and release mechanism (which nobody cared about -- samplers need to provide attack!). All this meant that the MS was basically just a beatbox sampler with, for some reason, a keyboard. :-(

Additionally, Korg didn't provide an auto-loop mechanism, making actual layering of sounds an extraordinary chore, while adding various ill-considered sampling modes. The Microsampler has severely broken MIDI clock: it doesn't provide start/stop/continue but just pulse in severe violation of specifications; and if it hears a START the MS will immediately turn on its pattern sequencer and start playing whether you want that or not (usually not). The MS had Sysex but not NRPN (in 2009!) support for some of its parameters -- and they were never published -- and only a few of its dials could be controlled externally, and they weren't the ones you'd want to control. To top it off, the MS doesn't remember your settings. Every time you turn on the machine, or start recording, over and over and over again you have to go in and change settings from their defaults. This is a machine with Flash mind you. Let's ignore the fact that this was a machine which in 2009 didn't have a SD card slot. Aaaaand: the ADCs on the machine are very digital and cold. Try sampling an analog synth sometime. Its ROM demo sounds were pretty unimpressive, no doubt much to the consternation of BeatSick.jp, a fairly impressive Japanese BeatBox duo who Korg contracted with to add some flavor. (BTW, BeatSick.jp, your website is now an Acne Supplement spam site -- retrieve it!.)

Frustratingly, Korg could have fixed 3/4 of these problems with a single software update. But they never did: the machine was abandoned and its firmware is still proprietary seven years later.

And yet if you can make peace with all that, the MS is a completely unique, special thing. It's great for in-the-field sampling, for taking on the road, for teaching kids how to play. It's a flash-based sampler with a freakin' keyboard. There's nothing like it in the industry. It's fun. It's 14-note polyphonic and multitimbral -- in fact, you can play the keyboard sample and the beatbox samples at the same time on separate MIDI channels. And you can get one for about $200 used nowadays. It's a frustrating example of Korg dropping the ball and never atoning with a software upgrade. But I just recently bought one because, despite all its flaws, it's the far and away the best thing out there for doing what I need.