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
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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.
KKAARRMMAA RReeaallttiimmee CCoonnttrrooll MMooddeellss
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.
E
KKAARRMMAA RReeaallttiimmee CCoonnttrrooll:: CCoonnssiisstteennccyy ooff RRTTCC wwiitthh fflleexxiibbiilliittyy ooff eexxppeerriimmeennttaattiioon
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!
n
M3 KARMA LEVEL 2 TOUR
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GE RTC MODEL
PROGRAM
PRGRAM NAME
PERFORMANCE TIPS
00 Arpeggio
I-D-107
Harp ‘Nails’
Turn off Drum track; SCENE 3
01 Melodic
I-A-35
Analog Strings
SWITCH 5, ON w/ FADER 6=about 106
02 Harmonic
I-C-60
Angel World
Play simply, hold one or two notes
03 Chord Rhythmic
I-A-80
Reed E. Piano
Different SCENES=Different rhythms
04 Strumming
I-A-34
Nylon Guitar 1
FADERS 2 & 3
05 Pick
I-A-002
Steel Ac Guitar
SCENE 5; FADERS 2, 3
06 Bass Pattern
I-B-93
Power Bar Bass
FADERS 2, 5, SWITCHES 5, 6
07 Gated
I-A-33
BPM Telephone Jam
FADERS 2, 5; SWITCH 5
08 Drum
I-A-68
Tricki Kit
Link to Drum track; SCENE 4
09 Wavesequence
I-A-88
Full Organ (KARMA=WS)
SWITCH 8, FADER 8
10 CC
I-A-30
Distant Ice
All SWITCHES and FADERS
11 Real-Time
I-A-50
Screaming Tube Guitar
SCENE 3; SCENE 8
The point is that KARMA is meant to be an interactive process: Feel free to experiment, as the settings of one fader,
or the entire KARMA section, can be restored at the touch of a switch. (Note: RESET CONTROLS works in similar
fashion for all the other modes of the Control Surface)
3. FADER 4 is labeled “Rnd/Imp”: this stands for “Randomize/Improvise” > Slowly move FADER 4 upwards,
stopping somewhere in the 80s: At each value change, the KARMA ‘drummer’ is making stuff up! > Feel free to
experiment with other faders and switches in similar fashion.
Remember, when you come up with a winner, there’s that loyal standby, Auto Song Setup/One-Touch Record: Press the
ENTER and the SEQUENCER REC/WRITE switches, hit the START/STOP switch after the M3 creates a new song, and
you’ve captured all of KARMA’s output as easily-editable MIDI information!
Work with these great ‘KARMA-fied’ Programs:
KARMA in Combi Mode: Select this COMBI: B-080, Dreaming w/o Sleeping
MMoodduullee CCoonnttrrooll;; SScceennee MMaattrriixx
1. Touch the “KARMA GE” tab in the display: You can see four GEs in this example > Play any key or pad, and
experiment with selecting different GEs within the RTC Model, as above >Press the COMPARE switch by the
numerical keypad if you’d like to get back to the original Combi at any time.
2. Touch the “KARMA RTC” tab in the display > Play a pad or a chord on the keyboard: Notice that, above the
display’s fader-and-switch graphics, KARMA works by analyzing what chord you’re playing, and responds
accordingly.
3. Above this area is a MIDI keymap, showing you what notes KARMA is generating for each of the four GE
Modules > Select a different SCENE, and the Scene # is displayed to the left of the chord indicator.
4. Notice that directly above the Scene # and chord field is a boldface, outlined M: This denotes that the display
is showing you the settings for KARMA’s Master layer: In addition to four layers of GE settings, KARMA 2nd Gen
provides a Master layer, for parameters that you wish to govern in similar fashion for all four running GEs >
FADER 1 is a good example: The generated music might sound ‘broken’ if all four GEs didn’t share the same
swing percentage.
5. Press the MODULE CONTROL switch to the right of the KARMA ON/OFF and LATCH switches: The display now
indicates the parameters and values for GE#1 of four, occupying Module A > Keep cycling through the
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Modules: KARMA 2nd Gen keeps track of, and lets you change, 48 independent parameters, on these screens
alone, plus 16 additional ‘global’ parameters.
6. Press the PAGE SELECT switch and touch “P7-1” in the display > Touch the “Scene Matrix” tab: The eight
scene boxes along rows M, A, B, C, and D are all ‘live’: Touching any one of them works the same as if you
press the ‘hardware MODULE CONTROL and SCENE switches.
7. Touch the boxes in row M, the Master layer: Notice that for this Combi, the four GEs all change to the same
Scene number…But they don’t have to! The Master is the recording secretary for the Scenes of its four
subordinates > Touch “Master Scene #2”: Let’s say you want KARMA’s melodic components to be as notesimple as possible, while the drum activity is bigger > Touch “Scene 1” for Modules A and D, and touch
“Scene7” for Modules B and C, and play something: you’ve done it! Think of the countless mathematical
possibilities of combinations of Scenes, coupled with the flexibility of each scene’s independent RTC
parameters, and you already have a wealth of inspiring musical choices, thanks to KARMA!
There are many more KARMA parameters to examine, which are beyond the introductory nature of this document.
Imagine that you could change the percentage of starting randomness of each aspect of KARMA independently per GE
(You can: P7.1: Random Seeds). Imagine that you have even more finite control over the range of values assigned to the
switches and faders (You do: P7-3: GE RTP: 64 parameters per GE!)
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There are times in live performance situations when you may wish to disable KARMA from kicking in, so that you can just
play the M3’s sounds. This is easily accomplished in GLOBAL mode. Press the PAGE SELECT key; make sure that the
“Basic” tab is selected. Check the box in the lower right, under “KARMA/Drum Track” by touching it, to select “All
KARMA/DT Off”. That’s it!
For more information, see the M3 Parameter Guide, and make sure to visit www.korg.com/m3
and www.karma-lab.com/m3 for more support, tips and tricks!
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