KORG Legacy Collection Notes

As many of you know I have recently switched from LOGIC Pro 9 to Ableton Live 9 Standard as the first tool I go for to start writng a new song. To this effect, I use Live as the tool to write a stem of a new song then use LOGIC as the final production system. That draws the strengths of both.

I also decided to stop at the Standard level, at least for a while. Being a keyboardist and also like to do some sound designs in every production. So, if you are like me, you need to have tweakable software instruments. You know that the on LOGIC "out of the box" inclusion of software instruments is really nice, and I'm sure you'd love to use ES1 or even EFM1 for bass, ES2 for leads, and of course the Sculpture.

Ableton 9 Standard has a lot of great sounds but in terms of having "actual synthesizer in front of you" experience, you might be a bit disappointed.

Since I use KORG fairly exclusively I decided on using KORG Legacy Collection. Like Live 9, it is supported both on the PC and Mac which is really nice, and so long as you observe their licensing requirement of "you use on one computer at a time" you can install one purchase on both machines.

I will let you read the specs from the KORG web site, but you may want to know a bit about my experience.

Here is a quick track I wrote, and except for the percussion, all synthesizers in there are from the KORG Legacy Series.



I really like simple Moog like feel of MS-20. If you know analog synthesizers this is very intuitive. What's surprising is that you get a polyphonic version of it. Which is like having multiple MS-20s. This is beat of a cheat but I like it. Because there is MS-20, I do not know if there is any point in using the Polysix in the set. In my mix it is doing the deeper part of the bass.

I really love Mono/Poly in the collection. It has some rich nice set of preset preset banks are larger. All of the ARPing sounds above tracks are from from M/P. Mono/Poly and "newer" synthesizer sets in the legacy collection also has auto-demo mode to audition all persents. I think that's a nice touch.

WaveStation is definitely great for effects and pads. The wave table type systems are fairly rare, and various software instruments try to replicate that method even on ES2, but I really like a tons of patches on the legacy series. Listen for that "icy" sound after 1:27 mark.

One Mac Installation/License Authorization Issue, But Resolved

On my Mac, I kept having license authorization issue with KORG M1.

It turned out I had M1-Le installed from one of the demos I downloaded the past, and I have forgotten about it. Actually it was not even installed initially but I picked this installer and accidentally installed. The correction version in the collection is just "M1" and not "M1-Le" and M1-Le will not authorize the license key and that's not what you want. So please be aware.

If you accidentally installed the Le version of it, you will be asked to license it each time you start your DAW. And a removal can be difficult, but I will tell you how you would do it manually. It all comes down to you knowing where this is stored on your Mac.

1. Shut down all music an video production applications, media players. Ideally just running the Finder.
2. Go to your hard disk top level using the Finder
3. Find the path /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST  You will find the l1me.vst file there. You can remove it.
4. Also find Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components and you will also find  M1 Le component file, and you can remove it.