Today I stumbled upon a fantastic deal for a vintage Korg T2 EX Workstation for $100 bucks. This 76 key workstation is a real beauty and sounds absolutely wonderful. I bought it for a number of reasons one of which was the key bed that plays very nicely and very similar to my Roland Fantom X7. I love 76 keys and thought at the very least, the Korg T2 EX would be a great controller.
First, there were a few issues with the Korg T2 EX which allowed me to leave the used music shop with a pretty cheap professional keyboard. The floppy drive appears to not be working properly because I’m getting the infamous “data error” that I’ve been discovering a lot of info about all across the internet. There doesn’t seem to be any cure for the “data error” floppy drive message other than replacing the drive with a different one. I may attempt to use an extra HxC Floppy Emulator I have to see if that would work with the T2, but with regards to Programs, Combis, and Sequences, the computer would work just fine. For now I can do without a floppy drive but eventually I would like to either get it fixed or replaced.
The Second problem was that there were no presets loaded into the Korg T2 EX. All of the data was basically set to INIT. The sales clerk did not have any disks and with the floppy drive not working properly, he wasn’t able to get any sounds working on the synth. When I tested the T2 EX, I basically had to dive into the Program editing and select the multisamples in order to check the sound. This actually gave me lots of distorted output because the gain on the wavforms was turned up high if correct. At home I was able to reload the Korg T2 EX with the default factory presets and everything then sounded excellent. Thank goodness as I didn’t want to deal with any static output issues. I’m already dealing with that on another project with the Roland S-50.
Third, the LCD Screen looked to be a tiny bit faded which may be correct, but I actually found the contrast to be quite good and not all that bad. In fact I didn’t see a problem with it but the sales clerk I suppose didn’t like the look. The body of the Korg T2 EX also had some stains on the top which I was able to remove completely with some cleaner at home. The Korg T2 EX looks almost in mint shape now and there’s practically not a scratch on it. Just like my Korg M1, the Korg T2 EX is built very well and it simply is a sleek looking keyboard.
As a result, the sales clerk decided to sell me the Korg T2 EX for a hundred dollars and thus I couldn’t pass up that sort of price. I also was able to get the original Korg Hardshell Flight Case which was in excellent condition. Overall the Korg T2 EX works good as new with the exception of the floppy drive “data error” problem. There is a replacement drive on Ebay for $75 to Japan but I’ve heard stories that even with a replacement drive you can still get the “data error” so until I crack open the Korg T2 and investigate, I’m reluctant to buy another drive.
In addition to the 75 keys and great sounds out of the Korg T2 EX, I was excited to see that there was a 1MB PCM Sample Ram area on board. It was quite easy to transfer WAV samples using SDS and software on my Apple G4 to the Korg T4 EX. The 16 bit Wav samples were dumped into the Drum Kit area of the T2 EX and I was then able to use them to create programs and combis with. You need to have the Disk Drive working in order to load PCM samples into the Multi-Sample area and not just the Drum Kit area if correct. I’ll be checking this out once I get the floppy drive fixed, but for now using SDS is extremely fast and I don’t mind using a Drum Kit or two for samples. I am using Elecktron’s C6 utility software to transfer the Wav samples and it has a nifty progress bar to indicate the speed and progress. I was pleasantly surprise to see that transferring samples via SDS was quite fast between my G4 and the Korg T2 EX. In fact it only took seconds to transfer one file which was amazing. I have zero complaints about SDS!!
The only disappointment I have found with the Korg T2 EX other than the non working floppy drive is the fact that when powering off the unit, you lose all of your sequences, patterns, and PCM samples in Ram. My Korg M1, X3, and N364 all retain sequences and patterns in memory. This means that I have to reload sequences, patterns, and PCM samples using a floppy drive or the computer each time I power up the Korg T2 EX. This actually really sucks but that’s pretty much how all the newer keyboards handle such data. With a floppy drive or the HxC Floppy Emulator that may not be such a big issue down the road. Other than that everything else is superb on the Korg T2 EX.
