I recently spoke with Korg about their new product, the D888 – a live recorder designed to capture band rehearsals, gigs and other applications. Together, we came up with the Broadjam Blog Giveaway, an idea that I hope will benefit both broadjam members and Korg.

Here’s how it works: I try the product, if I like it, I write a blog about it. And as you can see, I’m writing a blog about the D888. If you’re interested in this product after reading this entry, post a comment telling Korg why you should have the product and how you would use it. Later, we’ll all vote on the best five comments, and one of you will walk away with a brand new D888.

As I mentioned, I finally had a chance to check out the Korg D888. Dennis, our long-time customer service master, wanted to record a song as a gift for his mom’s birthday. Since we didn’t have enough time for a studio recording, I told him to bring his guitar into my office, and we could try the new Korg thing. I brought my 220 and my 414 mics to see what kind of sound we could get. I was interested in the feature set, but more importantly, I wanted to know what kind of sound quality the D888 had.

Three songs later I had gotten totally lost in the production and forgotten that part of my mission was to check out this product. How many times have you set up to do a recording and something was unplugged, or you were chasing a problem that you couldn’t identify? Within 20 minutes of taking the D888 out of the box, we were recording his acoustic guitar. 20 minutes after I took it out of the box, I knew enough to get the project done. I don’t ever recall a session being this easy.

[BTW: The mic pre-amps are pristine and the A/D conversion is excellent, so sound quality wasn’t a problem. It ended up that the 414 was a little better sounding on the guitar than the 220. However, we recorded with both of them simultaneously.]

Once we were finished I plugged a USB cable from my laptop to the D888, grabbed the folders off the recorder’s hard drive and dragged them to my desktop. Since the D888 already records as WAV files, we were editing in minutes. If you don’t already have DAW software for your computer, no worries. The D888 comes with Cubase LE 4, which allows you edit, arrange, mix and master your multi-track live performance.

I’m anxious to record a live band. I actually think one could make an extra buck or two doing this. And since the D888 is set up to be a fully functional live mixer, a small band could use it as both their mixer and recorder at the same time. I wish I had one of these when I was playing live, but digital products didn’t exist. In fact, presets didn’t exist either, nor did MIDI, USB, hard drives…but that’s another blog.

For the sake of full disclosure, I consider many of Korg’s employees close friends of mine, as I have worked on numerous projects with them in past lives. Last year I had the chance to have breakfast with Mr. Katoh (Founder and Chairman of Korg) and his son Seiki (President of Korg) at the Musik Messe in Frankfurt. I now know why they are industry leaders. Year after year, they put out great products with passion that is unsurpassed in the music industry.

So here’s your chance. Korg has made a generous offer to the bloggers on broadjam, so I ask you to answer these questions in your post: What features of this product are most attractive to you? How would you use this product if you owned it?

Here is a link to the Korg website www.korg.com/d888. Check out the features and write your thoughts about this product. Most importantly, tell me how you would use it, and be specific.

Best of luck,

Roy

Posted by Broadjam on Nov 20, 2007 in Broadjam Blog