The Korg M1 is a

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

and

music workstation A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of: *a sound module, *a music sequencer and *(usually) a musical keyboard. It enables a musician to compose electronic music using just one piece of equipment. Or ...

manufactured by

Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electr ...

from 1988 to 1995. It is one of the bestselling synthesizers in history, selling an estimated 250,000 units. The M1 was widely used in popular music and

stock music Production music (also known as stock music or library music) is recorded music that can be licensed to customers for use in film, television, radio and other media. Often, the music is produced and owned by production music libraries. Backgrou ...

in the late 80s and early 90s. The piano and organ presets were used in 1990s

house music House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground ...

, beginning with

Madonna's Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

1990 single "

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...

Development

Korg's chief engineer, Junichi Ikeuchi, led the hardware engineering design of the M1. Whereas many previous synthesizers had shipped with sounds chosen for different markets, the Korg chairman, Tsutomu Kato, and his son Seiki decided that their synthesizers should use the same sounds internationally. Korg assembled an international team to develop the sounds for the M1. To create a deep

blown bottle A blown bottle is a musical instrument that produces sound when the musician blows air over the bottle opening. Blown bottles generate sound by utilizing a vibrating column of air. The bottles may be tuned by adding water or sand to the vessel ...

sound, the team played a

pan flute A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

over a large

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

bottle.

Features

The M1 features a 61-note velocity- and

aftertouch Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression ...

-sensitive keyboard, 16-note

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...

, a

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

for

pitch-bend In music, portamento (: ''portamenti''; from old , meaning 'carriage' or 'carrying'), also known by its French name glissade, is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression ('carriage of the voice ...

and modulation control, an eight-track MIDI sequencer, separate LFOs for

vibrato Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...

and filter

modulation Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information. The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...

, and

ADSR envelopes ADSR may refer to: * ADSR envelope In sound and music, an envelope describes how a sound changes over time. For example, a piano key, when struck and held, creates a near-immediate initial sound which gradually decreases in volume to zero. An ...

. Data can be stored on RAM and PCM cards. The M1 has a

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

with four megabytes of 16-bit

PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to Digital signal (signal processing), digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio application ...

tones — a large amount at the time — including instruments that had not been used extensively in mainstream music. The sounds include

sampled Sample or samples may refer to: * Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample ...

attack

transients Transience or transient may refer to: Music * ''Transient'' (album), a 2004 album by Gaelle * ''Transience'' (Steven Wilson album), 2015 * Transience (Wreckless Eric album) Science and engineering * Transient state, when a process variable o ...

, loops, sustained

waveform In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its Graph of a function, graph as a function of time, independent of its time and Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude Scale (ratio), scales and of any dis ...

s and percussive samples. The timbres include piano, strings, acoustic guitar, woodwinds, sitar, kalimba, wind chimes and drums. ''

Fact A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...

'' described the sounds as "wonderfully, endearingly wonky ... each one managed to sound simultaneously realistic and synthetic all at once". The M1 also features effects, including

reverb In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then decay as the sound is a ...

delay Delay or DeLay may refer to: People * B. H. DeLay (1891–1923), American aviator and movie stunt pilot * Dorothy DeLay (1917–2002), American violin instructor * Florence Delay (born 1941), French academician and actor * Jan Delay, stage name ...

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song), the part of a song that is repeated several times, usually after each verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in whic ...

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are multiple types of tremolo: a rapid repetition of a note, an alternation between two different notes, or a variation in volume. Tremolos may be either ''measured'' ...

, EQ,

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signal ...

, and

Leslie Leslie may refer to: * Leslie (name), a name and list of people with the given name or surname, including fictional characters Families * Clan Leslie, a Scottish clan with the motto "grip fast" * Leslie (Russian nobility), a Russian noble family ...

simulation, an innovative inclusion at the time. According to ''

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is a monthly music technology magazine. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals. Due to its technical focus, it is predominantly ...

'', none of the M1's features were unique, but were implemented and combined in a new way.

Reception

The M1 was released in 1988 and was manufactured until 1995, selling an estimated 250,000 units. Reviewing it for ''Sound on Sound'', Tony Hastings wrote that it was "destined to be big, very big", with "sensational" sounds and extensive features that outperformed its competitors. It was widely used in popular music and

in the late 80s and early 90s. The piano and organ presets were used in 1990s

, beginning with

1990 single "

". In 2002, the ''Sound on Sound'' journalist Mark Vail wrote that the M1 was the bestselling synthesizer in history, though he noted that Korg had not verified the sales figures. Both ''Sound and Sound'' and ''Fact'' described it as the most popular synthesizer of all time. ''Fact'' attributed the success to its sampling and sequencer features, which allowed musicians to produce entire tracks without a studio before the rise of

digital audio workstations A digital audio workstation (DAW ) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pr ...

Variants

Following the success of the M1, Korg expanded its lineup with several series of new workstations, including the T-series in 1989, the 01-series in 1991, the X-series in 1993, and the N-series in 1996. The 01/W built upon the M1 AI synthesis with the enhanced AI2 system, which introduced additional effects and digital

waveshaping In electronic music, waveshaping is a type of distortion synthesis in which complex spectra are produced from simple tones by altering the shape of the waveforms. Uses Waveshapers are used mainly by electronic musicians to achieve an extra-a ...

. Rack-mountable versions of the M1 include the M1R and the more affordable M3R. Additionally, Korg released the M1EX and the M1REX rackmount, both featuring sounds from the T-series. Korg released a software version of the M1 in 2006 as part of the

Korg Legacy Collection The Korg Collection (initially launched as the Korg Legacy Collection in 2004) is a suite of virtual instruments and effects that emulate Korg's various hardware synthesizers. The original release included virtual versions of the MS-20, Polysix ...

. This digital version features 8-part multitimbrality, 256-note polyphony and presets from all 19 optional ROM cards. In December 2010, another software version, Korg M01, was released for the

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

handheld game console. It was developed by

AQ Interactive AQ Interactive, Inc. was a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. AQ stands for Artistic Quality. It was the parent company of the developers Artoon, Cavia (company), Cavia and feelplus, and most recently the U.S. pu ...

and features 8-part multitimbrality, 12-note polyphony and the 300 original M1 PCM sounds.

References

External links

Korg M1 video demo and review
in Japanese {{Authority control Music workstations M Digital synthesizers Polyphonic synthesizers Musical instruments invented in the 1980s Synthesizers with preset storage Synthesizers