The 1980s was an important decade for synthesizers, and their rate of technological advancement back then was exponential. The decade began with analog Moog-style synthesizers still very much prevalent. It ended with the Linn drum machine, the Yamaha DX-7, the Fairlight, and numerous other digital instruments whose sounds are still influencing pop music today.

While the Fairlight and DX-7 were groundbreaking instruments when they debuted in the early 1980s, many of their sounds seemed surprisingly dated just a few years later. One of the instruments that helped displace the Fairlight and the Yamaha DX-7, was Korg’s M1 workstation. Along with Roland’s D-50 (the M1’s immediate technological predecessor) the M1 helped introduce the concept of layered, sampled sounds in 1988, and with an introductory price of $2166, was infinitely more affordable than the $36,000 Fairlight.

The combination of affordability and killer sounds made the M1 an immediate hit for Korg, and the company went on to sell a whopping 200,000 copies of the synth, until sales ended in the early 1990s. In fact, the M1 became the best-selling digital keyboard of all time.

What made the sounds in M1 so unique for their time was their multiple layers and rhythmic nature. Patches such as “Lore” and “Universe” combined a warm pad-like sound with a sequencer-style riff fluttering underneath. Even moderately-skilled keyboardists could create great drama by simply holding down simple, sustained chords, and exploiting the motion within these sounds.

Of "Universe," Paolo Di Nicolantonio, whose Website is the appropriately titled SynthMania, writes:

One of the most famous synthesizer presets of all time, "Universe," is the outstandingly beautiful "Choir" sample with a backwash of "Lore", an intriguing and mysterious percussion loop - generously bathed in reverb and delay.  I personally think that this single preset, I00 Universe, that greeted you upon turning the M1 on, was responsible for many, many of the sales of this instrument.

This was pretty remarkable stuff for its time, and even today, many of the patches within the M1 still sound impressive. While used M1s can still be found on eBay for about $500, fortunately, there’s no longer a need to lug around a 20-year old piece of hardware that weighs about 30-pounds.

Last year, Korg bundled the sounds from all of the M1’s memory cards, with those of its successor, 1990’s Wavestation, into a software synthesizer package called the Korg Legacy Collection - Digital Edition.

How Are These Sounds Created?

To understand the sounds within the M1 component of the Digital Edition of the Legacy Collection, it helps to understand how the sounds were originally created.

Rene Ceballos founded RCG:Audio before joining Cakewalk. His own synth designs, such as Z3TA+ and Rapture, build on concepts pioneered by the M1. He recently explained to me that once the sound designers of the 1980s understood that their samples were living on ROM chips, they could be layered and programmed in all sorts of unique ways, even before the musician got to them.