Rediscovering the Korg X5D

On Christmas Day I got out my old Korg X5D for the first time in at least 2 years, and connected it up to my PC speakers.

I’m a self-taught musician - first guitar, then keywords. I can’t read music and never read music theory - but I hear music in my head all the time.

In 1996 my parents were part of a syndicate that won the Pools (early UK sports lottery).

As a gift, they bought me the Korg X5D and gave me their old 486 running Windows 3.1 - so I could write - and compose - on.

My first business venture in 2001 saw me borrow £2,000 from my parents to pay for a new PC to produce my music - sort orchestral movie soundtracks with a mediaeval slant - then upload it to MP3.com and earn royalties.

It almost worked.

Only the RIAA had recently sued MP3.com into the ground - for storing the tracks they had been licenced to broadcast in a slightly different storage format.

Universal-Vivendi had literally just bought out MP3.com - and within a month of my joining up, they slashed all royalty payments to peanuts, before removing them entirely.

Despite being No.1 on the Classical charts for a week - which would otherwise have earned me $200/day - and despite learning some marketing and networking techniques, I was left in debt with a failed enterprise.

Someone later found me on MP3.com and asked if I’d compose some original background music for their MMORPG.

As I’d already started to hobby in SEO, figured it would be a good way to get a quality backlink. Not the most efficient method (I gave them their soundtrack music, but never got the backlink). :)

Anyway, here’s a couple of tracks that I composed for them on the X5D - it’s all wavetable stuff composed note by note - no samples - and was recorded via MIDI to PC on MicroLogic, which unfortunately is no longer supported on PC.

They’re all short - approx 30 seconds each - and intended to be looped. Here’s some rough copies I still have that I may as well share out:

• Town
• Woods
• Desert
• City
• Country
• Inn

Now I’m going to see if I can hook the X5D to the latest PC and get composing again.

It’ll help exocise some of the soundtrack music that’s been building up - and provide a nice outlet from stress.

I’m also going to see if I can provide jingles and soundtrack music for online marketing projects - my own, and for other people - especially as IPTV becomes an increasing reality for everyday internet use.