The Korg T2 EX is a beautiful workstation. The 76 keys and sounds alone are worth what I paid for it most definitely. I find the 1MB PCM Sample area is golden for creating a custom 808, 909, SP1200, LinnDrum, etc drum kit or one shot sample loop set. The C6 software retains the loop info embedded in the Wav file beautifully so the samples loop great thus far. The Floppy drive will also allow me to get more out of the sequencer and load up some custom PCM multisamples hopefully in the near future. Also, there are four midi outputs on the back which are outstanding for controlling several sound modules at once. That’s always a good thing! The Korg T2 EX is a real solid keyboard and I’m so excited I found it.
Stay tuned for additional PCM sample and floppy drive repair updates as I venture further along with the Korg T2 EX.
UPDATE #1: The Korg T2 EX works with the HxC Floppy Drive Emulator. Awesome!! I installed the HxC Floppy drive emulator into the Korg T2 EX, made some configurations to the floppy drive cable and HXCSDFE.CFG of the emulator. Presto it worked flawlessly! I converted some DSM-1 .DSK images to .HFE files and the HxC Emulator loaded up the PCM samples perfectly. I now can dump all my .DSK PCM images to one SD Disk in the HxC. I have further testing to do with regards to saving data but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll update with more info shortly. If your Floppy Disk Drive is broken on the Korg T2 EX, the HxC is a fantastic and powerful replacement solution.
UPDATE #2: I finally fixed the Korg ERROR: Data Error issue with my floppy disk drive. The problem I discovered was that the floppy drive would not take and format any HD disk I gave it. So on the Korg Forums I found an Omniflop .img patch disk which I copied to a floppy disk formatted with Omniflop. I then put this disk into the T2 EX and presto it loaded the program/combi sounds without issue. I then formatted that same disk using the Korg T2 EX and again it worked beautifully. I took the blank formatted floppy and made a copy of it using Omniflop saving the Korg_T2_Blank_IMG file to my computer. I then was able to take any old or new HD Floppy disk and create a new formatted disk using Omniflop and the blank image I created. Thus I found that the “Data Error” was a result of the Korg T2 EX Floppy Drive not being able to format any HD disk, but once I gave it a preformatted T2 EX floppy disk it work great. My T2 EX Floppy Disk Drive is now back in operation with a ton of pre-formatted T2 EX Blank disks to feed it. Awesome!
UPDATE #3: I found a bunch of DSM-1 formatted .dsk PCM disks on the internet and managed to use CopyQM to create Korg T2 EX compatible floppy disks. I ran CopyQM on Win98 using regular HD disks and had no problems copying all the .DSK files to disk. The PCM Sample disks all work and sound great on the Korg T2 EX.
Jim Atwood in Japan 
I found out that the Korg M1EX contains the same internal presets as the Korg T2EX. The M1EX had one internal preset bank and one card preset bank. The Korg T2EX contains both of those banks in Prog A and Prog B. Thus any Korg M1EX patches/voices can be loaded 100% into the Korg T2EX. As stated around the net, virtually all of the M1/M1R/M1EX/M1EXR patches can be used with the Korg T2EX.
This is great because my board is just the regular Korg M1 version. It does not have the EX upgrade, so it’s nice to have the EX sounds with the Korg T2 EX. The T2 EX definitely expands on the original M1.
There is definitely not much information around on the either the T3 EX or the T2 EX. Hopefully I can add some info here as I progress with the Korg T2 EX. I just can’t get over how beautifully constructed both the Korg M1 and T2 EX are. They really are nice to look at and play.
I know some people say the sounds are outdated, but I have mentioned before that “outdated” to me simply means someone has heard the sounds before, but I haven’t! . Seriously, after going through most of the sounds on the M1/T2 EX, I have only really heard of a small handful of sounds. Other than that, these sounds are all fresh and very new to me. With the mindset of today’s musician, the Korg M1/T2EX can be definitely used in new creative and exciting ways. That’s how I look at it anyways.
