Synth-DIY Yahoo! Groups Archives

Korg EX8000

2005-09-09 by Lawrence Walker

I have a Korg EX8000(no keyboard) rackmount DW8000
that I picked up in a thrift store and have been
trying to ressurect for some time. I'm basicly
synth-illiterate but used Ataris for years. I deduced
the battery was dead and did the battery replacement
mod from Bryan Resslers site;
http://www.pallium.com/bryan/dw8000.php

 Downloaded the DW8000 manual and A.Ruggeri's DW
editor/librarian, a PC program later. 
http://www.anthonyruggeri.com/web2001/dw8000.asp

 On the frontpiece of the EX just below the tuning
knob there is a button labelled A4. It emits sounds
thru my earphones, mostly decaying whistles when I
play with the program and parameter knobs..

 I have a Mega-4 ST and also a Tweety board. I had no
luck with numerous old ST programs getting patch-banks
into my EX, altho I was able to lite up the Midi
connection indicator with one of them. Since the Korgs
memory was now blank I couldn't do much.

 I finally got a PC game-port midi adaptor (the people
at the local music-store here in the boonies looked
blank when I asked if they had one) and am trying to
use my W98-SE PC to use the DW-8000 editor to download
the memory banks. I also have Midi-Ox installed.
 Somehow Midi-Ox did transfer a stub to the editor
program but won't connect to the EX. I have the midi
cables connected to the in out ports but the midi
panel indicator doesn't light up and there is no
response. Anyone have any ideas ? Sorry if it's PC
specific but I do want to use my Atari programs once I
get this beast functioning. Of course it's complicated
by not having a musical keyboard.

Lawrence
         
   Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2005 11:15:12 -0000

Show quoted textHide quoted text

   From: "gregor_malecha" <gregor.malecha@...>
Subject: Re: tx81z help wanted

Hi Peter, 

for sure, because you're putting your questions in the
Atari group, you're getting many Atari related
answers. (And that's not so bad.)

But if for the time being your main interest is simply
to dump & exchange TX81Z data, then some Windows
applications can do this simple task without requiring
you to going into the Atari world. 

For the PC there is a small application called MIDI-OX
with which you can receive, store, send MIDI data &
SysEx dumps. That's a great little tool for this and
many other tasks. 
http://www.midiox.com/

Later, once your MIDI setup gets more complex you
might need "MIDI Yoke" to do routings for the MIDI
data. (Also if you're going to use the Atari emulator
STEEM.) You'll find that on the same website. 

But first you'll need to get your hardware connection
together. 

Little story by the way:
When I did the first MIDI setup for my PC it was a lot
of work and took me a long time. Also because I tried
to just solder my MIDI interface cable for the game
port of my soundcard. I got all the pinout infos from
the www and soldered it perfectly together and 
nothing worked. Until I gave up and finally bought the
cable. Then I found out what was nowhere mentioned: in
this adapter cable there were optocouplers built in.
Without these - no way. That's the tough way of
learning things. 

:^) Greg

Lawrence Walker

Blogs:

"Good News-Clips" http://parklandclips.blogspot.com/

"The View From Out Here" http://parkland_man.blogspot.com/

"Writings From Out Here" http://parklandwritings.blogspot.com/

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Re: Korg EX8000

2005-09-10 by gregor_malecha

Hi Lawrence,

I remember you were struggling with this machine already in January, 
when you posted messages in the atari-midi group. 

It looks like there are many possible sources for troubleshooting to 
be excluded one by one. 

I don't know the Korg DW8000/EX8000 but the question arises: May it 
be that the unit is damaged? 

Could/can you try it in other environments (since you don't have a 
keyboard an Atari Sequencer with any stupid little sequence on all 
MIDI channels -> EX8000 -> amp) with any success? 

Concerning the battery replacement & the "empty" memory: Wouldn't it 
just revert to a factory default memory setting? I don't believe 
these machines just go completely blank (just an assumption). 

Did you try a manual dump and did you receive anything in the Mega-4 
ST (trying to get patch-banks
OUT OF your EX8000)? (SOMETHING should be coming out of it.)

Unless this (EX <-> Atari) is successfull no need to try the new PC 
connections - OR - : 

Do you have another MIDI unit, which you can use to verify the MIDI 
signal flow in your setups without involving the EX8000? 
(e.g. PC & Atari interacting)

You could, for instance, try, under exclusion of the EX8000, to send 
any MIDI data (sequencer,  midi files, or whatever) between your Mega-
4 ST & PC, thus verifying that the signal flow as such between these 
machines is working correctly. 

