Korg M1
digital synthesizer workstation
The Korg M1 is a synthesizer and music workstation manufactured by the Japanese company Korg from 1988 to 1995. It is one of the bestselling synthesizers in history, selling an estimated 250,000 units, and was widely used in popular music and stock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The piano and organ presets were used in 1990s house music, such as the Madonna single "Vogue" and the Robin S single "Show Me Love".
Development
Korg's chief engineer, Junichi Ikeuchi, led the hardware engineering design of the M1. Whereas many previous synthesizers had shipped with sounds chosen for different markets, the Korg chairman, Tsutomu Kato, and his son, Seiki, decided that their synthesizers should use the same sounds internationally. Korg assembled an international team to develop the sounds. To create a deep blown bottle sound, the team played a pan flute over a large sake bottle.
Features
The M1 features a 61-note velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keyboard, 16-note polyphony, a joystick for pitch-bend and modulation control, an eight-track MIDI sequencer, separate LFOs for vibrato and filter modulation, and ADSR envelopes. Data can be stored on RAM and PCM cards.
The M1 has a ROM with four megabytes of 16-bit PCM tones — a large amount at the time — including instruments that had not been used extensively in mainstream music.
“Korg M1” enters the record as digital synthesizer workstation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Korg, digital and synthesizer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Korg M1” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Korg, digital and synthesizer provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q954204. The Library of Congress control number is sh2002004075. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988 and 1995.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Korg M1”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Korg M1 primary sources, Korg M1 archive and Korg research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Korg M1”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Korg M1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.