Creating A Korg M1-Type Organ Bass

The Korg M1’s ‘Organ 2’ preset became a staple for many a classic dancefloor anthem in the ’90s including Robin S’s hit Show Me Love. But for those without the M1 or samples, how do you go about emulating this classic sound? Well, in this six-step walkthrough we’ll show you how to get close with just standard oscillators and envelopes. Soon you’ll be transported back in time to ’90s ‘House remix’ territory! Here goes…

Start from a clean slate using an initialised patch. Switch on a single oscillator, turn it up to full and dial in a triangle/saw mix. Set the pitch to 32’ (or the lowest available on your synth). This oscillator gives the required low-end rumble.

Now let’s sculpt our envelopes! Set ‘amount to filter’ to 3/4 full. Filter envelope: attack to fastest, decay to half, sustain off and release to half. On the amp envelope: attack to fastest, decay to 3/4 full, sustain to half and release to half.

To add some flutey/cutting high-end, now add in Oscillator 2 and set it to a square wave three octaves above the triangle wave (4’ pitch setting). This makes the sound more organ-like, while helping the sound cut through on smaller speakers/systems.

You should now be hearing something approximating the Korg M1’s ‘Organ 2’ preset but this is just a starting point so feel free to adjust to taste. To add more authenticity, you can try tweaking Oscillator 3 so it plays a 5th above Oscillator 1.

Dial in a half/quarter blend of Osc1 and 2, then switch on Oscillator 3. This is going to add some more meat to the sound. Dial in another triangle wave and set this to 8’ pitch. We now have the basic sonic foundations in place.

Tweak filter cutoff and envelopes to taste. Once recorded into your DAW, add a hall reverb and some chorus for further authenticity. For more grit, add a distortion or overdrive plug-in or feed your synth back into itself. You should now be back in 1993!