The Korg M1

The Korg M1 was the world's first widely-known music workstation and is the best-selling digital keyboard of all time, surpassing even the Yamaha DX7. With its onboard MIDI sequencer and adequate palette of sounds, the Korg M1 allowed musicians to produce complete professional arrangements. Image File history File links Korg-m1-040915. ... Image File history File links Korg-m1-040915. ... A music workstation is piece of electronic musical equipment providing the facilities of: a sound module, a music sequencer and (usually) a musical keyboard. ... The Yamaha DX7 Digital Synthesizer The Yamaha DX7 was a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1986, based on FM synthesis. ... In the field of electronic music, a sequencer was originally any device that recorded and played back a sequence of control information for an electronic musical instrument. ...

Prior to the arrival of the Korg M1, the Yamaha DX7 and the Roland D-50 were the best-selling digital synthesizers. The polyphonic, 61-key, Roland D50 was released in 1987 to compete with the Yamaha DX7 market. ...

The Korg M1 was a serious breakthrough in many ways: it was Korg's most successful synthesizer (more than 200,000 units sold over a 6 year production period), and while not being the first workstation (this honor belongs to the Ensoniq ESQ-1 mid-80's synth), it was among the first in its class and set new standards for other manufacturers to reach. It even enabled Korg to regain total economic control of the company; the M1's unpredented sales allowed Korg executives to buy Yamaha's share of the company, a deal which had originated in the mid-80's. Ensoniq ESQ1 Ensoniq ESQ-1 is a synthesizer released by Ensoniq in 1986. ...

Even for the late 1980's, the M1's synth engine was somewhat simplistic, comprising one or two digital oscillators per patch. A total of 16 oscillators were offered, leading to a maximum 16-note polyphony (using only singe-oscillator patches). The oscillators played ROM and card multisamples, called 'multisounds' in Korg terminology. The basic sample sound was then processed by a simplistic digital low pass filter, and then fed into the digital amplifier. Envelopes and LFOs, among with keyboard tracking, were the main controllers for those blocks. Because no interaction between the oscillators was provided (unlike Roland's 'structures,' for example), on dual-oscillator patches each oscillator esentially ran in parallel with the other.

The filter didn't offer resonance, but at the time this wasn't considerated a major handicap; the need for a dramatic filter was diminished by the onboard sample library's wide variety of acoustic, synth, and exotic sounds. The M1's internal 4 MB waveform ROM contained famous sounds which are in use even today, especially the compressed acoustic piano (used on countless records of the time and later adopted by the dance crowd), pick and synth basses, strings, realistic vocal samples, brasses, and acceptable drum kits. For the first time, ethnic and exotic sounds from world locales (particularly Asian) were offered standard, which when combined with the synth sounds, offered a workstation that "blowed people's minds."

The M1 offered the ability to combine up to eight programs (patches) to play simultaneously on various key and velocity zones. This arrangement is called a 'Combi,' and allowed more complex sounds to be assembled and played via keyboard or MIDI.

The integrated MIDI sequencer allowed up to eight polyphonic tracks to play internal or MIDI sounds simultaneously. The sequencer memory could be shared with the user sound area, allowing 100 user sounds with 4,700 sequencer notes or 50 user sounds with about 10,000 notes. The sequencer's pattern structure permitted memory saving by using patterns for repetitive regions.

Although the M1's sequencer seems paltry by current standards, it offered full editing and quantization of tracks, making it possible to produce high-quality songs entirely on the machine. The combination of the patches with the sequencer functionality led to the M1's ubiquitous presence in 1988.

Another major advancement was in the area of onboard effects. The M1 offered 2 independent effects engines featuring reverb, flanger, chorus, delay, etc. Previously, most synthesizers offered fixed-function effects blocks, such as chorus or delay, and rarely reverb. Somewhat less spectactularly, when using multiple patches at the same time (in Combi or Sequencer modes), all patches share the same effects blocks. This problem also affected workstations from nearly all manufacturers until Korg implemented a massive effects engine on their mid-90's Trinity workstations.

The user interface featured a 40x2 character LCD and softkeys, along with data slider and data entry buttons. The workstation featured minimalist physical controls, employing only a joystick that combined two modulation sources and the pitch bend; aftertouch; and the data slider. No arpeggiator was offered (a common omission until mid-90's) and the synth enforced patch-based cumbersome programming instead of performance controls. No disk drive was integrated, so along with MIDI SysEx dumps, memory cards provided the only method to save sequences and programs outside the keyboard.

The M1's synth engine remained nearly unchanged until the Korg Trinity's breakthrough in 1995, with minor improvements concerning polyphony, more control sources, and more effects algorythms. The T series (1989: T1/T2/T3) built upon the M1's success, offering more keyboard alternatives (88, 76 and 61-key versions), a disk drive and more ROM samples, more sequencer capacity, and a better screen. However, the polyphony stalled at 16 notes and the effects blocks were untouched. A 1 MB sample RAM option allowed users to load a handful of samples for use with the synth sections. Along with the Korg Prophecy, the Korg Trinity synthesizer was a descendant of the Oasys mega-synth that the company previewed in 1994 but never marketed. ...

The O series (1990: O1W,O1WFD,O1Wpro,O1WproX) maintained the improvements of the T series (despite losing the sample RAM) but doubled the polyphony and offered several refinements over the previous machines, mainly effects and audio outputs routing. A non-linear waveshaping technology was also integrated in the synth section, but it didn't seem to cause a major impact. The O1/WFD, the 6-key version with disk drive, was also a bestseller, but did not surpass sales of the M1.

Rackmount versions of the M1 and the O series were offered, some of which featured the sequencer, a rare feature on today's synth racks.

The X series (1993: X2/X3, 1995: X5,X5D) was a cost-effective derivative of the O series, adding General MIDI compatibility and more samples to the internal ROM. However, the graphic LCD was replaced by a cheaper, smaller character-based one, the keyboard feel was downgraded, and the waveshaping removed. A welcome addition was the disk drive, now compatible with MS-DOS machines.

Thoughout the series from T to X, the M1's digital filter remained unchanged, limiting the synthesis possibilities due to its non-resonant architecture, especially when attempting to recreate analog-style sounds such as sweeps. This shortcoming was shared by other manufacturers at the time such as Alesis and Ensoniq. Resonant digital filters were offered by Roland and Yamaha on most of their machines from early the 90's through today. Alesis is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments based in Cumberland, Rhode Island. ... Ensoniq Corp. ...

The M1 pioneered and established the baseline that any music workstation should offer: good synth and acoustic sounds, drum samples, sequencer and effects processing.

Following the M1 phenomenon, most manufacturers sought to offer competing products, and the age of the 'music workstation' began. Countless workstations were marketed up to mid-90's, when the public had its fill of 'do-it-all-yourself' machines, and the 'virtual analog' age began. While some top-notch music workstations are still produced, the computer and sofware synthesizer market has slowly eroded the market, and most people today prefer simpler synth designs and good sequencing software packages, which integrate audio and MIDI sequencing seamlessly.

External links

• Vintage Synth Explorer A photograph and some technical details.