The Korg Triton is one of the highest quality (and most expensive as consequence) keyboards that is both within consumer and professional price range. Coincidentally, it was created by the company known as Korg.

It has well over one thousand sounds, and several drum kits. The sounds range from good (the pianos and choirs) to great (the strings and the synth leads. The drum kits are definitely good, but they are not phenomenal. Anyway, there are many ways to enhance or extend sounds, such as the MOSS card, several expansion cards (most recently the two-card orchestral set), as well as several built-in presets and knobs for tweaking sounds.

Of course, the Triton comes with the typical tape-delay effects popularized by dance music (the whole keyboard is great for electronica, but expecially Trance and Ambient), as well as a cool noisy vinyl sound and a vocoder (which unfortunately does not work as a talk-box). The vocoder is cool, and is especially interesting with choir, synth, and guitar patches.

The cooler features of the Triton include a large touch-screen, a sweet arpeggiator (well, two actually), a sampler, and a 200,000 note sequencer. The Triton has a trackpad-like slider, as well as an x/y pitch/vibrato slider, and two toggle buttons.

Some famous people to use the “silver beast” include Scapegoat Wax, Moby (I believe), Backstreet Boys, the Cynic Project (a relatively unknown Dreamtrance musician), and several others.

The Triton comes in four models as of now, though they may add another later. These include the Triton, the 76-key Pro, the weighted 88-key Pro-X, and the rackmount version, which has no keys and is controlled through mLan or MIDI. The next variation rumored to be released would be the Special Edition. The Triton is the sequel to the Korg Trinity.

Current Triton models include (prices: May 2002):

  • Triton -- basic model (ca. 2700 euros)
  • Triton Pro -- dito with 76 keys (3250 euros)
  • Triton ProX -- dito with 88 hammer-action keys (3700 euros)
  • Triton Rack -- a complete Triton in a 19" rackmount package (1900 euros)
  • Triton Le 61 -- budget version of the Triton; lighter, smaller, smaller display, no touchscreen, sampling capability must be bought extra; 61 keys (1700 euros)
  • Triton Le 76 -- Triton Le with 76 keys (1950 euros)
  • Triton Studio -- luxury model; includes the complete feature set of the Triton, plus a SCSI interface and an acoustic piano sound drawing from a whopping 16 mebibytes of wave memory; four times the capacity for memory expansion (up to 256 MB); more than double the programs; more of everything; 'studio' features for better handling of audio tracks; optional built-in CD writer (3500 euros)
  • Triton Studio Pro -- dito with 76 keys (4200 euros)
  • Trition Studio ProX -- dito with 88 hammer-action keys (newly developed 'RH2' hammer action); the nec plus ultra at 4900 euros

Korg has all but stopped producing non-Triton synthesizers such as the N series and the Z1. Their functionality is now available in Triton expansion boards. All they still make is a really old-tech (ca. 1994) and really cheap budget synth, the X5D(R), and a virtual-analog remake of their classic MS series, the MS2000. The Karma is a trippy Triton spinoff and doesn't count.

Available Trition expansion boards as of May 2002 (the PCMxx boards all feature 16 MB of sample data):

  • EXB-MOSS -- features the MOSS sound synthesis as built into the Z1
  • EXB-PCM01 -- Pianos and Classic Keys
  • EXB-PCM02 -- Studio Essentials
  • EXB-PCM03 -- Future Loop Construction Kit
  • EXB-PCM04 -- Dance Extreme
  • EXB-PCM05 -- Vintage Archives
  • EXB-PCM06/07 -- Orchestral Collection
  • EXB-PCM08 -- Studio Grand Piano (as featured on the Triton Studio)
  • EXB-SCSI -- SCSI interface (Triton Studio comes with this built in)

The Triton and its success have caused the other 'Big Three' companies to answer with the Yamaha Motif and the Roland Fantom, keyboards similar to the Triton in functionality, in price, and in trying hard to be cool designwise and namewise.

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