Hi Jim,
Goodmorning and thank you for your excellent website!
I have been searching for Korg T2 diskimages for a long time now
to use them with OmniFlop because my T2 has the same “data error” behaviour.
I never were able to find them. Then I found your page ;))
Would you share and mail me your image of a blank T2 disk please?!
Best regards, Ed
Floppy Drive Update:
I can confirm a couple of things now that I’ve extensively tried them with the Korg T2EX Workstation in an attempt to fix the floppy drive ERROR: Data Error.
1. Floppy Drive Cleaning with a Cleaner package is a total waste of time and money. Both Korg and people online claim this to be a solution to the infamous “Data Error” issue and I beg to differ. In fact, I’ve never had one moment of success with any sort of floppy drive cleaning with any device I’ve ever had. Of course I had to try to put the myth to rest and for the Korg T2EX, it is in my opinion a complete myth. Floppy Drive Cleaning with a Floppy Cleaner Package doesn’t work. Bust!
2. I also tried putting an opaque tape label over the hole of an HD Floppy Disk as I also heard that non original floppy drives in Korg T2 EX synths had format issues. A “Data Error” could result and thus it was important to put tape over the Floppy Drive hole on the right side of the floppy disk facing up. Again, this is an absolute myth. In fact, I’ve tried this on numerous HD Floppy Disks for use with my other Samplers such as the W-30, S-330, S-50, etc. and none have worked. It leads me to believe that perhaps it might on a certain special HD Floppy Disk, but quite frankly it really doesn’t work in my book. You are better off just getting regular 720KB DD disks which actually are still available in some places if you know where to look. Again Bust!
My next step is to now open the Korg T2EX and remove the existing floppy drive. I have about five other spare floppy drives of all sorts including both HD and DD styles. I will try one by one to see if any work at all. I’m not getting my hopes up as it’s highly likely Korg has done some special wiring of sorts with its Korg T series drives. I’m just not sure how yet. If I’m lucky, I may get one working drive, but we’ll see.
My final attempt will be to ultimately replace the Korg T2EX floppy drive with a new working drive that is available on Ebay. I really would like to avoid doing that, but if I can get some sort of certainty that it will work, I just may give it a shot. Again we’ll see.
Another idea is to install the HxC Floppy Drive Emulator into the Korg T2EX as well. That is certainly possible as the HxC works on just about everything other synth I’ve tried it on. I just need to open up the T2EX and inspect the connections to determine what sort of HxC config file I need to set.
Stay tuned for further updates about the floppy drive ordeal. It’s worth noting with all the keyboards I have acquired that Korg is the absolute worst with regards to floppy disk drives crapping out and the difficulty in finding suitable replacements. I thought roland was bad, but Korg has definitely now surpassed Roland with bad floppy disk drive implementation. I cringe now when I see any Korg with a floppy disk drive…laugh.
I’m really digging that Korg T2EX Combi #71 called “70’s Piano” which is a pretty nice sounding Fender Rhodes emulation. The bark is pretty good at the low end and playing the melody on top it rings really nice. Usually I play piano and strings mostly on these early Korg synths, but I must say that the Rhodes sound is pretty decent. I’m sure there’s even better patches out there than the stock version as well on this Korg T2EX. I don’t you can get the sound on the stock Korg M1 as I think the waveforms are from the EX version. Not sure.
Hello everyone,
I successfully installed, configured, and tested the HxC Floppy Drive Emulator with my Korg T2 EX Workstation. I can load and save PCM samples. DSM-1 sample files can convert easily to .HFE format which load very well. The HxC is great with the T2 EX because you can now eliminate all those PCM floppies and really start getting down with PCM on the T2 EX. Although I do not have a T3/T3 EX, I imagine the HxC would work all the same. I’m used to Roland products and Floppy Drives, so the Korg was totally different, but it does work. Fantastic and I just may need to buy yet another HxC floppy Drive Emulator.
