Korg DDD-5
The DDD-5 is a digital programmable drum machine from Korg from the mid-eighties. It was a newer but less professional version of the DDD-1. It offers 14 electronic drum sounds at once with a typical mid-eighties electronic drum sound that is not too popular today. In fact today the DDD-5 may be used more often as a trusty old play along drum machine for practicing musicians. Basic sounds include kicks, snares, toms, rimshot, closed hi hats, open hi hats, ride, crash, claps, cowbell, tambourine and cabasa. Additional sounds can be added using ROM cards, compatible with the DDD-1. The DDD-5 does not include the sampling option that was available on the DDD-1. And there are only seven assignable Dynamic Sound buttons for triggering drum sounds.
Programming the DDD-5 is fairly straight forward. Memory holds 100 patterns which can be linked or chained to form songs, for which there are 24 song memory locations. The drum sounds have editable parameters such as tuning and decay. For added groove in your patterns there are Roll and Flam effects. The DDD-5 is equipped with MIDI implementation making it an easy drum machine to use in any MIDI environment. If you like typical eighties drum sounds, the DDD-5 is a cheap alternative to the DDD-1 and other similar drum machines like the Roland TR-707.
- Demos & Media
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Video 1 - Korg DDD-5 Drum MachineAudio Clip 1 - The hidden power of Korg DDD-5 by Paul K of TRANZISTA. All sounds are coming from the machine with factory ROM and custom made patches, no other equipment was used.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 12 (14) voices
- Sounds - 18 sampled sounds: 2 Kick, 2 Snare, Low/Mid/Hi Toms, Rimshot, Claps, Crash, 2 Open hihats, 2 Closed hihats, Ride, Cowbell, Tambourine and Cabasa
- Controls - decay, tuning and more
- Patterns - 100
- Songs - 24
- Keyboard - 7 velocity sensitive pads
- Effects - None
- Control - MIDI
- Date Produced - 1987
- Websites of Interest
- Resources & Credits
Images from Perfect Circuit Audio.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
http://cyborgstudio.com/drummachinemp3s/korg/ddd1/manual/ddd1ownersmanual .pdf
most of the programming is the same.
Cheers
Good: 3 x kick, 3 x snare, hihat (open+close), clap, tambourine, cowbell
Bad: crash, ride
Don't mind all the rest, except stupid bass samples.
MIDI is good, every pad has assignable note no. and MIDI channel. It sequences velocity and can record in real time and in step mode. Sequencer has to be stopped if you want start/stop recording. There is no mute function for single drums.
Big flaws are: internal battery is soldered to the main board, so you'll have to install battery holder, lack of battery power and lack of audio input, so there is no easy way to jam with MP3.
Pads are great. Very responsive, good velocity control, large and well spaced. I never tried MPC but this works great, I play it David Haynes style and it's a lot of fun.
Build quality is decent. Heavy duty plastic and it's still working after all this years.
I didn't expect much from the sounds but they are quite nice.
Very LoFi, heavy compressed and aggressive, similar to Lindrumm/DMX. Great for oldschool HipHop and New Wave (think Beastie Boys/Gorillaz/Garry Neuman)