Korg Legacy M1
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 4:23 pm
As a former M1 owner I checked out the Korg Legacy M1 and was pleasantly surprised. I have quite a few ancient sequences that I used the M1 on and now I can bring them back to life. It sounds pretty spot on for the most part, as I remember it and when compared to the tapes. I just wish I still had my old presets and SYSEX files (which I have to still check my old 286 machine with the Voyetra OP-4001 MPU-401 clone which I think still boots up with Sequencer Plus and Texture).
The Legacy M1 sounds much cleaner than the 12 bit original. The hardware noise was digital so it was not very musical although it wasn't deadly. I didn't really lnow better at the time and I used it a lot and really enjoyed it for a few years. But now there's none of that digital noise and no 3rd party editor necessary with only SYSEX control. The controls are well laid out on the screen and not in those many pages of scrolling and tabbing through the tiny LCD. It comes with every M1 card that Korg ever made for it so it's quite a bargain at $49.99.
The sound is now super-clean and does not sound too thin and with some Scope effects to warm and fatten it up it really sounds great - at least to me. I put it through a SpaceX V-8 right away and it sounds really creamy just with the valves on!
I didn't have any other Korg hardware that's now nativized in the Legacy collection, so I can't comment on them - I didn't get them. I don't want to really add to my collection at this point but I have a thing for getting the native stuff from HW that I used to have and now I have in native or DSP versions like the Mini Moog, Rhodes, B-3, Farfisa, Casio CZ-1, Yamaha FM stuff and the M1 makes my collection pretty much complete. I had an ARP Odyssey but I basically used it for bass lines and arpeggios and not much lead sounds but that PrOdyssey is still on my list!
The Legacy M1 sounds much cleaner than the 12 bit original. The hardware noise was digital so it was not very musical although it wasn't deadly. I didn't really lnow better at the time and I used it a lot and really enjoyed it for a few years. But now there's none of that digital noise and no 3rd party editor necessary with only SYSEX control. The controls are well laid out on the screen and not in those many pages of scrolling and tabbing through the tiny LCD. It comes with every M1 card that Korg ever made for it so it's quite a bargain at $49.99.
The sound is now super-clean and does not sound too thin and with some Scope effects to warm and fatten it up it really sounds great - at least to me. I put it through a SpaceX V-8 right away and it sounds really creamy just with the valves on!
I didn't have any other Korg hardware that's now nativized in the Legacy collection, so I can't comment on them - I didn't get them. I don't want to really add to my collection at this point but I have a thing for getting the native stuff from HW that I used to have and now I have in native or DSP versions like the Mini Moog, Rhodes, B-3, Farfisa, Casio CZ-1, Yamaha FM stuff and the M1 makes my collection pretty much complete. I had an ARP Odyssey but I basically used it for bass lines and arpeggios and not much lead sounds but that PrOdyssey is still on my list!
