Having problems getting the best out of your X5? Then this section might be of use to you. There are some basic sequencing tips for beginners but also a few advice for the more advanced reader.
It is easy to select GM-sounds with Program Change messages, but selecting sounds from Bank A is a little more complicated than that, because in addition to changing the sound you'll also need to change the bank. Korg X5/X5D manual, second page of Appendix (p.164): When you use an external MIDI sequencer, first send a Bank Select Message, then send the Program Change. Easy, not? :) "What the heck is a Bank Select Message?!", I hear you ask. Well, for some esoteric reasons it consists of two Controllers: Controllers 0 and 32 which you set to their right values depending on which bank you want, Bank A, GM Bank or GM Drum Bank. Right values? Well look at the table below (or in the manual, page 164).
Note that xx means any number, and cc 0 and 32 stand for Control Change message number 0 and 32. For example, if and when you want to use a sound from bank A, you set controller number 0 to value 0, and controller number 32 also to 0. After that, when ever you send a program change, you'll get a bank A sound. Note that you really have to send the program change after the bank change, otherwise nothing will happen! Some sequencers use bank numbers instead of controller changes - in that case just find the right values from that table. The funny thing is that people seem to disagree what values you should use. For example, I've been told that for bank A you should use a bank number between 7168 and 7295, whereas the table suggests you should use bank number 1... I don't use bank numbers myself so I really don't know what works and what doesn't. (For the mathematically inclined: Bank number = 128*MSB + LSB).
When you have done some composing with your sequencer, it's quite useful to be able to save the settings you have used in Multi mode. That is in fact quite easy provided you have a way to save System Exclusive messages with your computer. You can use your sequencer, or get a dedicated SysEx utility (see Software) for you computer. Go to Global mode, page 04A, DATA DUMP. Select MULTI, set your computer to record SysEx, and press OK?. Then save the resulting SysEx-data on disk. Next time you start composing, just send your data back to Korg. Don't forget to set Global/02/EX:ENA before it. With a sequencer you do this by first making sure that you have enabled saving SysEx messages (they are sometimes filtered out for convenience when they are not needed). Then select a sequencer track where you want to save the Multi mode data. Go to Global page 04A, select "Multi". Press record on the sequencer, and then "OK?" on the Korg. Stop recording. Now you have a SysEx data packet in your song, containing all the Multi mode settings. When the song plays, the settings are sent automatically. Note that it's not recommended to have any notes played simultaneously with the SysEx data, or otherwise the data dump might not work or it could slow down playing the song because it takes a little time to send the data. Also note that on the 05R/W only the effect settings are saved, not the rest of the Multi mode setup. That means that if you wish to make a 05R/W-compatible song with, say an X5, you can't use a multidump to set track settings. Instead you just have to write bank and program changes to each and every track.
All parameters can't be easily edited with controllers. For example if you want to change the length of the reverb in the middle of the song you need to study your manual quite deeply. Or you can do it the easy way, like I did in "Savannah" (Phaser parameters) and "Cee-HC" (Distortion Resonance). This method is based on the fact that the X5 sends out everything you do, every key press and move of the Value-slider, so you can record all your edits to your sequencer! Thus you select an empty sequencer track and set it to record controller and SysEx data. First you need to have a Mode Change message because otherwise your synth won't know what mode you are in. So switch your X5 to any other mode besides Multi. Hit record, and switch back to Multi mode. Then, while the song is playing, go to the page in multi mode that you want to edit. Select the right parameter and edit it how you wish. Then stop recording. Now when you play back the song your synth automagically edits the parameter exactly like you did! If your timing wasn't quite right you can of course edit the track. Note that while playing back you shouldn't press any buttons on the synth or you might mess up those real time edits. If you do press a wrong button you'll have to start playing from the first Mode Change again. IF you for some reason should need the mode change messages, I have them here zipped for you: X5 Mode Change SysEx Messages.