For the PC you have to make sure that in the Win98 MULTIMEDIA control 
panel you have set under the MIDI tab the connection to MPU-401 (or 
similar, what your soundcard offers) and there to EXTERNAL MIDI 
INSTRUMENT. 
Thereafter in MIDI-OX you'll have to select under Options/MIDI 
devices this MPU-401 as the input & output device.  

That's my two cents for now, good luck!
I have to go back now to troublesoot my Axon AX-100SB guitar 
synthesizer that's giving me a headache, because it's just going 
completely cuckoo - erratic-erratic-erratic - ooh these machines!!! 

:^) Greg



--- In atari-midi-archives@yahoogroups.com, Lawrence Walker 
<bigwalk_ca@y...> wrote:

Show quoted textHide quoted text

>  I have a Korg EX8000(no keyboard) rackmount DW8000
> that I picked up in a thrift store and have been
> trying to ressurect for some time. I'm basicly
> synth-illiterate but used Ataris for years. I deduced
> the battery was dead and did the battery replacement
> mod from Bryan Resslers site;
> http://www.pallium.com/bryan/dw8000.php
> 
>  Downloaded the DW8000 manual and A.Ruggeri's DW
> editor/librarian, a PC program later. 
> http://www.anthonyruggeri.com/web2001/dw8000.asp
> 
>  On the frontpiece of the EX just below the tuning
> knob there is a button labelled A4. It emits sounds
> thru my earphones, mostly decaying whistles when I
> play with the program and parameter knobs..
> 
>  I have a Mega-4 ST and also a Tweety board. I had no
> luck with numerous old ST programs getting patch-banks
> into my EX, altho I was able to lite up the Midi
> connection indicator with one of them. Since the Korgs
> memory was now blank I couldn't do much.
> 
>  I finally got a PC game-port midi adaptor (the people
> at the local music-store here in the boonies looked
> blank when I asked if they had one) and am trying to
> use my W98-SE PC to use the DW-8000 editor to download
> the memory banks. I also have Midi-Ox installed.
>  Somehow Midi-Ox did transfer a stub to the editor
> program but won't connect to the EX. I have the midi
> cables connected to the in out ports but the midi
> panel indicator doesn't light up and there is no
> response. Anyone have any ideas ? Sorry if it's PC
> specific but I do want to use my Atari programs once I
> get this beast functioning. Of course it's complicated
> by not having a musical keyboard.
> 
> Lawrence
>          
>    Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2005 11:15:12 -0000
>    From: "gregor_malecha" <gregor.malecha@t...>
> Subject: Re: tx81z help wanted
> 
> Hi Peter, 
> 
> for sure, because you're putting your questions in the
> Atari group, you're getting many Atari related
> answers. (And that's not so bad.)
> 
> But if for the time being your main interest is simply
> to dump & exchange TX81Z data, then some Windows
> applications can do this simple task without requiring
> you to going into the Atari world. 
> 
> For the PC there is a small application called MIDI-OX
> with which you can receive, store, send MIDI data &
> SysEx dumps. That's a great little tool for this and
> many other tasks. 
> http://www.midiox.com/
> 
> Later, once your MIDI setup gets more complex you
> might need "MIDI Yoke" to do routings for the MIDI
> data. (Also if you're going to use the Atari emulator
> STEEM.) You'll find that on the same website. 
> 
> But first you'll need to get your hardware connection
> together. 
> 
> Little story by the way:
> When I did the first MIDI setup for my PC it was a lot
> of work and took me a long time. Also because I tried
> to just solder my MIDI interface cable for the game
> port of my soundcard. I got all the pinout infos from
> the www and soldered it perfectly together and 
> nothing worked. Until I gave up and finally bought the
> cable. Then I found out what was nowhere mentioned: in
> this adapter cable there were optocouplers built in.
> Without these - no way. That's the tough way of
> learning things. 
> 
> :^) Greg
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lawrence Walker
> 
> Blogs:
> 
> "Good News-Clips" http://parklandclips.blogspot.com/
> 
> "The View From Out Here" http://parkland_man.blogspot.com/
> 
> "Writings From Out Here" http://parklandwritings.blogspot.com/
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com

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