PC to MIDI to load sounds to a Korg synth

[jph_w]

Tonwood - thanks for these files, both worked perfectly using MIDIOX. I can now save and re-load all the patches! Loving the sound of this old machine,. got mine relatively cheap and the filters are sweet.

Does anyone have ideas for replacements for the switches? My number buttons need to be pressed rather hard to work and sometimes then produce double digits,. (makes sound editing difficult) I opened it up an had a look however I could not see any way to improve the action except replacing them.

[Tonwood]

DW6000 repair

Loving the sound of this old machine

And I too... ;-) Old sweet sound from 80`...

Does anyone have ideas for replacements for the switches?

I simply bought in the radio shop in my town, and was replace all keys, and I think this keys available in any radio shop of any country, and its not expensive.
Photo of this keys http://www.eskort.lg.ua/images/stories/food/radio.jpg
About potentiometers, this model is rare around me, but some day I bought this potentiometers in the random place, and yesterday(!!!) was replace it. And I replace old solded 2032 battery to battery holder from old motherboard, now I use standard 2032 battery for SRAM with patches.

[Tonwood]

(makes sound editing difficult)

I think, sound editing with native DW600 interface is not very suitable. I know bit programs with visual patch editing - MidiQuest, and VST plugin (to Cakewalk ol other VST-compatible software). I wanna to write my own patch editor for DW6000, but while not nave free time. :-(

[Tonwood]

If need tape file with factory patch see this page :
Korg DW-6000
(Korg DW6000 vaweform mod),
and concrete
http://erha.se/~ronny/dw6000/dw6000_factory.mp3
(Tape MP3 image)
I not test this file.
After battery replacing need to set parameter 82 to 2 (enable all midi data for send-receive sysx) and, if need, 83 to 1 (MIDI omni).

Note : downloaded bank sysex (2.496 Kb) is not the same, as saved (2.048 Kb), he include commands for change instrument number

[Brado]

Forgive me for posting this here. I think it could go under repair and maintenance, but some of my questions are PC related, so here goes.

My Korg DW-6000 had an intermittent problem --- making a slowly descending pitch at startup, then not responding to playing the keys. When I restarted the board, it would reset, and work fine. Eventually, it would not reset at all.

I installed a new 2032 battery. I tested the polarity and voltage at the PC board, with a VOM. It seems to be a good installation. When I switch the TAPE-ENABLE switch to “ON”, to load the sounds from tape, the LEDs go out. If I remember correctly, it is supposed to display the word “TAPE”. When I switch it back, they stay out. When I turn the power off, and back on again, the LEDs light up, so at least, it resets itself. However, I can’t load the sounds. Maybe the battery installation is not good?

The user’s manual indicates that the sounds can be loaded from a PC via MIDI, but it’s very vague. I understand I will need a PC-MIDI interface cable. After the hook-up, they don’t describe any procedures. Once I hook it up, will the PC recognize this hookup, open a window automatically, and provide options? I doubt it. Will I have to use MS-DOS? Or, get an editing program, like Sound Quest? And, where will the sounds come from, to load them into the Korg? Would I have to make .wav files from my tape?

Suggestions are highly appreciated.

Hi, I'm a happy dw6000 owner, I found this post you've posted in 2013... I'm disturbing you because my dw6000 has the same problem as yours: all data is lost, I'd already changed the battery once, and recharge al the patches via tape interface. It worked perfectly for several days. Then the DW lost the data again, if I turn it on I can hear only a long sweep, as the last time it lost the data, but now, if I turn the switch in tape ENABLE position, the display goes off and there's no way to recharge the patches. If I turn it off and put the switch to TAPE DISABLE, then turn it on, the display comes on. DID YOU FIX IT? I hope yes, then HOW? I do need the tape interface to work, did you discover what was the problem? Many thanks, and excuse me for my English. Regards.

[Brado]

Ok. I have the exact same symptoms:
The DW-6000 is old and the battery was dead. I replaced the battery and when I powered up the system I get the decaying frequency sweep like the THX intro sound.
So I pulled the MIDI sysex off of the server [Korg DW-6000 download sysex .syx files grab file number 1720.syx].
Using MIDI-OX and two cables (you must have MIDI-in >>AND<< MIDI-out cables running between the DW-6000 and the device you are using on the PC end) I was able to test the following items:
The keys on the DW6000 transmit midi note on and off -- tested by using my Yamaha MO8 as a slave and can play the MO8 using the piano keys on the DW6000.
Verified by looking at the MIDI-OX GUI and the midi-in lights blink in the GUI when I hit the piano keys.
Manually sent the "Device ID Request" sequence from MIDI-OX sysex GUI to the DW6000 and the DW6000 responded with [F0 42 30 04 F7] which is correct!

Ok. So that's progress. Electrons are flowing in a predictable manner.

Now.. what does the sysex file from sysexdb.com contain?

It is doing 2 things (and repeating them 64 times, once for every patch -- see the DW6000 user's guide page 50 for a diagram):
A) it sends a DATA LOAD block [32 bytes] (DW6000 user's guide page 46, item {d})
B) it sends a WRITE REQUEST block [7 bytes - F0 42 30 04 11 Pgm# F7] (DW6000 user's guide page 45, item {b})

If things are set up properly then each time this set of command is sent the DW-6000 responds with a WRITE COMPLETED block [6 bytes - F0 42 30 04 21 F7] (DW6000 user's guide page 43, item {b})
If the DW6000 instead responds with WRITE ERROR [6 bytes - F0 42 30 04 22 F7] (DW6000 user's guide page 43, item {c}), check to be sure that the write enable switch on the back of the DW-6000 is set to ENABLE and try again.

So I loaded the sysex file from sysexdb.com and sent it to the DW6000 and got receive errors. Write enable is enabled and still getting errors. What's going on?

