The Korg Trident is a

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...

multi-section

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

released by

Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electr ...

in 1980, combining three distinct synthesizers within a single instrument: a polyphonic section with two VCOs, alongside dedicated String and Brass sections. The polyphonic synthesizer section allows for eight-note polyphony with dual oscillators. The String section offers an ensemble effect and simple attack/release envelope controls, whereas the Brass section features an independent filter and a dedicated ADSR envelope. These sections can be assigned to two different regions of the keyboard independently, and the Trident also offers a flanger effect along with a joystick for pitch bending and modulation. In 1982, the enhanced MkII version was introduced, offering additional memory, improved stability, and an extra ADSR envelope.

Sounds and features

The Trident features three separate sections for strings, polysynth, and brass, each with its own output level control. It includes an octave split function, allowing these sections to be assigned to upper, lower, or both ranges of the keyboard. It also features a joystick controller and various effects that can be applied to each section individually or to all sections collectively. The synth section features dual VCOs with tuning options of 16', 8', and 4'. VCO1 offers sawtooth and

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

waveforms, along with pulse-width (PW) and

pulse-width modulation Pulse-width modulation (PWM), also known as pulse-duration modulation (PDM) or pulse-length modulation (PLM), is any method of representing a signal as a rectangular wave with a varying duty cycle (and for some methods also a varying peri ...

(PWM) controls. VCO2 includes a detune function (± one semitone), and the

voltage-controlled filter A voltage-controlled filter (VCF) is an electronic filter whose operating characteristics (primarily cutoff frequency) can be set by an input control voltage. Voltage-controlled filters are widely used in synthesizers. A music synthesizer VCF ...

(VCF) offers low pass filtering with cutoff, resonance, and envelope intensity controls, which vary positively or negatively from the centre '0' position. Keyboard tracking for the filter has three settings, off, half, or full. The

voltage-controlled amplifier A variable-gain (VGA) or voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA) is an electronic amplifier that varies its gain depending on a control voltage (often abbreviated CV). VCAs have many applications, including audio level compression, synthesizers and ...

(VCA) can follow

ADSR envelope In sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time. For example, a piano key, when struck and held, creates a near-immediate initial sound which gradually decreases in volume to zero. An envelope may relate to elements such ...

controls or simple on/off keying. Synth sounds can be stored in one of sixteen 'program' slots, chosen with Bank A, B, and program buttons 1-8. It also offers three piano tone presets: Piano 1, Piano 2, and Clavinet. The string section has the same pitch options as the synth section (16', 8', and 4') and features an attack/release envelope generator and an equalizer effect with low and high settings. It also includes vibrato, an ensemble effect, and a bowing effect that boosts the initial attack volume of new notes or chords, simulating the impact of bowing on strings. The brass section offers pitch settings of 16' and 8', complemented by a full ADSR envelope generator. It also features its own dedicated filter equipped with resonance, cutoff, and envelope amount controls. The Trident features a built-in

flanger Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and (usually) gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and ...

effect that can be applied to any of the three sections via selection switches and has four dedicated controls to adjust the character of the effect. The joystick allows for pitch bending by moving right and left, and vibrato or trills by moving up or down, with their intensity and speed determined by respective controls. Trills can reach up to a minor 3rd interval. The Trident features separate audio outputs for its synth, brass, and strings sections, along with two mixed outputs (high/low level) and a headphone output. This setup allows each part to be individually routed to external effects or different mixer channels for separate sound processing such as volume and panning. There are modulation inputs for expression, allowing for volume control of the three sections through a foot pedal or external CV source. Additionally, it features various filter CV inputs and a trigger input for the Brass section.

MkII version

The Trident MkII, released in 1982, introduced several enhancements over its predecessor. Unlike the MkI, which required editing sounds from existing sounds, the MkII offered the ability to start with a blank preset. This model also addressed thermal issues with improved heat-sinking and a more robust power supply, leading to greater stability without altering the sound character. Other changes included the removal of three piano preset sounds in favour of increased memory capacity, doubling the storage to 32 memory locations across four banks of eight, mirroring the configuration found on the

Korg Polysix The Korg Polysix (PS-6) is a six-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer released by Korg in 1981. It was one of the first affordable polyphonic synthesizers on the market, and was released as a cheaper alternative to the Prophet-5, Sequential Prophe ...

. The MkII version of the polysynth section features separate ADSR envelope generators for both the filter and VCA, unlike the MkI which had a single shared ADSR. This enhancement allows for more nuanced organ, harpsichord, and clavinet sounds.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korg Trident String synthesizers Polyphonic synthesizers Analog synthesizers Korg synthesizers Musical instruments invented in the 1980s

Sounds and features

MkII version

See also

References