Korg M3: Understanding and working with sequencing data
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Note: this article also applies to the Korg M50.

Sequencing data comprises songs and cue lists that live in the M3's volatile system RAM.

Understanding songs

An M3 song is a single recorded MIDI sequence. This sequence might be an entire complex composition, or it might be a single section of a song (such as a verse or chorus part), or even just a short pattern of some sort.

Songs live in the volatile RAM of the M3 and are not saved when the M3 is turned off, so they must be saved to external media and reloaded when you want to work with them again. The MEDIA mode command that saves sequencing data (Save SEQ) saves the entire contents of your sequencer memory to an SNG file on the external media, so you are actually saving multiple songs and cue lists into a single SNG file. The SNG file logs the exact song slots into which each song goes.

The basic 64MB of RAM in the M3 contains exactly 128 available slots for M3 songs. (These are separate from the slots available for cue lists, samples, and multisamples.)

Understanding cue lists

An M3 cue list is a special playlist that points at one or more actual song slots in the M3 RAM, and does not contain any sequenced notes itself. The cue list specifies the order in which to play the listed songs, and other parameters such as the tempo at which to play the listed songs, how many times to repeat each song, and whether to use the effects defined in the first song for all the remaining songs in the list or to change the effects to those defined in each song.

Depending on a variety of factors, there might be audible pauses (or "gaps") between songs when playing a cue list. There are ways to mitigate or entirely eliminate these gaps but it requires some careful set up and restrictions. See Korg M3: Creating compositions ouf of arranged song parts (Cue List) for more information.

Cue lists live in the volatile RAM of the M3 and are not saved when the M3 is turned off, so they must be saved to external media and reloaded when you want to work with them again. The MEDIA mode command that saves sequencing data to external media (Save SEQ) saves the entire contents of your sequencer memory to an SNG file on the external media, so you are actually saving multiple songs and cue lists into a single SNG file. The SNG file logs the exact cue list slots into which each cue list goes.

The basic 64MB of RAM in the M3 contains exactly 20 available slots for M3 cue lists. (These are separate from the slots available for songs, samples, and multisamples.)

The necessity of saving and loading SNG "snapshots" of your entire RAM

As pointed out in the preceding sections, all the songs and cue lists that you create are stored in specific slot numbers in RAM, and cue lists identify a song by the song's slot number rather than by its name. When you turn the M3 off, everything in RAM is lost, so all your sequencing data must be reloaded in RAM every time you turn on the M3 and want to work with those songs and cue lists again.

What this means in real world terms is that if you do not load your songs back into exactly the same RAM slots each and every time, your cue lists will not work correctly because they aren't finding the correct songs.

To avoid running into these types of issues, you should follow three golden rules until you have become very adept at mucking around with your sequencing data:

  • Golden rule #1: Always load your sequencing data back into RAM by loading the SNG file (instead of individual songs or cue lists) and being certain to select the Clear allocation option when loading the SNG file. (The Append option will put the songs into the wrong slots.)
    • This completely clears out the current sequencing data from RAM and then loads in the entire "snapshot" saved in the SNG file, which ensures that the sequencing data is loaded into their original slots.
  • Golden rule #2: Always save the user-created programs referenced in your song tracks (and the user-created drum kits that might be referenced by those programs) to a PCG file every time you save new "snapshots" of your RAM.
    • This ensures that the programs required by the song will be able to be loaded back into the proper bank slots expected by the song.
    • When saving the PCG file, put it in the same folder on external media where keep your SNG file so that it's clear which PCG file must be loaded into the M3 to ensure that the song plays back properly.
  • Golden rule #3: If the programs (and related drum kits) rely on samples and multisamples that are also stored in RAM, always save your sampling data to a KSC file every time you save new "snapshots" of your RAM.
    • This ensures that the sampling data used by the programs (and related drum kits) required by the song will be able to be loaded back into the proper sampling data slots expected by the programs and drum kits.
    • When saving the KSC file, put it in the same folder on external media where keep your SNG file so that it's clear which KSC file must be loaded into the M3 to ensure that the song plays back properly.

For more information about the reasoning behind Golden Rules #2 and #3, see Korg M3: Best practices for installing professional sound sets

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