korg m1

The Korg M1 is one of, if not the best selling synthesizers of all time so there are a lot of M1 owners out there still looking for new sounds. You can find more info on all our Korg M1 sounds and Patches over here. We have a great collection which will get your M1 back on it’s feet again, but there are a few important things you should know.

NOTE: These settings will also work with the Korg M1R Rack Module as well as the Korg T-Series (T1, T2, T3 and T3-EX).

The ROM, RAM and PCM cards that fit into the M1 card slots have not been made in many years and are hard to find. Even if you do happen to find one, there is a good chance that the internal battery on the card is dead. That makes the card useless in most cases. You can change the battery on “some” cards, but even if you do any sounds that were on the card are gone. The cards are also expensive and do not hold much memory (usually only one bank of sounds can fit on a typical RAM card).

As described in our “Sysex Made Simple article”, there are better ways to do things. A simple midi interface will connect to your computers USB port and enable you to load and save sounds to your computers hard drive. Each synthesizer is set up differently, so refer to your owners manuel on how to transmit a “Bulk Dump” or “Sysex Dump” from your computer to your synth. Here are the settings that will let you do this on the M1:

To load in new sounds:

Set your M1 as follows in the global section:
Midi channel to 1
Memory protects to OFF
Midi filtering excl: ENA; 100/100 mode

To save sounds to your computer:

Set your software to receive the bulk dump
Set your M1 as follows in the global section:
Midi channel to 1
Midi filtering excl: ENA; 100/100 mode
Go to “Midi Data Dump Page”
You can set to dump Programs, Combis, Global, Sequence Data or All. Set to “All” unless you just want to save part of your internal data.
press “DUMP”

If the file does not transfer then check your cables and software settings and repeat.

If you need a program to load the sounds in, we provide “Midiox” for PC’s or “OSX Sysex” for Mac’s which are easy to use applications that will load in sounds to just about any synth with midi.

Here are a few other tips in working with sysex transfers;

Before you do anything, make sure your Midi cables are correctly connected. “Midi Out” of your Computer interface to “Midi In” of your synth & “Midi Out” of your synth to “Midi In” of your computer interface. Then copy the file to your hard drive or back up everything on a CD, floppy of whatever your using.

Make sure you “Save” your internal sounds to disk before loading in our sounds. Our sounds will replace your internal presets, so it’s best to save them to disk so you can reload them in later if you wish. Many synth have a “re-initilize memory” setting which you can use to restore the original factory settings. Note that there is no re-initilize setting on the M1, M1R or T- Series.

The sounds that we sell for the M1 are in .syx format (system exclusive) We recommend using Midiox or OSX Sysex to transfer the sounds. Although there are many other programs available that will transfer sysex files. We also provide the sounds in a standard midi file format (.mid). You can use your sequencer program (Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer etc) to load in the data. To load via your sequencer just import the file into a track. Then play the track and the data will load into your synth. The midi files will also work with windows media player. Just import them into windows media player and play.

Need a midi interface or maybe your looking for a used M1? No problem. Check out the hardware section of our web site. We usually have several midi interfaces in stock and do usually have several Korg Keyboards including the good old M1.

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