Korg 05R/W Synthesizer module.



Korgs low-end all-round digital synthesizer. An underrated synth. The sound resolution may not be as good as large professional units, but the synth engine is highly programmable. This is much more than a simple ROM patch playback instrument. This IS a true synthesizer.
The X5 is a descendant of the Korg M1 and was released as a budget synth circa 1995, but once you get into it it is a very capable synth that I can wholeheartedly recommend anyone as a great sounding all-round synth. Apart from the MiniMoog, this is the synth I know best, and it can be heard all over any Etcetera recording since 1996. It is a cornerstone for me. X5 fans should check out Korgy Park, to which I have donated my own virtual Hammond patch too. Let me just say that I've had mine since 1996, and I haven't yet discovered everything there is to know about this synth.

Features:

Korg X5 Editor programs exist and are freely downloadable for both (classic) Mac and Windows PC. I have successfully made the Korg X5 Editor run under Linux+Wine, although I still have a problem with making MIDI work 2-way. I can use it to send program and combi changes though.

I was an early user of the 05R/W module. It was my only synthesizer (apart from my MiniMoog) for many years, and I used it as the template for MIDI composition. So I got to know this module quite well. Eventually I ended up building a number of programs it, and they have been available from a couple of sites, such as Janne Simonens "Korgy Park" site.
Noone can guarantee that these sites will stay up, so here I give you my programs as well.


Virtual L100


This is the original description of the patch:

A brief description of the hammond L100 simulation patch.

The intention of the Hammond L100 patch was to attempt as closely as possible to emulate the multitude of settings of a genuine Hammond L100. The programs and patches have been constructed with intensive A/B testing the L100 vs the 05R/W and using an oscilloscope. I don't think it can get very much closer. This is only meant as a template to create more Hammond-like organ sounds. You should be able to pick up any Hammond setting and program it straight away on your X5.

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PROGRAMS:

The essential components are the programs simulating each drawbar. These are not interesting in themselves, but only as raw material for the combis, so don't expect them to sound special in any way. These programs correspond to pulling one drawbar and playing it.

Like on the L100s upper manual, there are programs for the drawbars:

16'
51/3 +7+1
8'
4'
22/3 +7+1
2' +12
13/5 +16-2
11/3 +19-2
1' +24

Furthermore some drawbars have doublets with key click:

16' Key,
5 1/3 Key
8' key
2 2/3 Key
1 3/5 Key +12
1 1/3 Key +12

The key clicking can get too be too much, so it is advicable not to use click on more than one or two drawbars. Notice also that all the key click drawbars are very greedy with respect to polyphony. Each uses two oscillators, while the ordinary ones only use one. Therefore the odd drawbars without key click need to be offset in the combi, i.e. the drawbar "51/3 +7+1" program must be transposed +7 and detuned +1 in the combi. To make this easy I added the "+7+1" to the program name. I chose to do it this way instead of using a detune on a double oscillator program to save polyphony, and polyphony really is an issue here. the key clicked variants need no detuning as it is already in the program.

Furthermore there are programs for :

SP2nd
Slow percussive 2nd harmonic
SP2nd&1, ....,
SP2nd&8
Slow percussive 2nd harmonic with 2nd harmonic drawbar set at 1..8.
FP2nd
Fast percussive 2nd harmonic
FP2nd&1, ....,
FP2nd&8
Fast percussive 2nd harmonic with 2nd harmonic drawbar set at 1..8.
SP3rd
Slow percussive 3rd harmonic
SP3rd&1, ....,
SP3rd&8
Slow percussive 3rd harmonic with 3rd harmonic drawbar set at 1..8.
FP3rd +7
Fast percussive 3rd harmonic
FP3rd&1 +7, ....,
FP3rd&8 +7
Fast percussive 3rd harmonic with 3rd harmonic drawbar set at 1..8.



These replace drawbars 4' and 2 2/3' when you need both the percussive and the drawbar itself at the same time. The third harmonic programs must be transposed to the correct harmonic (+7 and actually also detune +1).
I have implemented a phase shift between the clean drawbar and the percussive, because that is what the real thing seems to do.

The "PXnd&x" programs also use two oscillators, and are thus also expensive with regard to ployphony.

All the programs have been made with a filter adjustment to implement the
high-end roll-off inherent in an L100. I measured the roll off octave by octave for each program to get the correct db lowering. This is one thing that never sounds right on the usual organ sounds available. Press some very high notes and it just doesn't sound natural anymore. Too many FM synthesis and digital artifacts. Not so with these programs. Any combi made from these will remain pretty realistic as you walk up the keyboard.

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COMBIS:

Now this is where the real fun starts. In the combis you combine the drawbars to make interesting organ sounds. The most important limitation here is that you can only use eight drawbars simultaneously. Anyway, the most common Hammond sounds do not use all drawbars, and you will in fact be able to reproduce
the majority of Hammond sounds within this limit. Also, since the percussives have been integrated in programs for the corresponding drawbar, the usage of percussive will only enlarge the number of sounds you can program.

