Hey guys, I just acquired a Korg EX-8000. I've owned a DW-8000 for years and I am planning to sell it; but nothing sounds like the 8000, so I had to get an EX-8000.

I got the module out of the shipping container, powered it up and immediately used MIDIOX to send a sysex file which I thought was my master patch file. It wasn't. It was the file for loading the DW-8000/EX-8000 preset to my Behringer BCR2000. The EX-8000 LED indicated it was receiving the file, but didn't finish properly. I don't remember what the display showed at the end. It made no sound at the end of the transmission. Later, I was able to send a bank of patches using the tape method and that does produce sound.

I cannot send any more sysex data to the EX-8000. I doesn't respond when I transmit. Also, it does not recognize MIDI pitch bend, modulation, sustain pedal, etc. It only recognizes note on, note off, and velocity. Throwing the mod wheel to 127 causes a held key to note off.

I've done the reset procedure by holding 5&8 during power up, several times. I've used three different MIDI interfaces. And I've plugged my DW-8000 directly into the EX-8000. No pitch bend, no modulation, no sustain pedal. Mod wheel full causes a held key to note off.

I sure would appreciate any ideas. THANKS.

Some of us are still looking for reply's. I just picked up a very mint looking EX-8000. It looks great, but I actually got it to listen to. The area behind the volume pot took such a hit that it bent in the front panel. Such a hit would have cracked or crushed that plastic know, but no sign of impact on it. Inside the battery has been changed to a twisted black red pair up to a holder that's easy to reach. I swapped in a fresh battery as that one was reading .7 VDC. Now those wires are reading 3.27 VDC. I did this under power. Still no sound, even the tune button gives me nothing. Midi light seems dead, not a flicker from anything.

Any ideas?

@ LdoubleU try the factory reset procedure Godzillarama described.

@ Godzillarama the faults in your EX-8000 were not directly caused by the SysEx but the behaviour is symptomatic of a firmware issue, see John Henson's blog post about it here:
Korg DW8000 - Retroactive Synth
At least you know it's a total PITA even for a gifted synth repair guy like him!

@ mad thanks I will try in the morning. Fingers crossed.

Hi @ mad
Progress! The EX-8000 midi light flashes with key on/off's. No tone from the tune yet. I have SysEx Librarian (mac) and am learning it, never used before. I have parameter 78 set for 4. Pressing the save button on EX but no flashing. I have sent the dump a couple times, but I think I need another button press on the EX. Combing the manual for clues now...

Thanks @ mad She's singin!
I used the info I found here Bryan Ressler - Korg DW-8000 Patches
to get the EX-8000 ready for receiving and the librarian mentioned above. Wow that worked! I had bought that bank of sounds that Espen Kraft made and had that on hand, so loaded that. Nice, very nice!

Again thanks for your help.

You're welcome!

Well... upon a little more use... we have problems.
Cutting to the chase, I went to do a save patch and got Err rr on the display.

Am wondering if there is an expert out there that I should send this EX-8000 to.

hmm

hi all
my ex 8000 was working fine
then one day all the patches turned to mush.... high pitched portamento strangeness on most of them. with the display acting up as well. thought it was the battery so i went through the procedure of changing that. no help

now on parameter 84 i only have 1 as an option, and on 85... no option. 87 and 88 aka high key low key.... i can change those just fine.

so without being able to be sure im changing parameter 85 to #2 im unable to get patches on there.

not sure if there is a way to re instal the firmware? there is a mention here of Mr. Hansons blog post.... but the link seems to be dead. any help would be great!!!

thanks
T

Sorted

How did you solve it?

I’m not totally sure. I don’t remember. But I think (as I don’t see myself saying I did this step) was that I had to send it programs with sysex.

any active ex8000 ers around anymore

ive dusted mine off

and maybe im remembering this wrong but i feel like when i would change a program the unit would send sysex and update the controller - be it the bcr or software.

I can get it to send program changes but no sysex... any thoughts?

messing about with parameter 78 doesn't seem to have change

doing a bunch of midi monitoring to be sure

I have mine in a rack. One of the number buttons on the front panel has failed, and those buttons don't exist any more. Korg only used them in two devices, the EX8000 and the SDDE3000, so places to scavenge used buttons don't really exist. As a result, I pretty much exclusively use it via MIDI. I'm not sure why its not recognizing the SYSEX you're sending.

Its been a while since I set it up, but looking through the manual make sure 85 is set to 1(it should be if program changes are recognized.) You may also want to set it to MIDI Omni (set 86 to 1) just in case. (SYSEX isn't supposed to care about MIDI channel, but the manual is a bit confusing on that part.)

ok thanks will putter with
that good to confirm it sends on yours
my furthest right digit is fried too

does write enable / disable make a difference?

sorry to pepper you here with it -
seems like it only sends prgmr change when 85 is set to 2

and no change on sysex send when changing the to omni or not

it receives.... just won't send sysex... weird

I would set write enable to on always.

yeah, that was a weird old thing in the early days of MIDI a lot of synths default to write disable and have to have it turned on, and in some cases a power cycle would flip write disable back on. So turn that on no matter what.

And, yeah, I misread the manual here (I'm at work so can't look at my device.) 85 "1" is notes only, 85 "2" is other MIDI data types are allowed.

I get a little sysex blip when i try and save some patches externally.... there is a tiny bit of sysex activity then an ER R on the unit.

oh well

are you trying to dump patches or banks to the synth, from the system, or are you trying to use an editor?

There are others than the ones you listed. Sdd-2000 is the best alternative so far, as they cost around $200 in ebay and probably can be had cheaper locally. DVP-1 also has the buttons, but it is in my opinion a classic on it's own right. There might well be others as well.

im using software controller
i had a bcr2000 going but it died

maybe im miss remembering but i always thought when i changed the program the bcr parameters would hop to the new state

trying to dump too... i see a little flash but then error

Thanks, I haden't seen those. Unfortunately looking at photos the SDD-2000 has only a single button without the LED, and the rest have the LED. I'm not sure a LED switch could sub for a non-LED switch. The DVP-1 has mostly non-LED switches more like the EX8000, but they are expensive.

When I was working on it, I was trying to carve a new rubber dome from a old PC keyboard to fit in the space where the old button's disintegrated dome was, but I never got it to work reliably.

I think the tact switches are the same for both led and non-led buttons. The kind that takes a led in the middle of it but works also without it. If so, the led buttons should be drop-in replacements also for non-led equipped switches. You can check this by removing one of the led buttons and one of the non-led buttons and compare the structure.

If they are not interchangeable, you will anyway have one loose button to take to a shop where they make 3d prints.

I think I’m doing this wrong - according to the manual I’ll need to find the device Id and the send a “data dump” request

Any thoughts on how to do that?