The answer to the problem of "Why can't my sequencer select combination sounds in multi mode?" is as follows: Combination sounds are, as the name suggests, made of several programs that (usually) play on top of each other. For one note of a combi sound you might have as many as eight programs playing at once. In Multi mode, one program takes one channel (track), thus a combination can take eight tracks. This is quite bad, but you can work with a combination sound, mainly because in the last pages of multi mode (page 22A) there is a "Copy combination to tracks 1-8/9-16"-feature, which allows you to easily copy the programs that a combi needs into multi mode tracks. On page 21A you can copy the effects of a combination (or program) to multi mode. (I've heard that the 05R/W doesn't have these very useful features, which is a pity!) Unfortunately, the sequencer has no way of knowing what programs a particular combination uses. You can of course find that out yourself, and select the right program with a prog/bank change for each channel, but then again you'd also have to copy volumes, pan pots, effect sends, and most importantly, set all the combination tracks to the same midi channel (the last sub-page of every track page). That would be too much at least for me! That's why I tell you to use SysExes. First copy the desired combination to Multi mode, then just dump the Multi mode settings to the first bar of a track, (see Saving Multi Mode Settings) and put the necessary program changes for other than that combination sound after the SysEx-dump. That way you'll get the combi you want, and can use programs as usual. Selecting Combis for Multi mode is truly a pain in the ass, I admit, and there is no easy way of doing it that I know of. Besides they seldom sound as good in Multi mode because of the different effects, and that's why I almost never use them at all. Yulik Yagudin gave me the following useful tips about using combinations: First: Combi sounds do not necessarily use all 8 tracks. But even empty tracks are usually set on global MIDI channel and some new user may go along with loosing them. I'd advise always to check the exact number of tracks used in Combi and, if less than 8, after putting it in Multi manually release the empty tracks' channel (and other parameters if necessary) to make them useable as single MIDI tracks. This can probably save tracks and channels for better arrangement. Second: My experience on X5D shows that Combi sound used in a sequence usually is an energetic kernel of the whole arrangement so maybe it would be wise to copy it's Effects to Multi and try to fit other instruments into that acoustical environment. Also some effect settings in some Combis could be changed without drastic loss in quality. This is a way to free some effects' resources for other tracks.
Some people have wondered how I managed to make those jungle beats for my song "Savannah". No big secrets there, I just got a few jungle beats from Future Music Magazine as a MIDI-file. It was made for a drum machine, so I had to start programming my own sounds for it. A very low bass drum was easy to do, the snares (5 different!) I got by tuning them very high up. Then some snappy hi-hats and cymbals on top of it, plus a very low tom to boost the bass drum in selected places. Then I tried to play the midi-file with my sounds. It didn't sound that good, but after a little more sound programming I got it working very nicely. I just had to do some volume edits for the beat, then I added lots of Phaser Effect to it and started making wild cut/paste edits. I reversed beats, copied snares to other snares and bass drums, mixed different beats together etc. I also used brightness and attack time controllers for changing the sound of the beats. It's all very easy and extremely fun if you have something to start from. If you want you can steal my beats from Savannah, just edit them so that they're not exactly the same... The JungleKit is also free for you to use, athough it doesn't have that many new sounds, just the ones I use in the song. Here are the original jungle beats from Future Music Magazine that I used for Savannah. Wondering how I got those Phaser edits? See Making Realtime Parameter Edits.
Sometimes you need to change operating modes with a MIDI command. This is very easily done with SysEx. The method is exactly the same as in Making Realtime Parameter Edits. Press record on the sequencer, then switch your Korg to the desired mode by pressing a button on its front panel. Stop recording and admire the SysEx-message that you have produced.
If you don't have a sound editor or want to send some songs to a friend who doesn't (like me..), then you need to save your sounds as a SysEx message. This is very easy. First, if your sequencer doesn't have a SysEx facility, get a SysEx utility from www.shareware.com (search for "System Exclusive"). Install it. Make the settings mentioned in Playing the X5 Songs. Go to Global mode, page 04A DATA DUMP. Select what you want to dump. It's safest to dump ALL data, because PROG only dumps Program mode data, not the drumkits that are in Global mode. Set the SysEx utility to record, and press Ok? on the Korg. Wait a few seconds for the dump to proceed. Save the data to a file, and that's it. When I need to save my sounds and settings I usually save Program, Drumkit and Multi mode data in a single file. That's all the data I need (when I don't want to save combination sounds) and the resulting file is only half as big as the ALL data dump. I just have to make three separate dumps (prog/d.kit/multi) while my sysex utility is recording.
This information was supplied by Hubert Winkler, thanks! Formats known to me are:
You can convert .syx, .sys, and .exl with syxtomid.exe (see Korgy Park) to a midi file which can be sent e.g. with windows media player, or MIDI-jukebox players. Importing into sequencer may cause problems. If Korg Editor saves .x5 in X5 mode, then .05r and .x5 is the same. I have also a converter to .5rw (.xed) format (a bunch of cryptic .bat files), but: Converting between all formats is easiest by using the Korg as clipboard. You can attach up to three programs to the Korg-PC I/F Windows driver, and then run the two programs simultaneous. E.g. load a pcg-file with Xedit, send it to 05r/w (Programs, combis, drums) and then receive it with Cubase Studio Module. Works with Korg-SoundEdit as well, also Dumpster, WinJammer, PowerTracks, Cakewalk, etc.
