User manual KORG M1

[. . . ] Korg M1 Manual 2/01 Basic Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 01 Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 02 Edit Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 02 Combination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11 Edit Combination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 12 Sequencer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 17 Global. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 24 MIDI Exclusive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 27 Cards 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 35 Cards 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 40 Reference/FAQ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 45 Quick Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 51 Basic Operation The M1 has synthesizer sounds, sampled sounds, and drum sounds permanently stored as 144 multisound waveforms. [. . . ] Many (if not most) sounds suffer from poor programming, making them unplayable; internal overload distortion, bad or non-existent controller routing, overdone effects, and intense wimpiness are the order of the day. Two high points did stand out: The expressive Pan Flute and the rich, synthy Orch Strng. Two low points: Jazz Organ, with its eight-second release time, and Keiths Org, with its delayed attack. We found a couple of duplicate programs, but the card did have the patch with the best name, Anal Choir. We don't know where the name came from, but every time we played a chord we could just imagine a group of folks in white robes singing out of their. . . well, you get the picture. --MM High-quality patches, for the most part, but not real imaginative. Lots of strings and Hammond organ, some mellow lead synth, no classical organ. Only one FX patch so this bank scores high in the usability category. The basses are all heavy on the reverb, which may sound impressive when soloed but tends to muddy up a mix. Our favorite items include the luscious breathy/digital layer of D70 Pads and the light phased lead of Gobots. Too many of the patches are tuned in fourths, which is even worse than fifths if you're trying to figure out what key you're in. Some others were near-duplicates with only the retuning of one oscillator by an octave (or a fourth). We spotted two actual duplicates with only the name changed--Analg Lead and Moog Lead, and Pick Bass and Bassey. 2 Nothing in this bank stands out, except for five synth basses, two of which are very similar to each other. The usual pile of string and choir pads--and never mind patches tuned in fifths, Fat String (which also has a pitch swoop when you play hard) is just plain tuned a fifth high, in the wrong key. No brass except for 2001, which sounds very analog but does feature a nice rich swell. No less than three single-oscillator patches use the double reed wave; they're virtually identical except for vibrato and a little filter enveloping. And don't try to play chords with Saxy; it sounds full-bodied on solo lines, but an inherent problem in the M1's hardware causes a pulse wave this loud to distort and then cut out entirely when the internal signal path overloads. Korg PCM Card Sets MSC/MPC-01 MSC/MPC-02 Synth MSC/MPC-03 Drums MSC/MPC-04 Orchestra MSC/MPC-05 Piano MSC/MPC-06 Fretted Instruments MSC/MPC-07 Synth 2 MSC/MPC-08 Percussion MSC/MPC-09 Organ MSC/MPC-10 Ethnic MSC/MPC-11 Brass MSC/MPC-12 Synth 3 MSC/MPC-13 Ethnic 2 MSC/MPC-14 Sound Effects MSC/MPC-15 Drums 2 MSC/MPC-16 Environment Korg MSC/MPC-01 Korg's own sound support for the M1 includes a series of card pairs, each consisting of a PCM (wave data) card bundled with a standard program ROM card. The first pair in the series is pretty much meat and potatoes--long on the strings and brass, but not long on imagination. There are even a few key and velocity splits within the single patches, one of the M1's less useful capabilities. Our excitement level rose a bit when we heard the wonderful pulsing machine drone of Talking M1, and patches like Chin-Brass (brass with a chiffy attack), while not exactly visionary, could certainly be valuable additions to a song. [. . . ] . . . . . . | STICK | PITCH MG FREQ . . . . . . . . . | | SENS | DECAY TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . | | VDF MG INT . . . . . . . . . | | | SLOPE TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . | | VDF MG FREQ . . . . . . . . . | | |RELEASE TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . |-----------------------------------| |----------------------------------| | E1 | E2 | | | CENTER KEY . . . . . . [. . . ]