Korg M1
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The Korg M1 was the world's first widely-known music workstation. Its onboard MIDI sequencer and palette of sounds allowed musicians to produce complete professional arrangements. Outselling the Yamaha DX7 and Roland D-50, the M1 became the best-selling digital keyboard of all time, which it remains today.
In many ways, the Korg M1 was a breakthrough. In its six-year production period, more than 200,000 units were sold, making it Korg's most successful synthesizer. And though it wasn't the first workstation (this honor belongs to the mid-1980s Ensoniq ESQ-1), it was among the first in its class and set new standards for other manufacturers. It even enabled Korg to regain total economic control of the company; the M1's unprecedented sales allowed Korg executives to buy Yamaha's share of the company, a deal which had originated in the mid-1980s.
Even for the late 1980s, 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, or 'multisounds' in Korg terminology. The basic sample sound was then processed by a simple digital low pass filter, and then fed into the digital amplifier. Envelopes and LFOs, along with keyboard tracking, were the main controllers for those blocks. Because no interaction between the oscillators was provided (unlike Roland's 'structures,' for example), dual-oscillator patches essentially ran the two osciallators in parallel.
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. Though paltry by current standards, the M1's sequencer offered full track editing and quantization, 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.
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.
Throughout 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.
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-1990s, 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.de:Korg M1