Standard effects such as the Hammonds Chorus and Vibrato, Reverb I+II are left for the effects to emulate. Here is the possibility to implement a true B3 Chorus if you like. The chorus on the L100 sounds ridiculous in comparison. However, I have not been able to find any reverbs (not even the "spring reverb") that sounds anything near the built in spring reverb of the L100. If anybody comes up with a convincing spring reverb setting, then please send it to me.

How to make your own combi:

So this is how an organ sound is constructed. Suppose we want to make the organ sound 688600000 + Fast percussion 2nd harmonic.

Open a new combi and reset values.
In Hammondspeak 688600000 means 16' drawbar at 6, 51/3 +7+1 drawbar at 8, 8' drawbar set to 8 and 4'
drawbar set to 6. All other drawbars are set to 0.

The drawbars needed are thus 16', 51/3 +7+1, 8' and 4'.

In the new combi we select these timbres:

1: 16'
2: 51/3 +7+1
3: 8'
4: 4'
5: Timbre off
6: Timbre off
7: Timbre off
8: Timbre off

Open the transpose window and transpose timbre 2 to +7. Close and open the detune window. Detune timbre 2 to +1.

Now let's pull the drawbars out to the setting 6886(00000). Open the volume settings for the four. Now set the volumes according to the following table (Yes, I measured with a scope. It´s not exactly linear!):

Drawbar setting 05R/W volume setting
0 0
1 25
2 35
3 50
4 55
5 75
6 87
7 102
8 127

This gives the volume settings 87, 127, 127, 87

Now, we also wanted the fast second harmonic percussive. The second harmonic has the 4' drawbar as its source, so now we replace the " 4' " program timbre with the timbre "FP2nd&6" program. We then adjust the volume to 127. This is because the percussion always kicks in at max volume, and since the 4' setting is set to 6 as part of the timbre (therefore the "...&6").

I have started to use an extended notation such as 688F600000 meaning 688600000 with fast percussive on the 2nd harmonic. This notation is unique.

Now the setting is almost there. Only thing we need is to find appropriate effects. Put the effects in serial. Set all C:D sends to off (so everything goes through the reverb). Select a medium reverb as the first effect (plenty of high dampening). Select "Rotary Speaker" as the second. Use a slow rotation (10-15), a fairly low accelleration setting and a depth of only 1. Presto!
A Whiter Shade of Pale.

More necesary details of setting up combis:

The above was an easy combi to make. But if you use some of the high pitched programs, there's a little more to it.

When you use the " 1 +24" timbre, the timbre must be transposed to (+24).

When you use the " 2 +12", "13/5 +16-2" and "11/3 +19-2" timbres, you must transpose to (+16/+19) and detune to (-2). The highest octaves were not possible to define in the programs themselves.

In general the transpose (t) and detune (d) needed is noted in the program name as ++ or -(d)

For further examples of how to program sounds, take a look at the first 25 combis named with the common Hammond notation.

For examples of how to replace programs with key clicked versions also see the last 10-20 programs. For instance the Matthew Fischer one has a key click on the 5 1/3' program. Usually you should only need to replace one single timbre with a key clicked counterpart one to obtain the effect. If you replace more timbres it clicks way too much.

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DESCRIPTION OF THE AVAILABLE COMBIS:

The first five combis are naked settings of drawbars without effects. They sound pretty dull. They are named with the common Hammond notation of drawbar settings. Open the combis to see how these settings are implemented.

The next five combis are the same settings with a reverb setting. Already much better sounding.

Then the five are repeated again with reverb into a Rotary Speaker. Even better.

Finally the five are repeated with an overdrive setting into the Rotary setting.

All the Rotary effects use Joystick (Y+) as the source for controlling slow/fast leslie. The overdrive effects use Aftertouch to control the amount of drive on the effect. Try to set your control fader to Aftertouch. You can really turn that Jon Lord sound on and off here. Even on mid setting there is still
a growl in the sound.

Next is an almost complete implementation of the standard Hammond settings. They are almost all there. Dulciana8', Saliconal, Trumpet, Clarinet, etc. etc.
Half of them are the settings from the Great manual. I gave these a church type effects setting.
The other half are settings from the Swell manual. These I've given a rock type of effect treatment. Probably they should all be churchy, but then everybody would be wondering where the rock and jazz organs had gone. Then there's a few extra experimental ones with varying effects, of which is a chorus setting and an overdrive with delay effect. Not so good sounding, but well....

Finally there's a selected set of settings I was sent by someone. They are suppose to be famous settings, but I only think some of them are really good. The Emerson one definitely is not like Emerson. However the Matthew Fischer ("Whiter Shade of Pale") one I definitely think is good. Also, the Jimmy Smith one now has a pretty good chorus. As I was only sent the drawbar settings I had to invent the effects myself, and not all are successful or fitting. In fact I think deFranscesco should have a chorusey effect and no overdrive. Isn't he a jazzer?

If anybody comes up with new great sounding combis, based on these programs, I would love to receive a copy.


