Electribe ER-1 Gets Unofficial Firmware Upgrade, ‘Electric Shaman’

The Electribe ER-1 drum machine is considered by many to be the most interesting member of Korg’s original Electribe line.

The Korg ER-1 combines virtual analog drum synthesis and sampling with straightforward sequencing.

Now a new, unofficial firmware upgrade, Electric Shaman, promises to bring new features to the ER-1, including the ability to send and receive CC/NRPN messages and the ability to load custom samples.

The firmware update will be available via a subscription model. See the Electribe Shaman site for details.

19 thoughts on “Electribe ER-1 Gets Unofficial Firmware Upgrade, ‘Electric Shaman’

  1. Huh.. Firmware under a subscription model? At least on the surface it doesn’t seem to be much different than buying a license to use software. From the legal disclaimer:

    “(d) The one-time subscription fee entitles a paying subscriber to the latest, as well as all forthcoming versions and revisions of Shaman Electribe Firmware update. The subscription applies to one Electribe device and permits the legal Owner of the device to download and install each firmware update multiple, but not unlimited, number of times. The subscription is not transferrable to another Owner of a similar device.”

    So updates are free and nothing seems to be set to expire. Wonder what the differences are and why they went this way. From the last sentence I guess if you sell your Electribe they expect you to return it to factory firmware.

    All that said, this is really cool! Must have taken quite some time to reverse engineer everything. Kudos to the developer!

    1. Yea, it’s almost not what I’d call a subscription– since those have always referred to periods of time. Seems like they are rather meaning to say: A more careful software licensing fee system.

  2. Don’t know man, I mean I’m all for giving compensation to makers but 40 bucks for a license for 1 specific machine.. Thats more than a Windows 10 license costs. ER-1’s go for 120-180 here and 40 bucks seems to miss the reasonable benchmark for me.
    I mean, sure its a great update and got extremely excited when seeing the video but its price is beyond my limit for something 3rd party that hasn’t proven itself yet.

    1. Kinda not fair to compare it to Microsoft which sells millions of a thing. And hardware gets MOST of its value from the firmware. They had to decide how much value it would add and how much would cover the cost of CONTINUED development, support, bug-fixes, etc. That price makes sense with the economies of scale involved.

      Custom sample loading is a pretty big deal.

  3. I own an original ER-1 (grey body/red faceplate) and I’d love to see the ability to toggle between Play and Write mode without the need to stop the machine and enter “Write”.
    Also I’d love to have the option to detach the sounds from the sequence so that the sounds remain the same when changing patterns on the fly!

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