Jim
Hey Jim, that’s great news for those of us looking to do the same. Kudos for this – Its a huge boost for anyone going through a similar process to find a simple reference to let us know we’re on the right track! Years ago (before kids) I bought a T3-EX from a fellow musician. I was taken by the phenomenal analog sounds and workstation abilities. Still a neophyte at it, I am stepping through the process of bringing it back to life. After replacing the dead battery, I followed the same “data error” path you did getting the drive to work, and was able to get the system restored, but now at the point where I need to restore/acquire sound libraries as what was on board was lost. So the “disc drive emulator” is a must. Also have one key that “sticks” but it works – so I’ll try cleaning it first. Want to be respectful of your time but hopeful, but any pointers you may have on do’s & dont’s doing the actual upgrade and working with the T-series would be very helpful. – About to pull the trigger on an emulator, wish me luck 😉 – Rusty
Multimaker communicates with the Korg T2 EX via midi so it probably uses sysex. It’s possible to maybe remap the PCM samples in Ram memory using sysex. I’m curious about that.
Back in 1991 Korg released Public Domain software for the Mac and I think a PC version too called, KORG MULTIMAKER. Designed to make multi sounds from samples in the KORG T1, T2 and T3ex and M1 series, rack series etc. I have a floppy for mac but it’s so old that the data is gone. If anyone one has KORG MULTIMAKER, please let me know. Even Korg no longer has it. Anyone who finds it, please share it so the program can be saved. There are a lot of old Korg keyboards out there and Multimaker needs to be saved.
Dear T2 EX series owners:
To achieve bank changes on T series you need:
– – a sequencer capable of handling/editing sys-ex data:
– – your faithful Korg T2EX.
To select a you need this sys-ex string:
F0 42 30 26 4E 02 00 F7
F0 42 30 26 4E 12 00 F7
followed by a program change.
For instance, if you are in COMBI mode and wanted to reach program 54
stored onto A bank you’d do the following:
Sequencer Time Location 1:1:000
F0 42 30 26 4E 02 00 F7
Sequencer Time Location 1:1:001
F0 42 30 26 4E 12 00 F7
Sequencer Time Location 1:1:002
Porgram change #54
Remember to insert these data into a track which belongs to the same midi
channel of your T2EX.
To select a you need this sys-ex string:
F0 42 30 26 4E 02 01 F7
F0 42 30 26 4E 02 10 F7
followed by a program change.
To select a you need this sys-ex string:
F0 42 30 26 4E 00 10 F7
F0 42 30 26 4E 10 00 F7
followed by a program change.
To select a you need this sys-ex string:
F0 42 30 26 4E 02 10 F7
F0 42 30 26 4E 12 01 F7
followed by a program change.
To select a you need this sys-ex string:
F0 42 30 26 4E 00 10 F7
F0 42 30 26 4E 10 01 F7
followed by a program change.
This is an excerpt from a very old post I found about resampling sounds for the Korg T3/T2 EX.
As you know the M1 is a killer synth. It would be great to add some fresh
samples to it. But hey, nothing new, there is a serial killer synth–T3. T3
is basically an M1 with all those things we wish the M1 had (8MB of ROM,
large graphical display, 3,5″ floppy drive etc.). One of those “things” is
1MB of internal RAM and ability to load and FULLY utilize 1MB of
multisamples.
But let’s get to the point. I own one of T3′s EX and I have
experimented with samples using AI synthesis (Advanced Integrated) for quite
some time. I sample and “shape” samples with my Macintosh using Alchemy
sample editing software and then dump them to my T. To create multisounds I
use MultiMaker–a program unleashed by Korg USA after they discontinued
making T-Series (If anyone would like to get MultiMaker free, contact me).
Now, I dumped so many different samples to my T that were sampled on
different machines such as EmaxII, Akai S1000, S900,PeavySX and Ensoniq EPS.
