Friday 18 April 2014

Korg M3r Battery Replacement

Today I had to replace the battery in my Korg M3r. All the patches had been wiped and all I could play was the eponymous 90's house piano. Luckily, it's an easy fix and I thought i'd share it with you nice people. First thing you need is a new battery - a CR2032 (flat disc type) which I purchased from Maplin (£3.99) - I had to get two as my PC needed a new battery too ( an odd coincidence?).
Anyway, pictures are easier than words so I'll let the camera tell the story...

First, remove your M3r from the rack and unplug it - no need to kill yourself over a battery.

1. Remove all the screws either side of the synth

Rack ears

Repeat on other side






















2. Now remove the two screws at the back. Then the three on the case top.

Case top - three screws
Case Rear - two screws





















3. Now you can slide the case back to reveal the innards.

Slide back

Korgh M3r Internal components
Inside of the M3r




















The battery is in the top right corner and is a doddle to change - it simple pops out and you can slip a new one in - no screws required.

Replacing CR2032 battery in Korg M3r
Slide in and push down to complete
Korg M3r battery
simple pressure removes the battery



Now, resetting the internal sounds. Click the "Edit" button. Then the "Global" Button. Then press "Combi" five times to get to "5A Load". Click "Prog"  Three times to get to page "5D Preset Data".
Press "Yes" to load the default presets. Hopefully you would have backed your precious home made patches into a librarian or sys-ex file so that you can reload those instead.

Results of a wiped battery
Edit-->Global-->Combi(x5)-->Prog (x3)
Hit "Yes" and...
..Success!




Hope that was of help to any other M3r owners, or just of interest to anyone else.


Saturday 12 April 2014

Mini Keys

Korg Micro Keys - 25 and 61 Key models
A while ago I bought a Korg Micro Key on E-Bay. It was a 25 key version and was going for a very reasonable price (£25) and I was looking for a small keyboard to go on my desk as my main large (76 key) board - a CMI UF7 was now positioned right behind me ( I know.. bad studio Feng Shui).


Sausages to keys ratio
To be honest I wasn't expecting much as I have fingers like sausages (i.e fat) and pretty much expected to try the keys out once and then resell them on back E-bay. Well, I was pleasantly surprised; the keys aren't to small at all and I can quite easily use it for chords and runs with no problem at all. In fact I've been so happy with it I managed to grab a full 61 key version recently - my daughters happy too as she now has the 25 key model to use on the Ipad with Garageband