Korg M50-61 Special Edition

Tap the Touchscreen and Get Creative!

The Korg M50-61 takes much of the M3's sonic power and packs it into a lightweight, affordable music workstation! Whether you seek natural-sounding acoustic instruments or hard-hitting synthesizer sounds, Korg's M50-61 puts a sonic world beneath your fingertips. You can easily navigate between sounds and tweak its generous effects section using the Korg M50-61's intuitive and interactive touchscreen and four multi-function knobs. And with standalone/plug-in software to edit everything and create your own presets, you've got a lot of sonic flexibility with the Korg M50-61!

Related Videos: M50-61 Special Edition

Sweetwater updates it for you!
The Korg M50-61 you buy from Sweetwater is better! Before we ship it to you we upgrade it to the latest Operating System v1.10 that adds a number of improvements including 700 additional effects presets. We also install the M50-61 Vintage Keys Collection, which adds 32 new EPs, Wurlys, and Clavs that have up to eight velocity layers and extensive vintage effects processing. Finally, we include a Sweetwater M50-61 Bonus CD-ROM loaded with the new v1.10 M50-61 Editor for Mac and PC, updated Owner's Manuals, Quick Start Guide, Patch Lists, SysEx Charts, Parameter Guide, and USB Drivers for Mac and PC.

• Operating System v1.10 with a number of improvements
• 700 additional Effects Presets
• The M50-61 Vintage Keys Collection, with 32 new EPs, Wurlys, and Clavs
• Sweetwater's M50-61 Bonus CD-ROM with the new v1.10 M50-61 Editor for Mac and PC, updated Owner's Manuals, Quick Start Guide, Patch Lists, SysEx Charts, Parameter Guide, and USB Drivers for Mac and PC

When you want sounds, the Korg M50-61 is brimming with them. It has over 600 individual sound programs all tweaked up to Korg standards, and a robust 256MB of sample data. From rich, natural acoustic instrument articulations to lush or aggressive synth sounds, it's all in the Korg M50-61. Though, first and foremost, the Korg M50-61 is a stellar keyboard and piano instrument. It boasts three layers of stereo switching and an additional resonance layer for excellent piano dynamic range reproduction. Onboard are the popular Korg SG-1 Sample Grand, premium electric pianos and clavs, and even striking string and flute sounds. Plus, the M50-61 is loaded with Korg's REMS cabinet/amp/pickup technology and ToneAdjust lets you tweak each sound to your own ear's delight.

So, you've got intense sonic power, thanks to the 600 sound programs — but, as always, Korg couldn't leave it at that. To multiply the breadth of your creativity exponentially, you can stack, split, layer and zone up to 16 sound programs across the keyboard or to individual MIDI channels. And nearly 400 "combis" come preloaded, so you have great-sounding setups for live performance from the get-go. All presets are fully editable, and with 512 spaces for saved combinations onboard, you've got a ton of room to develop and modify your own signature sounds.

Beyond that, the Korg M50-61 certainly doesn't let down when it comes to effects — this puppy's packed with over 170 top-quality effects, including Korg's proprietary REMS modeling effects. You can assign and route five insert effects and two master effects simultaneously. Offering up everything from lush reverb to warping modulation effects, the Korg M50-61 lets you take each sound into another dimension or fatten it up to achieve the right tone. Plus, D-Mod, or Dynamic Modulation, even lets you control various parameter effects on the fly and you can sync effect parameters to the two common LFOs, or a MIDI clock source, for further effects integration. What more, each effects program is equipped with its own 3-band EQ, for sculpting and refining your tone.

So with this vast landscape of sounds and effects, how do you navigate through all of them? Well, thanks to the Korg M50-61's intuitive TouchView screen, finding, selecting, and tweaking sounds is a snap. The screen is backlit, so you're set to go for playing even the most dimly lit gigs. And while you can tweak away at in-depth functions and parameters using the touch-screen the Korg M50-61's also loaded with real-time buttons and controls, so you can have your way with various functions on the fly. The four knobs can control functions such as gate, velocity, length, and octave, for really shaking up your sound as you go, but you can also set them to control whatever parameters you want to get your hands on. Then, go ahead and get crazy-creative using the four onboard chord trigger buttons. Just lay a chord and quickly assign it to one of the buttons, then press the button to hear it played back — exactly as you stored it.

