Wavedrum Drum/Percussion Synthesizer

Start with a real drumhead that responds naturally to brushes, sticks, mallets, or even your bare hands. Add in a sensitive acoustic transducer, advanced DSP synthesis, and hundreds of superior samples. The result is the astounding Korg Wavedrum. Delivering accurate and imaginative sounds from around the globe, Wavedrum creates an interactive, organic, and spellbinding playing experience that no trigger-based system can match.

The affordable 2nd generation Korg Wavedrum is sonically richer, more sensitive, and packed with enough power and expression to create its own musical legend. The Wavedrum's wide dynamic range mimics that of an acoustic drum. Wavedrum responds perfectly to your action, from subtly nuanced tapping and stroking to aggressive, repetitive strikes.

The original Korg Wavedrum amazed the world back in 1994. This legendary musical instrument was instantly famous for its innovative design, performance possibilities, and unique sounds.

Now the Korg Wavedrum's broad variety of sonic offerings ranges from traditional acoustic percussion instruments to new and unique percussive sounds. With Wavedrum, instruments that normally require special techniques to play, such as the tabla, or conga, can be played with ease. In addition, Wavedrum establishes its own way of playing, granting you unparalleled levels of expression, full of originality and depth.

Compact and lightweight in design, Korg Wavedrum is ideal in all performance situations”from casual playing through to a full-on recording session or a live concert performance.

Totally unique sounds and innovative ways to play open the door to new musical journeys.
The Korg Wavedrum delivers inspiration and satisfaction to creative percussionists seeking new realms of expressiveness and sounds. Moving beyond traditional drum and percussion sounds, Wavedrum also provides totally new and unique sounds that are not available in the real world, and offers new ways of playing to achieve new levels of musical expression.

With a Korg Wavedrum, you can change the pitch randomly with each hit, or play melodic phrases by choosing a musical scale and applying pressure to the head. Traditional hand-drum techniques, such as adding pitch and tonal changes to a strike by pressing the head, were previously unobtainable on an electronic instrument.

Korg Wavedrum processes and responds to these intimate performance gestures as no other percussion instrument can. These same techniques provide a wealth of performance possibilities. For example, Wavedrum can produce sitar and tambura sounds at the same time. You can produce tambura sounds alone by hitting the head, adding the sitar sounds by applying pressure to the head before hitting it. Applying further pressure can change the pitch of the sitar continuously within the selected scale.

These and other performance characteristics are unique to the Korg Wavedrum.

Multiple sensors and playing techniques deliver previously unimaginable expressiveness.
Acoustic percussion instruments produces sound naturally, in direct response to a physical impact, be it gentle or abrupt. Wavedrum, although an electronic musical instrument, adheres to this same physical concept. The head and rim pickups are directly used as a sound source to be processed by the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) algorithms, and also trigger the PCM sound engine. Together with the pressure sensor under the head, the Wavedrum responds to all of the percussionist's subtle finger and hand motions (hitting, rubbing, scratching etc) as well as to the traditional hand drum techniques of open shot, slap shot, heel and toe, mute, etc. Of course, the Wavedrum also responds to other playing materials such as sticks, mallets, and brushes. The rim has 2 types of notches, small and large, and these can be used to get a tremolo type effect by scratching with sticks, etc. Combing the rim sounds with the head sounds can create an even richer, more original performance.

Innovative technology combines DSP synthesis and PCM samples
The Wavedrum contains 36 DSP algorithms to realize a variety of synthesis methods; analog, additive, non-linear, physical modeling, etc. Working with these algorithms, you can create various instrument sounds, natural sounds, or purely synthetic sounds”in addition to Wavedrum's own unique sounds. Certain DSP algorithms allow you to assign a different DSP method and PCM instrument to the head and to the rim. In other algorithms, the velocity and tone of the strike are used to control the PCM sound, delivering a playing experience rivaling that of an acoustic instrument. The PCM sound engine”the other important part of Wavedrum's sound creation system”contains 200 PCM sounds; 100 for the head, and 100 for the rim. Combining the PCM sounds with the DSP algorithms delivers a natural response far beyond the reach of PCM only instruments.

Treat yourself to a cavalcade of rare ethnic percussion instruments from around the world.
Wavedrum begins with a foundation of traditional pop/rock drum sounds such as snares, kick drums, tom toms, and more. Wavedrum also contains a wealth of percussion sounds from many eras and cultures. Ethnic percussion instruments, although seemingly simple in structure and performance, are capable of expressing the emotions of a culture. These include popular percussion instruments such as cajons, congas and tablas; metallic instruments such as cowbells, and triangles, along with rare ethnic percussion sounds. With Wavedrum, you have instant access to instruments such as the udo, a clay pod percussion instrument; the jegog, a bamboo gamelan marimba from the island of Bali; a talking drum from Africa, gongs, and many other instruments that often require special playing skills. Not strictly limited to percussion sounds, Wavedrum includes stringed instruments such as the sitar, koto, and berimbau as well. For every sound, Wavedrum adds its own new modes of expression, in addition to faithfully re-creating the original sounds.

Enjoy 100 preset programs; create 100 programs that are all your own
The 100 preset Wavedrum programs range from high-fidelity emulative drum and percussion sounds to a world of new and unique sounds. There is a range of parameters available for editing and tweaking to create new user programs to suit your own music or style of playing. In addition to making changes to pitch, decay time, loudness, reverb, delay, and curve (intensity) of the pressure sensor, etc., you can completely alter the sound by, for example, changing the head material parameter from skin to metal. The combination of DSP and PCM sounds can also be changed to create totally new sounds from scratch. These new programs (up to 100) can be stored in the user area. The Wavedrum also has a Live Mode, which can store up to 12 favorite programs (from preset or user programs) for selecting programs instantaneously during stage performance.

Jam-along functions for added fun.
Sure, you can enjoy the Wavedrum just by playing the sounds alone, but Wavedrum has some special features that provide jam-along abilities for fun or practice. Wavedrum contains 100 loop phrases from various musical genres so you can simply join in. Using the AUX input, you can mix in the signal from any audio source “ CD, MP3 player, or even an additional Wavedrum.

Ready, Set, Go
Portable, compact, and lightweight, Wavedrum is ready for any musical outing. Hold Wavedrum on your lap, or play it standing like a hand drum. Place Wavedrum on an ordinary snare drum stand, or add Wavedrum to any electronic or acoustic drum kit. Use Wavedrum as part of a DJ setup, or add a percussive element to your keyboard rig. With the optional high stand (Percussion Stand ST-WD), Wavedrum is the ideal accent for any vocalist or front person. Using the headphone output allows you to practice in private, anytime, anyplace “ without fretting about the neighbors!