Believe me, not all samples sound good on T. I had to resample some of them
using my Alchemy to make them acceptable, in some cases it helped, in some
didn’t. The best sounding (after Korg DSM1) samples were sampled at 32khz
using 12bit AkaiS900. Those samples sounded better than those 16bit from
AkaiS1000 (after conversion to mono). But even some of those from S900
sounded like garbage in my Korg.
I’m thinking about buing HxC Floppy Drive Emulator for my T3EX ( it’s floppy drive doesn’t work )
What software I need to use it ( for saving and loading patches to SD card )?
Also I know that it’s possible to load PCM through MIDI dump to T3EX,what format and software I nedd to do ?
Loading PCM data through SDS is no problem however, the samples will only occupy the drum kit area. You then must save that data to floppy disk. Then you can load the sample data to the multi-sample memory block area. You cannot “directly” transfer samples from the computer TO multi-sample memory. You can only transfer to the drum kit memory area via SDS. Therefor it’s essential to have a working floppy disk drive, emulator, etc. Sorry for the late reply. Hope this helps. – Jim
Hey Jimdatwood
I am NIkola from serbia and i am have a korg T3. It is always been my favorite keyboard. and i really plaining to buy more of this. so i would like to add some pcm in my keyboard and delete some that doesnt need. i will read very carrefull your text here and i hope that you are help me to do this problem. i will be very grateful to you and of coarse i will help you in another way if i can.
if you have a msn we can contact there my nick is skype : astrokoki msn : astrokoki@hotmail.com
and my email is astrokoki@gmail.com
thx you..
Hello Nikola,
Basically the Korg T3 needs two things to effectively load custom PCM multi-samples. First, you need to have the Flash ram memory installed in your T3. Second, you need to have a working floppy disk drive. Note that you can’t erase existing ROM PCM samples, rather you can only occupy the Flash RAM of 1MB.
Basically, I take an SDS transfer program no my Apple G4 to transfer samples to the T3. This is very fast because you are primarily transferring very small samples due to the limited size of Flash Ram. Samples transferred via SDS will ONLY occupy the drum kit slots. It will not occupy the multi-sample area. To get the samples into the multi-sample area you then need to save the transferred samples to your floppy disk drive. Then you can load them directly to your multi-sample bank area. Only samples loaded from floppy can get into the multi-sample area.
At the moment, using the PC to create PCM floppy disks is not possible without the program such as KORG MULTIMAKER. I don’t have this program, but am actively looking for it. Once I find it I’ll make pass it along to those interested. For now though, using SDS to transfer samples works very well.
I’ll try to do a more specific right up or video shortly. Perhaps this week if I get a chance. Thanks!
Jim
Hey Jimdatwood
I’ve bought HxC2001 emulator and tried to install it at my KORG T3,but it was unsuccessefull,korg doesn’t save or load nothing and show me BAD DRIVE or DRIVE NOT READY (((
Dear Jim,
I am the proud owner of a 20+ years old Korg T3 and I need some help in order to bring it back to a fully operational condition, after it suddenly broke down. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to find help locally (Portugal), hence my appeal for help from you. I know that the T3 is no longer officially supported but I thought I’d give it a try… Here is the description of the problem(s):
A few months ago, my old and beloved T3 (upgraded to EX status by myself many years ago) decided to quit. I know a bit of electronics (I said “a bit”!) so I decided to open it up and investigate. My findings were not heartening: not only was the fuse as black as my soul, but there was a rather large charred area in the power supply board with a hole in the middle, under two burnt up resistors. I managed to get a service manual, but after some failed attempts at repairing the power supply (which is of the switched variety), a friend of mine suggested a different course of action, which was taken: install a new, non-Korg power supply. So, I now have a power supply with all the correct voltages, including the display’s, and the T3 now comes to life when switched on (I sized the opportunity to replace the battery and also all the switches – all 44 of them… – something I had already done once, some fifteen years ago).
