Korg M3 Tips User Manual

M3 Tips

KARMA LEVEL 2

INTRODUCTORY TOUR

Welcome to KARMA Second Generation technology!

KARMA is an intelligent, interactive pattern generating technology that responds to your playing, providing endless
inspiration, capturing musical gestures of every family of instrument. The purpose of this document is to familiarize
you with KARMA’S possibilities so that you can take possession of this powerful technology and sculpt it to your own
musical goals.

Some KARMA basics

KARMA exists thanks to the vision of Stephen Kay, its creator. It’s an acronym, standing for Kay Algorithmic
Realtime Music Architecture. The patterns that KARMA utilizes are called Generated Effects, or GEs for short. Your
M3 is loaded with GEs, 2092 of them to be exact! Each Program can be assigned one GE. Combis can be assigned four
GEs, and Sequences can be assigned four GEs—at a time! (Record the output of four: it’s preserved as MIDI info; grab
four more if you like!)

The parameter values for the KARMA GEs are organized into Scenes. Each GE can have eight different

Scenes. There’s a wealth of creativity and inspiration awaiting you, simply by trying out the Scenes developed by
Korg’s expert international team of programmers.

The following pages will give you an opportunity to dig in and experience KARMA’S power and creative

Working with KARMA on the M3 2

KARMA in Program Mode 3

Work with these great ‘KARMA-fied Programs; KARMA in Combi Mode 4

M3 KARMA LEVEL 2 TOUR

2

Working with KARMA on the M3

KARMA in Program Mode: Select this Program to begin: I-A-116, Hard House Kit

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1. Play any note on the keyboard or one of the eight pads: the KARMA ON/OFF switch “wakes up” ON (lit) when

you select Hard House Kit, and the GE pattern starts playing immediately > The LATCH switch also wakes up
ON: you need not hold a key down for the pattern to continue playing in this state > Turn LATCH OFF and you
can manually re-start the pattern with any key or pad whenever you wish.

2. Select another Scene by pressing one of the four SCENE switches.

3. To toggle to Scenes 5-8, press the KARMA switch in the CONTROL ASSIGN column to choose KARMA control;

then press it once more: the SCENES 5-8 LED will flash > Press the 1/5 switch, and now Scene 5 will play.

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For ease of use, everything that KARMA generates has been organized into a dozen types of musical activity: these are
called Realtime Control Models (RTC for short).

1. With Hard House Kit still selected, touch the “KARMA GE” tab in the display > Touch the “Drum” box to the

right of “Module A” > Touch “GE #1669: House 5” [Some Kits], and a new GE pattern begins playing. The Kit
name in parentheses lets you know which Kit will deliver optimum performance. You can achieve very pleasing

musical results by selecting other GEs within a single RTC model!

2. For more daring experimentation, stray outside of the current Drum RTC Model > Touch the “00 Arpeggio” tab,

for example, and select “GE #0040: Kalimbish 1” > Play note C#2, and a crazy but cool fill/breakdown idea
happens! > Touch “OK” to accept this GE change, or hit “Cancel” to pass it by.

3. The M3 has the unique ability to link KARMA to the Drum Track > Check the box, “Link to Drum Trk”, to the

right of the GE name and number, and the GE stops running > Press the DRUM TRACK ON/OFF switch to turn it
on > Play any key or pad: Now KARMA and the Drum Track are running, in perfect sync!

4. Press the PAGE SELECT switch, and touch “P7-1” in the display >Touch the “Drum Track” tab: You can decide

whether or not the Drum track will run alongside KARMA for each of the eight scenes.

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The power of KARMA lies not just in the musicality of the GEs, but in their ability to be modified in realtime! Second
Generation KARMA technology always brings the same parameters to the Control Surface for a given RTC Mode.

1. In the current Hard House Kit example, touch the “KARMA RTC” tab in the display > Verify that the Control

Surface is still assigned to KARMA, and move FADER 1, labeled Swing % > Select SCENE #3 and play a key or pad

> Park the value at 000 for a very even-sounding groove > Slowly-move the FADER up to hear different

shuffle/swing percentages, all in real time! > Try values of 126 or 127: The percentage is so extreme that it
force-quantizes the 16th notes to an 8th note groove.

2. Notice that the original value of FADER 1, 038, is shown in the display to the right of the fader > While holding

down the RESET CONTROLS switch, nudge FADER 1 in either direction, and notice that the pre-programmed
value is restored, both audibly, and visually on the display > Try to mess up the musicality of the GE by
drastically moving all eight FADERS at once and change the status of the switches above the faders: simply hold
RESET CONTROLS and press the SCENE 3/7 switch, and all of SCENE 3 is restored, good as new!

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