Can the Krome play samples or not?

That is one big debate all Korg fans have been talking about since its introduction. A mistake from one of Korg’s international representatives, showed a video on YouTube that spread like wildfire, until it was pulled out a couple of days later. A Russian fan was able to save it and repost it to the Russian equivalent of YouTube, and is still there until the time of this writing, but still there are many questions unanswered, and Korg officials are completely silent about the issue.

Of course the Krome can play samples. It is what it does. Is a rompler. Or is it? Wouldn’t be better to call it a Rampler? Apparently the way to do it is an internal Korg procedure, using an internal tool for converting samples out of Awave Studio into PCM format and load it to the Krome at boot time. This procedure creates a couple of extra banks, called OptionPCM, both mono and stereo. But that is as far as I know.

As a Korg user of many years, I just hope this will one day will be announced as a feature, which would certainly break the competition in pieces. It would not be a sampling feature per se, since it doesn’t have line inputs or mikes, but it would be sampling playback, which is ultimately what we really find useful, to be able to play samples of old instruments like mellotrons, electric pianos, voices, special effects, etc.

That will, sadly, remains my wish. Still, the plot thickens. Lets wait some more as the information unfolds.
I’ll keep you posted.