The next step was to test the T3, so I performed all the tests as described in the service manual. All but two passed with no errors (I could not perform those test that require an oscilloscope). But those two are proving rather difficult to solve, hence my request for help.
Error 1:
All disk drive tests end with a message “drive not ready”. In fact, the drive problem was the first thing I noticed after the “resurrection”, because the disk was not accessed as it usually was at switch-on. I tried another drive, which is working perfectly in a PC, but the result was the same (BTW, I could not get the T3 drive to work in a PC). My problem now is, I do not know how to determine whether this is a problem of the drive or the controller IC and associated circuitry. I also thought the disk might be bad, so I “T3-formatted” a blank disk with OmniFlop and successfully copied a “T3_factory_sounds.img” file into it. But the tests with this disk also failed miserably. Erm… HELP!
Error 2:
The RAM test fails with an error message pointing to address “DRAM 10000 – 3FFFF”. Now, in the T3 there are three blocks of identical DRAM (a block of five ICs and two of eight – one of which is the EX expansion) and I have no idea which of these blocks does this address refer to (if not the ROM, perish the thought!), nor do I know which individual ICs within the block are faulty. Also, all the ICs in the block of five heat up quite a lot and I’d like to know whether this is normal or it is a sign that they are about to go up in flames soon!
In fact I am now suspecting that there is indeed a problem with the ROM chips as well. Since the floppy drive is not working, I got a sysex copy of the pre-load disk and transferred it into the T3 via MIDI. However, although I can now see all Combi and Prog names in their respective banks, the sounds I get are horrible digital noises that do not react to any parameter changes or the keyboard. So, again, HELP!…
On the positive side, MIDI is working in both directions and as such the T3 can work perfectly as a controller – and, if I cannot solve its problems, that’s what it will be doing for the rest of its life (or mine – whichever ends first…).
Would you be so kind as to please send whatever help you can? I am really at a loss here!…
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Cristiano Barata
PS.: I am pretty sure that sample dumps can be sent via sysex into the PCM RAM as multisounds. If my memory doesn’t fail me, I actually did this (over 20 years ago). I remember the information was somewhat hidden in those very unfriendly pages of the full MIDI implementation in the reference guide. I’ll take another look and see if I can recall how it’s done – and of course, I’ll let you know.
BTW, I live in Lisbon, Portugal. If you happen to come this way, be sure to let me know (there’s excellent wine here…).
“UPDATE #1: The Korg T2 EX works with the HxC Floppy Drive Emulator. Awesome!! I installed the HxC Floppy drive emulator into the Korg T2 EX, made some configurations to the floppy drive cable and HXCSDFE.CFG of the emulator. Presto it worked flawlessly! I converted some DSM-1 .DSK images to .HFE files and the HxC Emulator loaded up the PCM samples perfectly. I now can dump all my .DSK PCM images to one SD Disk in the HxC. I have further testing to do with regards to saving data but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll update with more info shortly. If your Floppy Disk Drive is broken on the Korg T2 EX, the HxC is a fantastic and powerful replacement solution.”
Which configurations with floppy drive cable and HXCSDFE.CFG you’ve made?
Hello!
I am looking for upgrading Korg T2 to EX. Do you know some EXK-T seller nowadays?
Thank you!
Great read, but as always here comes the questions.
I bought a T2EX a few weeks back with a dud battery but thankfully the floppy drive works so after replacing the battery it was an easy job to restore it. Now my problem is I’ve also got a whole bunch of “supposed” T2 compatible syx files BUT can’t get the T2 to communicate with my PC via midi – I’ve tried midi in/out to usb, midi in/out to sound card both using Soundquest and or MidiOx software.
If I could work out how to just create disks I would but I’ll be damned if I can work out how to create plain ol’ disks to use these other syx files. I’ve formatted disks using Omniflop and the T2 is happy with them, but it would be nice if I could put stuff on them though.
Any assistance you could offer up would be greatly appreciated as there is naff all info out there for T2’s – they may be the same as M1’s but the screens aren’t from what I see so confusion is reigning surpreme at the moment.