Korg also injected the M50-61 with over 1,600 drum and percussion samples that you can personalize into full-on drum kit programs. There are 32 drum kits onboard already and space to manhandle up to 48 more of your own. And the Korg M50-61 even has 670 onboard drum grooves for jamming along with or jump-starting your own creativity into a new song. Each of the Korg M50-61's individual sound programs has a matching drum track pre-assigned, for grooving straight out of the box and into creative bliss.

It wouldn't be a Korg without serious attention to arpeggiators — after all, Korg's been on the forefront of arpeggiator technology since the 1980s. Following its long lineage, the Korg M50-61 gives you all the standard up-down and random arpeggiation patterns you'd expect, but the dual polyphonic arpeggiators also deliver killer chords, bass lines, picking patterns, and accents, for really turning up the heat. When you're in the sequencer or combination modes, both of the arpeggiators can run at the same time, each addressing different timbres. Make one kick out killer drum grooves while the other walks around with fat bass patterns — the Korg M50-61 even lets you use velocity to switch between patterns on the same sound.

And wherever you are with your M50-61, you're only a button-press away from stepping into full-on record mode. This Korg offers up a 16-track onboard sequencer, and can handle an impressive 200,000 notes on 16 MIDI tracks and up to 128 songs. Plus, its enhanced 480 ppq resolution ensures your performance is captured accurately, however you input notes. Easy onboard editing features let you take your song from a quick creative sketch to a fully realized production. And when creativity strikes, you can quickly capitalize using the Korg M50-61's Song Templates. Spanning virtually every musical genre, each template gives you the right kinds of sounds and effects already selected and routed for you — just start playing in the parts and you're on your way. Korg also gave the M50-61 the unique RPPR Real-time Pattern Play/Recording function, so you can call up any onboard drum pattern and assign out patterns and phrases to individual keys — you can even loop each track to quickly build up the perfect groove before you stack it with sounds. An onboard Cue List function also makes it easy to try different arrangements on for size without committing to any hard-to-undo changes. And Auto Song Setup is a one-touch record feature that puts all the settings you've got setup straight into a new song, then starts up the sequencer.

The Korg M50-61 and your computer make the perfect team, as the M50-61 includes both standalone and plug-in sound editing software, so you can easily get into your M50-61 and tweak parameters. Just connect up the M50-61 via USB and load up the standalone software or your favorite DAW — the plug-in supports AU, VST, and RTAS formats. Your edits and changes live as a part of the song file, and you don't have to switch applications just to tweak a sound. Beyond USB connectivity, your M50-61 also uses SD cards for reliable data storage.

Despite the massive amount of sounds, effects, performance controls, and general music possibilities loaded into the M50-61, Korg managed to keep this sonic beast ultra lightweight. This 61-key version weighs under 15 lbs. — less than a full backpack! You've got to get your hands on one of these.

• Color: Blue
• 61-key, synth-action keyboard
• Uses the same EDS (Extended Definition Synthesis) as the M3 for superb sound
• 256 MB ROM, with plenty of new samples including 4-way acoustic piano, new electric pianos, clavs, and more!
• 896 Programs (873 preloaded) / 512 Combinations (384 preloaded) / 5 Insert, 2 Master, 1 Total Effect
• TouchView display (monochrome)
• 80 voice polyphony, 88-key RH3 graded action weighted keyboard
• Dual polyphonic arpeggiators with 4 Chord Trigger buttons
• Drum Track provides "real feel" grooves to play along with
• Classic and intuitive 16-track Korg high-resolution sequencer
• Convenient and affordable SD format card storage
• 4-knob control surface with realtime, external and arp control modes
• Plug-in editor works standalone and with RTAS, VST, and AU
• USB MIDI
• 40.43" (W) x 7.47" (D) x 4.17" (H)
• 14.9 lbs.