Errors 1 and 2 in 1720.syx:
The 1720.syx file from sysexdb.com uses 3F instead of F0 (F0 is specified in the user's manual) to start the sysex commands and it terminates the sysex commands with BA rather than F7 (F7 is specified in the user's manual).

So I then replaced all of the 3F bytes with F0 and all of the BA bytes with F7 and tried again. This time the DW6000 program number display marched happily from 11 to 88 while MIDI-OX displayed 64 WRITE COMPLETED messages being returned from the DW6000. This is looking even better.

Now I read the values back from the DW6000 by sending 64 repeats of {program change} {data save request} and letting the DW6000 return the contents of the buffer.

The new contents did not match the modified 1720.syx file contents. Now what?

Error 3 in 1720.syx:
Upon further review, I found that the 26 DW-6000 BIT MAP bytes that are in the 1720.syx file violate the maximum limits for the byte values as shown in the table on page 48 of the DW-6000 user's guide. As an example: byte 1 (portamento time) should range between decimal 0 and decimal 31 (hex 00 to hex 1F) but the very first entry in the 1720.syx file has a portamento time setting of hex 20 which is not allowed. Further looking showed that a significant fraction of the values in the 1720.syx file were larger than the maximum allowed limits. This was very odd because the bytes in the WRITE REQUEST and the preamble to the DATA LOAD commands were correct (aside from the exclusive and EOX bytes) so I was not able to simply do a subtraction or bitwise operation to shift everything into the correct range.

So I instead scaled all of the values in the 1720.syx file so that they range between the allowed minimum and allowed maximum values and sent that new set of data to the DW-6000.

Reading the buffer contents back now shows that the values being sent back match the values that I sent in.

So. I don't know why the 1720.syx file contained not only the wrong exclusive and eox bytes but also contained out of range values for the parameter settings. And I don't know if the coerced values I managed to get shoved into this DW6000 are anything near the actual factory settings. The DW8000 manual has the same exclusive and eox bytes as the DW6000 (and the parameter data payload is 51 bytes for the DW8000 but only 26 bytes for the DW6000). So it's not a DW8000 factory set that got incorrectly labeled. Is it a [other locale]/us character set conversion issue? Perhaps.

So the good news is that a sysex file exists that will successfully load into a DW-6000 patch bank. I am pasting it at the end of this message. Simply copy it and paste it into Midi-ox's sysex command window and select sysex send/receive to download it to the DW6000. I am also going to paste in the text of the sysex commands that will cause the DW6000 to return all of its parameter buffer contents to MIDI-OX. Use these pairs of command sets to set and verify the patch banks.

I am still afflicted with the problem that the system does the THX sweeping sound at power-on and that the DW6000 does not produce any sounds when keys are pressed. But at least it's alive in there (at least the MIDI brain is working) and the data storage is sound. So a bit more work with the DVM and oscilloscope and it should be annoying the neighbors in no time.

I hope this helps someone in the future.

Thanks for reading!
-Jonathan

==================================================
COERCED 1720.syx file with corrected exclusive and eox bytes (2496 bytes):

USE ATTACHED FILE IN THE ZIP
===================================================
Command list that will cause the DW-6000 to return all params of all 64 patches (512 bytes):

USE ATTACHED FILE IN THE ZIP

Hi, I'm desperately looking for this sysex file, but the link for the download is dead (I guess it's because your post is since 4 years ago...) Have you still got this file? Hope yes! Thanks!

[Jazz P Bass]

The file is there on Korg's site.

Korg DW-6000 download sysex .syx files

Go to file #4.

[Brado]

Sysex wrong!

The file is there on Korg's site.

Korg DW-6000 download sysex .syx files

Go to file #4.

Hi, thanks for reply so quickly. But I already had this file, it's the only one I was able to found on the web, unfortunately it has some errors. It doesn't work. The one I asked to Makebeep user, has been modified and corrected, but, as the post is since 4 years ago, the download link is dead. Thanks again.

[Brado]

Colleague MakeBeep,
Unfortunately, you make fatal mistake in your Get_all64_from_DW6K.syx
Set Patch number in message( C1 xx ) must be seen in HEXdecimal format as 01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,0A,0B,0C,0D,0E,0F,10,11,12... ........ and more
but not as into your sysex file .....08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22....... and more
I was tested it with real DW6000 and have really result (created from video record during processing):
Get_all64_from_DW6K.syx
DW6000 display pattch order :
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
21 22
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
41 42
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58
61 62
71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78
81 82
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
21 22
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
41 42
51 52 53 54
(result - wrong order of patches and lost/double data).
For this reason, I had already lost one good Bank, which is preserved from the previous owner of the synthesizer. ((

I was create normal sysex, with right order of patches and was tested it with video records during sysex processing -
Get_All64_from_DW6K__Fine&Tested.syx
Normal processing from 11..18 to 81..88

More - Coerced_factory_sysex_vals_2010-03-08.syx IMHO is wrong too - all sounds like a bunch of different noises, and not as a factory patch, but standard 1720.syx has no problems with loading, and all patches really match the words on the front panel.
For download right and _really_ tested sysex for factory DW6000 bank and get all 64 current patches download the archive

Hi, I really need the file attached to this post. But the post is very old, and the download link is dead. Do you still have this sysex file? Thanks!

[g1]

Will this help you at all?
Korg Forums :: View topic - DW6000 death tone

[Brado]

Will this help you at all?
Korg Forums :: View topic - DW6000 death tone

Unfortunately not! I've already seen this post, but I'm not able to compile myself a sysex file. I need a good one ready. Thanks anyway.

[MRHANDS]

Any good soul could load a good sysex with factory patches? this didn't work http://www.sysexdb.com/synth_detail.asp?dv=69=(