Controllers, you really can't sequence without them. Here's some help for those who can't understand what the Korg X5 Manual is trying to tell. Controllers are simply MIDI messages, but it is easier to think of them as something that has a definite value that can be changed, like a knob or a slider. MIDI controllers have 128 possible values: 0-127. You can change their values with your sequencer or the mod wheel, for example. First, a list of available controllers that I compiled from the Manual. The important ones (in my opinion) are written in bold letters and after the table there are more detailed descriptions of them.
Descriptions
Sometimes you might want to use other effects than the default Hall and Chorus in your song. The advanced korgie might even wish to change the effects in the middle of the song. How can you make that happen? One way is to simply use a SysEx multi mode data dump (Global mode page 04A). Just dump the data and record it into a sequencer track. You get two messages this way, the shorter one of which is what you need so you can delete the bigger one (note that with the 05R/W you only get one message which is the correct one). Then simply move the message where you want it to take place, normally in the beginning of the song, but nothing prevents you from putting it in the middle of the song. Another way is to do it the real time edit way. Press record on the sequencer, then manually change the effects from the Korg's front panel. This is also a good way of editing effect parameters in mid-song.
Editor's note: This is a story by Timo Raita (thanks a lot for this ingenious idea, Timo!). If you have any questions or comments, mail them to him (Timo.Raita@iki.fi), not me. -Janne A standard MIDI bus is rather slow (31250bps if I correctly remember; correct me if I'm wrong.), and causes noticeable delays to sequences if there are many events on the same beat. Korg's host interface is not too much faster (38400bps. Why didn't Korg's engineers make it a parallel bus to get more bandwidth?). What you can do is to use both an ordinary MIDI interface and Korg's host interface simultaneously. You will get a total of 69650bps bandwidth between your PC and your Korg, although all of it will practically never be used, since there is no proper software to share MIDI-events equally between two interfaces (Maybe one of us could write such a program? If you have experience of writing Windows-based MIDI applications, maybe you should try it...). Instead, you will have to do the sharing channel-by-channel (or track-by-track in your sequencer). It can be done individually for each sequence by using your sequencer's port setting to determine the used MIDI output device for each track, or a "fixed" sharing can be done with MidiMapper. In this case, you will need to create your own MidiMapper setup and specify, for example, even channels to ordinary MIDI port and odd channels to "KORG PC I/F Synth Port". Don't forget to set up your sequencer to use MidiMapper as a MIDI output device. You don't need any special tricks (for example self-made cables) to connect your equipment, but to make sure all korgies understand what I mean, I will draw a diagram.
I have tried the double-bus method only with a synth module (05R/W), I'm not sure if this principle works also on keyboard models. If you have one, try it, and tell me if it works or not (As you might guess, you should connect your PC's MIDI in to Korg's MIDI out instead of separate MIDI controller). At least you will have to be careful with the MIDI thru settings to prevent loops, since you are forced to allow your sequencer to receive MIDI input from your Korg. If your sequencer hangs up and Korg's MIDI-LED lights all the time, there is probably some kind of a loop (don't worry, it will not damage your equipment). You can break a loop simply by switching off your Korg. I suppose that you can't use the host interface to transfer MIDI data from the Korg's keyboard to your PC, since Korg always echoes the data coming in through the MIDI in jack to the host interface. Instead, the MIDI out jack should be free of the stuff coming in through the host interface, if you check the box "Independent Synth / MIDI Out" in the KORG PC I/F Driver setup window. Problems?One known problem with the double-bus method is that the PC architecture reserves only two interrupts for serial ports. So you can use only two serial ports simultaneously. If you have a serial mouse in addition to Korg's host interface, you can't use other peripherals that plug in a serial port. This was a real problem for me, as I have two other devices (modem and HP48GX) that plug in a serial port. I solved this problem by using a Microsoft InPort Mouse with its own interface card, so the mouse is no longer blocking a serial port IRQ. If you have other problems, please report them to me. BackgroundsYou might wonder how I invented this possibility. Before I bought my Korg, I had used Sound Blaster AWE32 as the main synthesizer of my home music studio for more than two years. After buying a Korg, I had a hard time getting used to the slow MIDI-bus; there was no bottleneck like this between the sequencer and the synth while using soundcard's internal synth. When I got a host cable, at first I tried it with my Thinkpad, and it worked fine. According to the user's manual, it was even possible to connect other MIDI-devices to the Korg and control them through the host interface. Of course, I wanted to try how it works, and I used my desktop computer as the "other MIDI-device". So the Korg was connected to two computers at the same time, and I tried silly things like using a sequencer to record MIDI data coming from a sequencer (or a game) running on the other computer, and playing back sequences from both computers at the same time. Then I got an idea: If both interfaces can be used at the same time, wouldn't it be possible to connect them to only one computer? I tried it, and there really was a noticeable difference in the MIDI-delay!
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