D-888

Making use of a hefty 40GB internal hard drive, the D888 simultaneously records and plays back eight tracks of 16-bit uncompressed audio at 44.1kHz. The internal signal path is rated at 40-bit, so there's plenty of headroom in the system for mixing and processing. Each record track has seven additional virtual slots for storing alternative takes, and there's the option of saving the final mix as multiple stereo WAV files. These can be transferred to a computer via USB 2.0, as can song-file backups.

The D888 does have on-board effects, but the options are limited to a collection of 11 reverbs and echo effects, with the only editable parameter being reverb or echo time. (Even Korg's diminutive D4 multitrack included modelling algorithms for processing guitars, plus a selection of other common effects, such as flangers, choruses and tremolos.) It seems that Korg have followed analogue mixer protocol, where it's common to have some general reverbs and delays on board, but all other effects are left up to the musicians and their choice of outboard. The channel EQ is a simple, non-sweepable, three-band design, offering +/-15dB gain on bands centred at 100Hz, 2.5kHz and 10kHz.

The digital editing facilities on board are basically Delete, Copy, Erase and Swap, but it's also possible to bounce tracks down, and perform punch in/out recording. MIDI spec, again, is quite basic. The single MIDI output only seems to transmit MIDI Time Code (MTC), at a fixed frame rate of 30fps (frames per second). MIDI clock is not supported at all, nor is MIDI Machine Control.