Cheers
Carl
Hello Carl,
Below is an email reply I sent to another user who was experiencing some trouble. I used a Mac in this case, but I’ve also successfully used Soundquest via PC. In both cases I used an Edirol UM-1 midi interface which actually proved to be the solution for the user below. Apparently, the Korg T2 is selective or “Picky” about it’s midi interface connection. Hope the below info helps.
Thanks! – Jim
************ Reply to another Korg T2 user *************
Hi there! I tried the patches on my Korg T2EX and they worked great! Here’s what I used to make the transfer.
1. Connected my Apple iBook G4 to the Korg T2EX using an Edirol UM-1 midi interface. No special midi setup required on the iBook.
2. Set Korg T2EX to midi channel 1 and set protection to “off”.
3. Started the program Sysex Librarian ” http://www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian/ ” on the iBook.
4. Loaded the sysex file you sent and then clicked “play” in Sysex Librarian using the default settings.
5. The software connected with the T2EX and the transfer took about 20-30 seconds.
6. My Combis and Programs changed to the new “Balkans” patches and they played beautifully.
Before I did all this I performed and “ALL Data” dump from the T2EX to the Sysex Librarian software so that I had a backup of my original settings. After I loaded the Balkins patches, I then sent my backup data back to the T2EX so that I had my original patches. That worked without any problems as well.
A few things to recommend are as follows:
1. Try doing a data dump from the T2 to the Sysex Librarian first to make sure you can communicate in that direction. If you can, you should be able to reverse the procedure and press play after loading up the Balkins file.
2. Make sure Protect is off on the T2 and that the Midi Channel is set to 1 or A01 I think it is on the T2.
3. Make sure you are using the default settings on the Sysex Librarian. If you send the data too fast or too slow it may not transfer.
4. When data is transferred to the T2 it may NOT show up on the LCD screen until you change patches like from C00 to C01. This might fake you out into thinking it didn’t transfer when actually it did.
5. You should see transfer processing messages in BOTH the T2 and Sysex Librarian when doing the transfer. If you don’t see any transfer messages, then your midi connection isn’t working properly.
Check out some of this info and if you continue to experience problems, please let me know. I may need to know more about your computer and midi interface setup as well. The transfer on my end went pretty smooth so hopefully we can find your problem.
*********** END *********************
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the quick response, it’s greatly appreciated.
Now just on the Edirol, do you think I can find one here in Oz?? Nope. Anyway, a quick Google search showed me an E-MU XMidi 2X2, is this similar to the Edirol? (specs below) I’m a total noob to connecting things like the T2 to a PC, it even hates my DX27 as well, although reading your response it does appear to be the cheap midi to USB cable(s) I bought, but in saying that I’d hate to buy the wrong thing as her who must be obeyed has threatened to neck me for buying the T2 then trying to sneak a Fireglo Ric 4003 in to the house un-noticed 😉
Anyway, If you can get a spare couple of moments to check that E-MU and let me know if it is the same sort of thing then I’ll buy one and on my head be it and if it works you, well you and the neighbours will be the first to know.
Cheers
Carl
E-MU Specs (taken from http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product.aspx?category=610&pid=15187)
E-MU’s Xmidi 2×2 is a compact, plug-and-play USB MIDI interface that provides you with two ultra-fast MIDI inputs and outputs (32 MIDI channels in/outs total), allowing you to connect multiple MIDI devices to your computer. The Xmidi 2×2 features bus-powered operation for total portability, and provides you with status indicators for each MIDI input and output. The Xmidi 2×2 also ships with a handy carrying pouch to protect it in transit.
The E-MU Xmidi 2×2 features:
2 MIDI ins / 2 MIDI outs
USB 1.1
USB bus-powered
Ultra-fast MIDI response
Active-Sensing messages filtered
MME, DirectMusic and CoreMIDI supported
Multiple device support
Hi Carl,
I can’t be certain as I don’t have an E-MU XMidi 2×2, but I do have an E-MU sound card in my PC with midi and it works fine with the Korg T2EX. Thus I think you should be safe using an E-MU, Roland, or a Yamaha device. Again, there’s no way for me to be certain, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t work. I think you’ll be fine.
