Korg M3R

Name: Korg M3R
Brand: Korg

A single rack space holding two stereo effects engines and a hundred Combinations - the module that let a sequencer do the playing.

Overview

The M3R is a flagship workstation with the keyboard, the floppy drive and the case taken away. What's left is a one-rack-space box that Korg's own manual describes as compact, portable, and versatile. It's meant either as an external tone generator for sequencing or as a sound source for live performance. You bolt it into a rig and forget about it until you need a piano, a brass section, and a drum kit on three different MIDI channels at once.

The architecture will look familiar if you know Korg's late-eighties voice engine. A Program is a single sound, built from an oscillator block, a variable digital filter, a variable digital amplifier, and the envelope and modulation generators that go with them. Two or more Programs combine into a Combination, and Combinations come in five types: single, layer, split, velocity switch, and multi. Multi is the one rack users care about. Each Program gets its own MIDI reception channel, so drums, bass, and piano can be addressed independently from a sequencer with no external routing tricks. In a layer Combination both halves share a MIDI channel. In a multi, they don't.

The filter is digital, and the manual is pretty candid about what that means. It compares the VDF's behavior to the way a mouth shapes a vowel, an "aah" narrowing toward an "ooh" as the filter closes. The VDA handles amplitude, opening on key-down and closing on release. The pitch EG can be set to negative start levels for the characteristic scoop at the front of a brass note. None of this is exotic for the period, but it's complete, and you can edit it from the front panel rather than through a computer.

The effects section is where the M3R earns its keep. Two stereo digital multi-effects processors are built in, each drawing on twelve basic effect types - reverb, early reflection, delay, chorus, flanger, phase shifter, tremolo, equalizer, overdrive, exciter, ensemble, and rotary speaker - with variations bringing the total to 33. The two processors can run independently for left and right channels, effectively becoming up to four mono effects devices, and they can be wired together in more than one configuration. Effect settings are stored with each Combination rather than globally, so two Combinations sharing the same Program can sound completely different. The module can hand over a finished, mixed sound instead of a dry one waiting for outboard gear.

Memory is generous for the era. Internal storage holds 100 Combinations, and a card adds another 100, numbered C00 through C99. You select sounds with +10, +1, −10, and −1 keys rather than a dial. Six modes organize the parameters - Combination Play, Program Edit, Combination Edit, Effect, Drums, and Global - and a page memory function remembers where you were when you jump between them. Global mode covers master tuning (a range of ±50 cents in one-cent steps), key transpose up to an octave in either direction, five temperaments including equal, random pitch, pure major, pure minor, and a user-defined scale, plus MIDI channel and filter settings. The overflow switch exists specifically for chaining two M3Rs over MIDI.

The manual lists a comprehensive array of drum sounds as a headline feature and pitches the unit at applications from demo tapes to professional performance. Drums mode is one of the six, so kits get their own mode instead of being bolted onto a piano sample.

On the used market, the M3R turns up in clearance listings. A UK retailer's clearance page in Sound on Sound (May 1996, p.99) listed the M3R at £299 used, alongside other clearance stock. That's £299 for a rack module in 1996, against £1699 for a Technics WSA1 on the same page. It sits in the working-musician price bracket rather than the collector bracket, which is roughly where it has stayed.

By anything in the documentation, the M3R is not a rarity. The missing keyboard isn't a limitation. Pair it with a controller and a sequencer, and the M3R does the rest.