My Korg OASYS background

When I acquired my Korg OASYS I was surprised to find that the previous owner had not performed a single upgrade to the operating system.  The previous owner was a gigging musician and was selling the OASYS and a Korg M3 at the same time (which I wish I had the money to also buy).

The OASYS (Open Architecture Synthesis Studio) is a software driven synthesiser.  Built around a core computer operating system and then a series of software driven synthesis engines loaded into the computer that provided it with the framework to generate the complex sounds associated with this instrument.

This type of software driven synthesis is now standard on most keyboards, synthesisers and workstations.  (Of course this is the principle behind the modern VST operation.)  But at the launch Korg OASYS was a departure from those that came before it.

The intention was to allow different software houses to augment the sound engines in much the way many musicians but VST plugins for their computer. Sadly, this never became reality,

On acquisition, my Korg OASYS was at operating system version 1.0.1 (as shipped from the factory).  The last version released by the Korg for the OASYS was 1.3.3a.

Plus, a year after the keyboard was discontinued Korg provided free licences to the LAC, MOD7 and EXS3 engines.  Despite being 20 years old with everything switch on this is a formidable keyboard to have in your studio.

This sequence of videos is how I upgraded my Korg OASYS to be fully functional.  

Note: The videos refer to korguser.net.  Since these were made this site has been deprecated making it more difficult to get hold of the upgrade software.

Updating the Korg OASYS and getting it wrong to Version 1.3.1 – Part 1

In this video I take you through the first stage of what turned into a rather bumpy Korg OASYS Operating System Update. When I bought the machine, the previous owner told me he'd never touched the software, so it was still sitting at the original base version, 1.0.1, straight out of the facory in 2005. I wanted to unlock the free LAC and MOD7 engines that were installed and Korg provided the licences for free. But to get the public ID I needed to register for them, the keyboard has to be running an operating system than greater than 1.0.1. That's what sent me off down the path of doing a Korg OASYS operating system update in the first place.

Rather than doing my homework properly, I read around the user groups, made what I thought was a sensible judgement call, and downloaded version 1.1.1 to install directly rather than going straight to the later release. That, it turns out, was exactly the wrong way to approach a Korg OASYS operating system update on this machine. After installing it, the keyboard hung on the splash screen and simply wouldn't boot any further, which was a rather horrible moment. The correct method, I discovered afterwards, is to ring Korg support, get sent a link to the hidden download area, and jump straight to version 1.3 rather than creeping up through the increments.

With the machine broken, I set about putting things right using the proper four-disc set containing version 1.3.1. The first disc wouldn't run until I'd obtained and run an authorisation disc from Korg, after which the whole Korg OASYS operating system update proceeded disc by disc, taking roughly twenty minutes in real time. By the time disc four had finished and I rebooted, the splash screen behaved properly, the bar moved right across, and the new engines and software version 1.3.1 came up cleanly. Bar a battery warning I already knew about, the OASYS was restored and working again.

How do you authorise the Korg OASYS LAC and MOD engines – Part 2

Now that I'd reloaded the OS and pushed the keyboard up to 1.3.1, this video is all about Korg OASYS synth engine authorisation, since having the LAC and MOD7 engines installed doesn't actually make them available to play. To get there you need to head over to korguser.net, register with a username and password, and request the free authorisation codes for the engines that were now installed on my Korg OASYS. Which is exactly what I'd done before filming.

With the codes in hand, the actual Korg OASYS synth engine authorisation process happens on the keyboard itself. I pressed the GLOBAL key to reach the basic setup menu, then went into plug-in info, where I could see that EXS1, EXS2, LAC and MOD7 were all installed but the later two engines still sitting in demo mode. Highlighting MOD7 and choosing to authorise it brought up an on-screen keyboard where I typed in the code specificly generated for this machine, and pressing OK confirmed that the authorisation had been saved to disk.

I then repeated the same Korg OASYS synth engine authorisation steps for the LAC engine, and once both keys had gone in, get info screen confirmed that LAC now included both the MS20EX and POLY6 engines running properly, alongside a fully authorised MOD7. That left just the EXS3 brass engine still outstanding, which needed installing from scratch rather than simply unlocking, so that became the subject of its own separate video.

Korg OASYS – The Final Upgrade to Version 1.3.3a – Part 3

Having already clawed my way up to version 1.3.1 in a previous video, this one covers the very last Korg OASYS operating system update that Korg ever released for the instrument, taking it to 1.3.3a. I'd been onto the Korguser.net site, downloaded the files and burnt them to a disc ready to go, since as with all the previous revisions this one arrives as a straightforward CD-based installer that you load from the CD-drive after a reboot.

This particular Korg OASYS operating system update turned out to be a much smaller and gentler affair than the earlier ones, with the file itself weighing in at only around 100MB, so it didn't take very long at all to work through once I'd pressed enter to confirm I wanted to update both the OS and the factory sounds. Once it reported that the update was complete, I removed the disc and cycled the power to let the machine reboot from scratch.

Watching it come back up was rather satisfying, with all the engines loading in turn and the ESX1 samples following behind them, before the OASYS settled at version 1.3.3a and produced some lovely sound to prove it was all working properly. That completed this final Korg OASYS operating system update for good, since Korg never issued anything beyond this release, though I still had some one of the engines left to sort out, which I cover in the next video.

Korg OASYS Loading the ESX3 Engine – Part 4

This video picks up where the last one left off, since checking the plug-in info screen confirmed the Korg OASYS ESX3 engine simply wasn't loaded on the machine at all, having apparently been left off the final operating system release. Unlike the LAC and MOD7 engines, this one has to be installed from a pair of discs downloaded from korguser.net rather than just being switched on, so I went through the familiar routine of powering the keyboard off and started to load the software from disc one.

The install itself confirmed it wanted to add the brass and woodwind content, and after pressing enter it worked through a genuinely large 700MB file on the first disc before asking for the second, which loaded rather more quickly. Once the Korg OASYS ESX3 engine reported the install complete, I removed the second disc, cycled the power, and watched it boot back up, though the plug-in info screen showed it had loaded in the new engine in demo mode rather than as a full engine.

Having already requested the authorisation code from Korg ahead of filming, I entered it against the newly loaded Korg OASYS ESX3 engine and the machine confirmed the authorisation had been saved to disk, with the get info screen then showing brass and woodwind ready to play. With that done, every engine on the keyboard was finally loaded and authorised, leaving only a handful of optional sound packs for registered users still to look into.

If you need help obtaining software for this synthesiser then check out this page which provides several options for obtaining the appropriate disks.