Korg 01/W

This piece is very easy to use. Never I must see inside the manual. Produced in the early 90ies, the graphical matrix display is much better than the tiny mouse-cinemas (as we say in germany) of concurrents like Roland JV80 or Ensoniq SQ-Series. On the lower side of the display there are 8 buttons directly to select (ewen) 8 "virtual" graphical fader inside the monitor. You want to change the VDF-Frequency ? Ok, simply type the button, that will lay in front of the graphic VDF-Slider and change the value with the "Hardware"-Slider on the left side of the panel ("on the left side of the panel ??? Really bad english, or ? Sorry, guys, its not my buisness.

OK, lets go inside the menu: All entrys are shown in realnames. No "Shortwords" anyway. Sometimes I must think on my first keyboard, a Kawai K1, BRRRR, a horrible thing, allways cryptical signs. Do You know, what "fegrt=75" means ? (F)ilter (E)nvelope (G)enerator (R)elease (T)ime = 75 of 100 . OK, thats the Kawai, the Korg would shown it in cleartext: Filter Envelope Generator Release Time ... 75. Thats it. As I say: Very easy of Use.

Ok, the audio-engines of Korg-synthesizers are ever simply constructions, also the 01/W: 2 Oscillators, VDA, VDF (without Resonance), 2 LFOs, a little bit Joystick-Modulation and a double EFX-Block (2*47 Effects how even in all the other korg stuff of the last decade also). Thats it ! No free modulators, no sample-start-manipulation, no Multiband-Filters, no Ringmodulators a.s.o. The only thing, that take the 01/W out of the standart is a very exciting WAVESHAPING-GENERATOR, that works behind the oscillator section. As You see, this instrument is not a high integrated "experted" synthesis-monster - No, its a workstation, BUT thats are all boring details, there is ONLY ONE THING, THAT IS IMPORTEND ...........

.......... THE SOUND !!!!

Where can I started ? Fantastic pads, very delicated string sections, sweet flutes, smooth electric pianos. For the year 1991 (Startup) very realistics conventional classic instruments (Please think, there are only 6 MB in the Sample-ROM [compressed]) I came frome the classical music section and I haved bought this thing in 1992 in case of the fantastic classic sounds. Often I must composite bigger compositions for sinfonic orchestras and also often I use the 01/W for the basic arrengements. OK, I also have a fat AKAI-Sampler with fat orchestra librarys - but, what should I say ? - the Korg is more fast, stabil and uncomplicated to use for many - naturally not for all!! - problem fields. My tip: Use it with the original Korg PCM-Expander card set, filled with orchestra instruments - ist unbelievable !

But: Live is short and where is much light, there is also some shaddow ... (say the germans ... :-)

All kinds of electric, analog, fat voltaged sounds are actually not the buisness of the 01/W. The Filter, I will say it lovely: Its a joke ! No Resonance Parameter and the Cutoff-Sweep sounds perhaps like the tone-select knob on the old tube-radio-receiver in my grandmothers kitchen. And the pure electric oscillator waveforms sounds very, very, very, very poor - if you discard the effects, understand ? The Korg is a - mhh, in german we call that "Hochstapler": Without his Effects it sounds poor and sorrowful.

You want to make Techno, Trance, Electro or EBM ? Sail away - its definitiv NOT your keyboard. Also the audio-quality is not ideal for this music-styles: The Korg sounds ever a little bit too strong in the middles (like the M1 also). No fat, punchy basses or agressiv, cutting high frequencies are available from this piece.

On the other hand the pads are again very, very fascinating. Smooth, sweet, swirrly - only the Wavestation still can beat this quality. A great part of this is the WAVESHAPING - Modul, sitting behind the oscillators. After the production of 01/W has finished, KORG never again build this tool into one of there followup synths - a great mistake in my opinion. Non of the other AI2-powered synths (03/RW, X-Series, N-Series and so on) coulded get the specific sound character of the 01/W (i.e. the pads !!) without the Waveshaping. Its a pity.


OK, lets make a resume:

You want classical sinfonic instruments ? You want ambient pads and swirrly collagen ? Its Yours !! Never can buy a better thing.

You want to make puristic and fat techno and elektro ? Look for another piece.

The Korg 01/W its a very ambivalent thing - on one hand its great, on the other hand its unusable. Love it or hate it.

Very stable (see upstairs ->) very beautifull look. Sorry, for me its the most beautifull workstation on the planet. Oh, smooth roundings on the sides ...

I never use the korg support. Cant say anything about this.

I love my Korg and I hope, the many bad englished words can help You. Greetings from germany. :-)

I bought my 01/W in 1993. One of the most important reasons of this choice was the ease of use. The sounds are always powerful and quite clean in every rating. The presets are very good, and you can start playng immediately, without any editing operations. Functions are very logically laid out and the display seems to be a television tool. These features make it very friendly to use. I'm sure that no 01/W's holder has ever read his owner's manual, a huge success if you prefer to waste your time playing!

When i bought my 01/W, I chose the version without FD because I think it's easier to use a PC with MIDI interface for editing and sequencing operations. Moreover I gain 0.5 Kg for carriage, and some money (it costs less!). Polyphony is up to 32 notes, but you have 16 notes typically in use. It has very good keys (maybe the best 61 I ever touched in my life) and the effects section is very cool. You can find 2 FX units, with 47 different effects each one. All of them are programmable as you like. The built-in sequencer is very nice too, but the capacity without FD is very low (7000 notes). If you need it, it's better to use an external sequencer. The MIDI implementation is OK, the 01/W can send in 16 simultaneous channels all the controls normally needed. I used it also as a master keyboard: it works very good. The expansion capabilities are XSC PCM card set, XPC ROM card and SRC512 RAM card. Besides if you need to work in SMF be sure that your 01/W has a ROM version #62 (or higher). Otherwise you should upgrade it by installing the VUK 01W kit. If you don't have any experience of this kind of things ask your dealer. If you want to determine the ROM version of your 01/W hold RESET button during turning POWER ON (IMPORTANT: you will lose all contents of RAM, so save BEFORE doing it).

The sounds are overall excellent, but like any other synthesizer 01/W has its own limits: the PCM for acoustic piano is not the best (but if you need a cool one try XSC-3S PCM card), the samples for organs and brass could be better and some other sample sounds sometimes too compressed. I normally use 01/W in many different situations (live shows and recording studios) and according to different kinds of music where professional quality is required. It always covers without troubles all my needs. Anyway I think 01/W's features make it good especially for pop and rock music. In 01/W you can find for the first time the famous AI? synthesis system that enables to modify and add new armonics to the internal samples, obtaining results unreacheable using conventional filters only. As to precedent AI synthesis system, the sounds seem to be "alive".

01/W is built like a tank (13.4 Kg), mine never had electronic breakdowns (I even played it under the snow!), and I believe that if I throw it out of the window someone could still be able to play it down on the street without any troubles.

Never had any problems.

I don't really think I will change KORG 01/W very soon. In my opinion it is a synthesizer quite actual yet. If I could change something about it... oh yes, of course: the weight!