PC to MIDI to load sounds to a Korg synth

[breeze]

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.

[breeze]

I found some info on this. If you have a hardware based MIDI keyboard, you can save your programs to PC via MIDI, using Sys Ex (system exclusive) commands. You can edit them there, or leave them alone. Then, you can send them back, even while you’re playing. You need an editor/librarian type of program, such as Sound Quest.

Cakewalk Sonar has a built in editor/librarian. You just go to View > Sysx, and a window opens up with buttons for send, receive, save, edit, etc. You need to have both IN and OUT MIDI cables connected.

I have MIDI cables, but at the present time, no converter “to PC”. That will just be a matter of buying one. However, I don’t have a good working DW-6000 to get the sound patches from.

[mysticalfairy]

You'll also need to research how to set up your particular keyboard for receiving/sending a sysex dump.

[Steve A.]

I found some info on this. If you have a hardware based MIDI keyboard, you can save your programs to PC via MIDI, using Sys Ex (system exclusive) commands. You can edit them there, or leave them alone. Then, you can send them back, even while you’re playing. You need an editor/librarian type of program, such as Sound Quest.

Cakewalk Sonar has a built in editor/librarian. You just go to View > Sysx, and a window opens up with buttons for send, receive, save, edit, etc. You need to have both IN and OUT MIDI cables connected.

I have MIDI cables, but at the present time, no converter “to PC”. That will just be a matter of buying one. However, I don’t have a good working DW-6000 to get the sound patches from.

Sorry to be late to the party. You may be able to find patches for your synth on the internet. The older sound cards often had a MIDI interface, but there was usually a cable that connected the joystick port to the MIDI jacks.

I believe that most of the current MIDI adaptors run through a USB port; they are also often found on the digital audio interface that would be used for recording audio on your computer. In fact for the motorized control surfaces at least some of them use one of the MIDI channels to send and receive the signals representing slider movement (that is how my Roland control surface works).

Good luck!

Steve Ahola

[MakeBeep]

Sysex to reset DW-6000 "factory" sounds using MIDI-OX

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

[Steve A.]

To answer some of the general questions raised about MIDI and SysEx dumps this is what I found floating around in my memory banks:

For all of my MIDI keyboards, you go into a utility mode and if you dig deep enough you will be given options to export the settings and patches via SysEx. For example you can export just a single patch, a bank or range of patches, all patches, and all patches and all global settings.

My memory is starting to fade at this point. I think I needed to run a sequencer program to capture the SysEx data dump on my computer; I believe that there were also utility programs that would do that.

To load the SysEx dump back in the MIDI device, you could have the sequencer "play" the dump on the channel(s) that the device is watching. Or use a utility program.

There were some neat tricks you could do in conjunction with a sequencer. Rather than just send a patch or volume change, you could send SysEx data which could define a new patch or change global settings. While it could be a bit touchy doing that in the middle of the song (depending on the MIDI device), it was a neat way of writing the patch information into temporary memory at the very beginning of the song so you would no longer have to have that patched stored in a particular location.

Well, that is all I can remember at this time.

Good luck!

Steve Ahola

P.S. I know nothing at all about the Korg DW6000 specifically but on some MIDI devices you could restore all of the factory patches and settings by holding down certain keys when powering up (if it was not available through the menus). You might then get a request for conformation in the display. But that may apply only to the older devices where the size of the factory presets and settings was not that big and could be easily stored in a ROM chip.

[CloudsWalker]

Hello,

Do you have found a solution ??? I've the same problem !

Thanks for your files.

Best Regards. CloudsWalker CloudsWalker Music Productions and Records

[breeze]

I've been rather busy all summer with other stuff. Finally a break in the action. I was never sure whether this was a programming issue, or electronic, but I assumed it was more electronic. I found a good working synth with a broken case for $20, and spent an evening swapping all the guts, and made one good synth out of two less desirable ones. There's more than one way to skin a cat. My thanks for all replies and suggestions.

[CloudsWalker]

Thank you for Response

I've been rather busy all summer with other stuff. Finally a break in the action. I was never sure whether this was a programming issue, or electronic, but I assumed it was more electronic. I found a good working synth with a broken case for $20, and spent an evening swapping all the guts, and made one good synth out of two less desirable ones. There's more than one way to skin a cat. My thanks for all replies and suggestions.

I also try to find a Korg DW6000 synth broken, but it is not easy!

[Tonwood]

making a slowly descending pitch at startup, then not responding to playing the keys.

I had the same problem with a falling down sound after power on, but full time without a sound and reaction on a keyboard. Reason was defective ROM 2764 on the block of synthesis (middle PCB) with erased firmware 840905. Replacement of this IC with normal firmware corrected everything.
I think, possible bad contact in the this ROM socket, or old and periodical inactive oscillator crystal (12MHz) of this microcontroller, I was replace the same crystal in the control processor, because he not work, and this synthesizer was full dead.
Sorry for late answer, I purchased this synthesizer a week ago, and now he fully functional, remained to replace the old buttons and potentiometers.

[CloudsWalker]

Many thanks for your Post, I will try this. Best Regards. CloudsWalker

I had the same problem with a falling down sound after power on, but full time without a sound and reaction on a keyboard. Reason was defective ROM 2764 on the block of synthesis (middle PCB) with erased firmware 840905. Replacement of this IC with normal firmware corrected everything.
I think, possible bad contact in the this ROM socket, or old and periodical inactive oscillator crystal (12MHz) of this microcontroller, I was replace the same crystal in the control processor, because he not work, and this synthesizer was full dead.
Sorry for late answer, I purchased this synthesizer a week ago, and now he fully functional, remained to replace the old buttons and potentiometers.

Many thanks for your Post, I will try this. Best Regards. CloudsWalker

[Tonwood]

Many thanks for your Post, I will try this. Best Regards. CloudsWalker

You`re welcome... Good luck.

[Tonwood]

Some info about DW 6000 hardware and two files - 840805.bin 840905.bin - firmware ROM images is free available on the page.
http://sounddoctorin.com/synthtec/korg/dw6000.htm
No problem for free download service manual with schematic diagrams , PCB, and repair/tune of this device - DW-6000_SERVICE_MANUAL.pdf

[Guest]

is there a website to get all manuals?

[Tonwood]

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