The Kaoss Pad is a touchpad MIDI controller, sampler, and effects processor for audio and musical instruments made by Korg. Touchpad and a pointing stick on a Laptop Close up of a modern, brushed steel touchpad A touchpad is an input device commonly used in laptop computers. ... Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... An AKAI MPC2000 sampler A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that can record and store audio signal samples, generally recordings of existing sounds, and play them back at a range of pitches. ... Korg is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments. ...

The Kaoss Pad's touchpad can be used to control its internal effects engine, which can be applied to a line-in signal or to samples recorded from the line-in. Effects types include pitch shifting, distortion, filtering, wah-wah, tremolo, flanging, delay, reverberation, auto-panning, gating, phasing, and ring modulation. A distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. ... Seventh release by Manchester indie rock group, James. ... Tremolo is a musical term with two meanings: A rapid repetition of the same note, a rapid variation in the amplitude of a single note, or an alternation between two or more notes. ... Flanging is a time-domain based audio effect that occurs when two identical signals are mixed together, but with one signal time-delayed by a small and gradually changing amount, usually smaller than 20 ms (milliseconds). ... When sound is produced in a space, multiple reflections may build up and blend together, creating reverberation, or reverb. ... A phaser is an audio signal processor used to filter a signal by attenuating a series of notches in the frequency spectrum. ... Ring modulation is an audio effect performed by multiplying two audio signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform. ...

The Kaoss Pad can also be used as a MIDI controller, with the x- and y-axis positions of a finger on its pad being output via a MIDI out connection as two continuous controller streams. The sum of the x and y positions can also be output as a third continuous controller stream. A device, real or virtual, which generates and transmits MIDI data for operating musical devices or other devices which are electronically enabled for MIDI operation. ...

The original model, released in 1999, is known as the KP1 Kaoss Pad. Korg have since released an updated version of the Kaoss Pad, the KP2, with a number of new features, and most recently the KPE1 Kaoss Pad Entrancer - a Kaoss pad that can process both sound and video.

A Kaoss Pad was used by Radiohead in their song "Everything in its right place", specifically its forward/reverse sampler function. Radiohead are a British band from Oxfordshire, England, comprising five musicians. ...

Brian Eno has spoken of his use of the Kaoss Pad; he used it, for example, in producing his album Another Day on Earth. [1] Brian Eno in 1977 Brian Peter George St. ... Another Day on Earth is an album by Brian Eno, released on June 13th/14th, 2005 on Hannibal Records. ...

Matthew Bellamy has also used the Kaoss Pad in his custom Manson Guitar. Matthew Bellamy playing with Muse at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre Matthew James Bellamy (born June 9, 1978 in Cambridge, England) is the lead singer and guitarist of British rock group Muse. ...

External link

• Official Korg Kaoss site

References

• Interview with Brian Eno in Sound on Sound magazine