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LIMITATIONS:

No soft percussion: There is not enough program slots to make a full implementation of the soft percussion setting. However, you can always use the standard percussion set to a lower volume and compensate for the loss in the corresponding drawbar volume by selecting a program with a louder drawbar setting.

Number of simultaneous drawbars. Only eight drawbars are possible, due to the 05R/W architecture. Only solution would be to make programs to combine two drawbars in one program, but that would give rise to way too many extra programs, and be at the risk of the simplicity of the setup. But remember that the standard Hammond settings are defined for 9 drawbars, and in most cases at least one drawbar is set to 0, so this limit really only affects the overwhelming full theatre organ settings.

Polyphony limit: There is an upper limit to the number of simultaneous oscillators. If you have the double X5DR with 64-voice polyphony, you will most likely not experience problems, but for us 05R/W and X5 users, the 32 voices is too little when the sounds get too saturated. some "drawbars" diappear. So go carefully with those double oscillator programs

Highest note limit: This is where the 05R/W, X5 and X5DR really fails! This may also be the most important reason why the virtual L100 sounds duller than its real life counterpart. Suppose you make a combi with only the 1' drawbar, and make the necessary transpose to (+24). Now take a note-by-note walk up the keyboard. What happens. You reach a high C9 which is the last note that sounds. The Synth is not able to go beyond that C9. The Hammond is! The Hammond will continue up to F#9 before it turns quiet. There's the same limit to the 1 1/3' and 1 3/5' programs, though higher on the keyboard. The sound lost here is unfortunately some of the basic characteristics of the Hammond sound. I have speculated in using other waveforms to isolate the higher frequencies, but this requires a high-pass filter in the program, and this does not exist. I have no solution for this at the moment. However, if you have timbres left in your combis, you may experiment with making a "foldback" on the highest keys, like on the B3. This could give back some of the characteristics.

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FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS LIST:

- I think the key clicked timbres should be transposed/detuned just like the straight ones. This would make it much easier to exchange a timbre with a key clicked counterpart. Expect me to change this soon.

(c) 1999 Frank Carvalho

Virtual pipe organ

The virtual hammond patch made me wonder what would happen, if the simulated "tone wheels" were replaced by simulated church pipes. So while the sine wave is the closest thing to a tone wheel, I wondered what type of primary sound sample would fit the bill as being most like a real church pipe. I decided that it would probably be the samples of a recorder. Church organs usually have a slightly wood-like character. In fact, very old church organs 4-500 years old would have pipes made of lead or wood. So I replaced all the sound sorces with recorders, and lo and behold, this mighty church organ patch came out. It has the exact same functionality and flexibility as the L100 patch, just this time all the standard church settings actually sound like a spitting image of a church organ.

Mind you, that with this patch, you can program basically any church organ sound combination you like, so you are not restricted to the few church organ patches found in most patch sets. This flexibility is interesting if you want to think of your module as a church organ simulation for home use.

In all modesty, I have to say that it is really quite amazing how realistic and airy this patch set is. Credits for this surely must go to the samples of the 05R/W module. A cunning programmer might combine the recorder based partials with partials based on the flute, which is made of metal, to provide a wider - and harder - range of tone. I have tried it, but it almost made my eyes water with high frequency content. Some softening is necessary.


Genesis patches


Due to my duties behind the keyboards in our local Genesis tribute effort, I have also programmed quite a number of programs to play Genesis. This is the patch set as it was many years ago. This patch set keeps evolving on my performance setup, so it is different today.

Samples:

Apart from the programs and combis in ROM, I don't even remember the factory settings. I have spent a lot of time programming this synth, and gotten many, many useful sounds out of it. Here is but a few samples of the countless patches I have made for this synth. Expect more samples to follow.

Amen.mp3 displays a set of church organ patches I built on the 05R/W
NoHair.mp3 is a sound from my set of Genesis patches
Broadway.mp3 is another sound from my Genesis patch set. Genesis did it with real mellotrons, but had to add the effects afterwards.
WatchMe.mp3. Yet another of my Genesis patches. Any Genesis afficionado will know what this patch is all about!
PadsAndStringers.mp3 is a display of some classic stringer patches. Give it to me, Gary Numan!
Resonant.mp3. Now, who said the 05R/W has no resonant filters?
SampleAndHold.mp3. And of course you can modulate the non-existing resonant filter too!
Analookalike1.mp3. A collection of traditional sounds based exclusively on the ROMs saw, pulse and PWM waves.
Analookalike2.mp3. Another traditional sound based exclusively on the ROMs saw, pulse and PWM waves.
Analookalike3.mp3. A third traditional sound based exclusively on the ROMs saw, pulse and PWM waves.
Analookalike4.mp3. A fourth traditional sound based exclusively on the ROMs saw, pulse and PWM waves.
TubularAbuse.mp3. This sound should have come from a wavetable synth. But it doesn't. It comes from the 05R/W
Weirdness1.mp3. Weird sounds emanating from the 05R/W. A true synthesizer.
Weirdness2.mp3. More weirdness from the AI2 synthesis engine.