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I agree with most of the (positive) comments on here - definitely a keyboard player's synth, not a knob-twiddler's toy. Built to last. You probably already know the features and specs, so I won't go into it here. In my setup, this board serves the role of "secondary controller" with my digital piano (Yamaha Clavinova) being the main one. The M1 is what I turn to for organ, string pads (except when I need a really gritty analog one), glassy synth pads, bells, DX piano, and all those crystalline PCM voices you can't get with an analog. In a nutshell, for anything but piano (patch #41 - yuck!) and analog sounds, which I have other keyboards for. Not really great for leads unless you can program a good one, which can probably be done (but lack of portamento and resonant filter rob from that possiblilty a great deal).
Great keyboard feel (Korg finally stopped using that clunky Panasonic keyboard and provided a class-A DX7 feeling keyboard with this one). There are lots of negative comments about the joystick, but I happen to prefer the joystick over mod and pitch wheels, it's just so much easier to use - your pitch bends and modulations are all right there in one control. Korg's AI synthesis engine is a little diffucult to understand at first, but it's a lot easier than FM synthesis since it's based on PCM samples, and except for the unique "variable digital filter" most of the controls are analog-style editing, so it's pretty easy to get the hang of it once you've experimented for a couple days.
Got a great software editor/librarian for it - M1LibEd by October 28 Software - only $25! - I gladly paid the author of the program to get full functionality and get rid of the nag screens. You can get a much better grasp of editing the M1 with this software, no more embedded menus to page through, and graphical editing of envelopes. It also edits and stores combos as well as regular voices, and can request the entire contents of your M1 in one quick system dump. http://www.october28.com/m1libed_home.asp
Anyway, what more can I say about this board, it just looks great, sounds great, and still holds it own alongside today's much more featured romplers. I'm glad it's not GS compatible (yuck!). I've thought about getting a DX5 or DX7II for a second digital board, but with this I have absolultely no need for an FM synth. PCM is just so much more real (and ethereal) sounding, no wonder it was the one board that finally eclipsed the DX7 in the sales department.
My other keyboards are an 88-key Yamaha Clavinova (absolute best piano and weighted keyboard feel ever in a digital instrument), Korg DW8000, and Korg DSS1 - the latter two serving as my source for analog sounds.
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