The NS5R has 32 'parts' available.
All of these are used by the demo songs

It comes with two MIDI ports - one 'standard' and one Korg 'PC-to-host'.

I've got both connected.

Now you might think that one MIDI port would address 16 of the parts and the other the other 16.
But No! according to everything I've found so far, you have 16 incoming MIDI channels - which you can assign to any of the 32 parts. But playing the thing over MIDI - over either or both ports - you can only access 16 of them at any one time.

So, what am I missing. Does anyone know of a way to address all of the 32 parts over MIDI. Is there some bit of MIDI code (eg sysex messages) that I can use to 'expand' the usual 16 MIDI channels to 32? Can you set one MIDI port to access 1-16 and the other to access 17-32? I feel I am missing out on half my NS5R.

The sequencer software is CubaseVST on a PC (Win98)

Cheers.....

you might want to check out the NS5R sites at... http://www.synthzone.com/korg.htm

PhilD, one midi port allows you to access only 16 parts at time , not more (some synths are suited therefore with 2 midi ports
such as Proteus 2000). All of the 32 multi parts are accessible via PC-to-Host port connected to PC's serial. All you need is just to install the KORG PC/IF driver. When you perform this, you can see KORG PC/IF Synth A and KORG PC/IF Synth B in your midi-devices list, both of them include 16 midi channels playable simultaniuosly through one connection. Good luck!

I would like to thank Renny and WS for their help - and thank Korg for being particularly unhelpful.

1. The Korg website (korg.com) appears to have info only about their current product range and no historical info/downloads.

Renny: after reading your reply I had a bit more of a play with my PC MIDI interface settings. You see I didn't have 'synth A and synth B' just 'Default MIDI interface'.

So for any other NS5R users out there (and the same is probably true for the new NX5R to get 48 channels), here's what you do:

Assuming the Korg PC MIDI interface driver is already loaded (you may get an option for this when you set it up I can't remember), go to Control Panel->Multimedia and click the 'Devices' Tab. Expand 'MIDI Devices and Instruments' and you should find the Korg Default MIDI interface. Select this and click the 'Properties' button. A new window opens - click on the 'Settings' button and you get a Korg settings screen 'Korg PC I/F Driver 1.3'. If the section 'Synth Out Messages' is greyed-out, you need to enable the 'Independent Synth / MIDI Out' check-box. 'OK' all the way out and restart Windows (it will tell you to do this). If you go through into ControlPanel->Multimedia->Devices this time you will see 4 options for KORG PC MIDI interface: 'interface out' 'port' and 'synth A'/'B'.
Now I don't recall the Korg manual explaining this (or I would have done it when I installed the driver.....)