Korg Trinity

Korg Trinity is a commercially successful synthesizer music workstation released by Korg in 1996. It was also the first workstation to offer modular expansion for not only sounds, but also studio-grade feature such as SCSI, ADAT, various sound engine processors, audio recording capability, and more. It was considered one of the most comprehensive music workstations, in term of features, at the time. It is affectionately referred to as "the silver beast" by many of its owners.

Ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian in collaboration with KORG sound designer Jack Hotop created Sherinian's signature guitaristic lead sound on the Trinity in 1996.

Many users to this day feel that its successor, Triton, never had the same "sound" and the Trinity had a more airy/clear sound to it. Fact|date=February 2007 This was because the Trinity used the ACCESS sound engine, whereas the Triton series keyboards used the newer HI synthesis engine. The Trinity sound was also processed by INFINITY. The Trinity included many waveforms which were, unfortunately, not included in the waveform library of the Triton series, thus it was impossible to get some of the sounds of the Trinity on the Triton. The "silver beast" is a rare animal and will be a vintage synthesizer before too long. If you own a Trinity, cherish it!

Models

There are 3 models and variations of both the main hardware synthesizer itself and a rackmount:
* Trinity (61 Key)
* Trinity Pro (76 Key)
* Trinity Pro X (88 Weighted Key)
* Trinity TR-Rack: 1U Rack-mount Expanded Memory Locations (Adds banks C+D to Program and Combination modes) the same as as Trinity with the PBS-TRI Board, but no sample loading facility, but does add Digital In and out jacks

Variations

Any of the models could have the following variations:

# Trinity: The basic 61-key Trinity synthesizer with ACCESS synth engine, and no MOSS boards (Prophecy or Z1) installed.
# Trinity Plus: Same as the Trinity, a 61-key synthesizer, however, with the SOLO-TRI Prophecy board installed (the "S" bank), using any Trinity OS below 3.00
# Trinity Pro: Same as the Trinity Plus, however, with a 76-key keyboard (including the SOLO-TRI Prophecy board installed).
# Trinity V3: is not only OS 3.x, but shipped with the "MOSS-TRI" Z1 board installed (the "M" bank).
# SOLO-TRI: only works with OS 1 - 2.x and NOT 3.x, and the MOSS-TRI only works with 3.x and above. These cards cannot be installed at the same time as they occupy the same expansion bay.
# HDR-TRI: and SCSI-TRI cannot be installed at the same time as they occupy the same bay. (The HDR-TRI has all the feature of the SCSI-TRI)
# Any Trinity can have OS 3.x installed even if the MOSS-TRI is not installed but #3 applies. (The OS is user up and downgradable using floppies)
# The Rack could be fitted with the DI-TRI Option. It also contains two extra sound banks created exclusively for the Trinity Rack (TRR), banks "C" and "D," which are not included banks on the Trinity keyboards.

Features

The Trinity workstation features a massive set of effects, a large graphic touchscreen and a complete 16-track sequencer, as well as a systemsis with 48 kHz PCM playback on a 48Mbit ROM.

Along with the Korg Prophecy, the Korg Trinity synthesizer was a descendant of the original OASYS synthesizer, an acronym for Open Architecture Synthesis System, which was a mega-synth prototype that the company previewed in 1994 but never marketed. The foundation of the system was an open concept DSP system where the OS could load various unrelated models of different synthesis and physical modelling sound generators.

At the time, this synth had twin 900 MHz DSP processors, which gave the Trinity a retail price of $3000US. To attract more buyers, Korg adapted these technologies and developed three initial products: Trinity, Prophecy and Wavedrum.

Options for the machine included:

* SCSI-TRI: allowed a use to connect SCSI removable storage (ZIP, CDROM, HD) to load/save PCG, Sequencer and Sample Data (if PBS-TRI installed.

* PBS-TRI: allowed the user to expand the PCM ROM with up 8 Megs of addional Samples.with the ability to run these samples via the Internal FX processors.With the PBS board The Trinity can load AKAI, Wav and AIF and 16 bit format samples.This option also doubled the Trinity's User editable program capacity by adding 2 additional banks in Combi and Program modes(Total of 512 programs and 512 combis),double the drum kits, and added another 64 sounds (total of 128) if the SOLO-TRI or MOSS-TRI.A very useful feature of the PBS board is that its memory is non volatile,meaning that once samples are loaded they would still be retained in memory even after switching the Trinity off.

* HDR-TRI: a very exciting option at the time, not only gave functionality of the SCSI-TRI, but gave the system 2 analogue inputs, S/PDIF digital in and out and for the first time ever, gave the ability to record/playback up to 4 digital audio tracks perfectly synchronized to the sequencer's 16 MIDI tracks. The 4 audio tracks were fully automatable with Volume, Pan, 2 Aux sends to the Trinity's existing Master Effects section and simple Lo/Hi EQ. A 540 Mbyte hard disk allowed approximately 47 minutes of stereo recording.

* DI-TRI: added a 48 kHz word clock input and ADAT optical output. The main problem with the Trinity and digital linking at the time, was that Korg chose to design the synth using a 48 kHz, which is very common for post production and television work, but not the 44.1 kHz CD standard that most studios pro and consumer alike utilized. Therefore, it was difficult to clock unless an outboard box calculated a real-time conversion. Only the first four channels of the ADAT spec were used, and they were assigned to the classic Korg Output layout: 1/L, 2/R, out 3, out 4. These were fixed and non-assignable.

* SOLO-TRI: added a Korg Prophecy synthesizer into the Trinity, a 1-voice monophonic synth and integrated effects. The user could use only 1 patch at a time like the real synth counterpart, but could incorporate a patch into an existing combination or sequence. Access to the Trinity's Effect and Master Section was integrated. The only feature that was sadly not included was the arpeggiator, which was later seen on the future Triton series, Z1, and beyond.

* MOSS-TRI: Incorporated in V3 of the Trinity was the functionality of a Korg Z1 6-voice polyphonic synthesizer, including its own integrated effects. Similar to the real Korg Z1, the user could use only one patch at a time. However, this patch could be incorporated into an existing combination or sequence. Access to the Trinity's Effect and Master Section was also integrated. Unfortunately, and sadly, it did not include an arpeggiator function.

Notable users

* Jon Remy of FireWorX, QuaZZaR, The Frenetics, and Xica Jool (Nacha Mendez)

ee also

* Korg Triton - commercially successful successor to the Trinity

External links

* [http://www.korg.com Korg official site]