It’s not a synth, it’s not a workstation, and it’s not an arranger keyboard. No, Korg’s EK-50 is an ‘entertainer keyboard’ that comes with a range of auto-accompaniment Styles that serve as a backing band while you play along.
You can trigger the Styles with a single finger of your left hand or by playing chords, and the accompaniments will follow your playing. More than 280 musical genres are covered, and Styles come with variations as well as intros and endings for your songs.
The EK-50 can also be used as a solo or band performance keyboard, coming with 702 sounds including pianos, violin, sax and drums. You can Split the keyboard so that you can play different sounds with your left and right hands.
Other features include a comprehensive central display so that you can see what’s going on, and built-in speakers so that you can just turn on and jam. You can record your songs and play them back, while MP3, WAV and SMF files can be played from a USB flash drive. You can also add additional Styles via a flash drive - more will be added to the Korg website in due course.
We hear that the EK-50 will be available in October priced at $400/£390. Find out more on the Korg website.