Jim
Hey Jim would love to know how you reloaded the factory sounds onto the T2EX i have one and the floppy isnt working so i’m hoping there is another way
Hi Jim,
can you please elaborate on the changes you made to the T2ex for using the HXC?
My floppy dies also. So I ordered an HXC.
Regards
Christian
hi jim been working on new pcm sets
here are the images they are in omniflop format
no presets
if you go to my sounnd cloud theres some sound examples using the sets
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oiadtb04ay8ndoy/eminent310%2016%27%20string
this file has a few presets do a load all i only did 5 presets
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jc27ryqp2j6lhen/jmlpcm01
this is a single cycle and noise pad disk
this is great for choir pads and synthy sounds
Hello,
first af all thanks for your very usefull post, a precious source of knowledge about the KORG T-seriers and also for the Roland Juno 60 start image, it reminds me my first love Roland Juno 6…
Just wanted to leave my 2-cents about the T-series reprogramming via Sysex; I’ve spent 2 years (during available week-ends!) trying to reconfigure my T2 with a broken disk drive and tried ALL available Windows programs, no need to list them all, and any possible latency/buffer combination, without success! Everytime I ended with some corrupted memory garbage on T2’s display, correctable only with a 0-PROG_A ON/OFF hard-reset.
I thinked it could be a corrupted memory portion of my T2 which refuses then reprogramming, no matter which programs was sending the orginal Sysex downloaded from the korg.de site.
I ended buying a T3ex for a convenient price, and tried (not convinced at all) to dump all data via MIDI from the T3ex to the T2 and it worked flawless in 20 seconds!
Wonderfull but also too curious… at that time I wanted to definitively understand what I was missing during my eternal restore trial!
Shortly said: I’ve found this article on the MIDIOX bug section
http://www.midiox.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=bugs;action=print;num=1130961608
which tells a funny thing: if you use a USB to MIDI external adapter (which probably must of you currently use, no matter which vendor, all excluded Roland have this problem), you will NOT be able to transfer a Sysex greater then 64Kb without encountering data corruption and transfer error! obvioulsy the T2 image is larger…
Interesting enough, the problem is related with the Microsoft driver implementation of the USB to MIDI function, which briefly is not able to correctly handle a larger amount of memory for the Sysex code file and comes preinstalled with every Microsoft OS. The Roland hardware is not affected as it uses his own driver, not affected.
Just for all the other KORG owners to know…
wow … good to find a forum ,, of other T3 users..
hi ,,,how can I transfer T2 combis …. to M1rex…
my T2 power supply quit.. I was using the T2 for sequencing multi timbral multi channel tracks.. in Combi mode.
so I bought an M1rex thinking I could load all those Combis from T2 into M1rex ..… to load all my combis , programs & global data..
but the sysex T2 files will not load.. into M1rex .. this has to be some kind of sysex code.. that I can cut & paste … to make it compatible,, & load into the M1rex
as far as I know.. T2 will load M1rex sysex… but not the other way around… I need to strip off T2 sysex header & reformat for M1rex…. I know enough to do this.. but how..?
I have sysex files ,, saved from my T2.. but how to convert them ?
thanks anyone. this has me stumped.
I also have the Korg Legacy collection … but I don’t know what procedure to load my old T2 combis from Sysex into the legacy version..
Hello,I have got a ZJchao USB Emulator for my Korg PA80 Keyboard and installed it properly .when Keyboard is on emulator comes on too but when I click of disk key on the keyboard I see Load command on the screen,I click on load key it shows following on the screen:
No Disk/ Unformated,Exit . But I know I have a formated USB with Rhythm Files .
Please help me out.
thanks,Perry