After using a touchscreen, so much other music-technology hardware feels less immediate, and it's still centre-stage here. At least the most remarkable piece of front-panel real estate, present on Korg's flagships since the Trinity, remains largely unchanged.
The physical layout of the instrument is largely the same as what has gone before, and sonically and operationally Extreme is very much one of the Triton family. Whatever the reasoning, and whilst I personally miss the sleek, now classic, silverness, you shouldn't judge a synth by its colour. Without dwelling on aesthetic issues, it's hard to see why Korg would go for this colour change and still keep the Triton name, but then I suppose the new case is not so expensive to produce, and of course the new Triton once again stands out from the crowd. The latest Triton has a deep metallic-blue finish that reminds you of synths from the days before the release of Korg's Trinity - the original silver machine from 1995. So close is the competition in this market that it seems that anyone entering it has to produce a silver- or chrome-liveried instrument: Motif ES certainly is, and even Roland's imminent Fantom X will adopt this colour scheme. Yet here we are with what feels like Korg's answer to that challenge: it adds massive amounts of waveform ROM and USB connectivity to the high polyphony count and integrated sampling, sequencing and synthesis functions that the Triton family has come to represent.
It has to be a coincidence: Korg's new Extreme flavour of Triton workstation must have been under development before Yamaha released their enhanced Motif ES (reviewed in January of this year). The Triton Extreme is a bold new colour, but does the rest of it measure up? Korg have redefined the workstation synth many times, and each time, it's become harder to see how they can better their previous achievements. The basic 61-note synth-action Triton Extreme (SOS used both the 61- and 88-note keyboards for this review).