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Korg iM1 / Darwin and Parallel Effects: Intended Behavior or Potential Bug?

thecalimakithecalimaki
edited December 2025 in General App Discussion

Hi, I’ve just noticed something peculiar about the way Korg Darwin (in Gadget) handles Parallel Effects in programs compared to iM1 (in Standalone or AUV3).

The only FX controls in Darwin are two Wet/Dry knobs corresponding to FX 1 & FX 2 in iM1. Seems pretty straightforward, but iM1 also allows you to choose from a predefined list of Parallel Effects, which allows you to route the dry signal separately to two different effects, all while only using one FX slot.

The complication here is that now there are two Wet/Dry knobs in iM1 under one FX slot, while there is still only one knob in Darwin.

I’ll use the “079 - JH DistGtr” program from the Bunmay expansion card here as an example, but the same behavior persists across all factory or user programs that use Parallel Effects.

In iM1, the program has “Delay / Hall” loaded in FX 2, with the delay set to a 19% dry/wet level and the reverb set to a 100% dry/wet level. When using this same program in Darwin, the single FX 2 knob is set to a 19% dry/wet level, AND it seems to apply this SAME level to BOTH the delay and reverb, at least based from what my ears are hearing.

So the default state of this same program sounds different between iM1 & Darwin, and there isn’t really a way to perfectly recreate the original sound in Darwin since the dry/wet levels are seemingly equalized. It seemingly overrides the programmed settings of the Parallel Effect by applying the same Wet/Dry level to both effects, regardless of what you dialed in in iM1.

I would have expected the Dry/Wet knob in Darwin to maintain the relative mix/balance of the original when dealing with Parallel Effects.

What do you guys think? Is this the intended behavior or a potential bug? Thanks.

TLDR: Programs that use Parallel Effects will sound different in Darwin if there is a large difference between the dry/wet levels of the two (parallel) effects in iM1. This is because Darwin seems to ignore the dry/wet level of the second effect (set in iM1), instead equating it to the dry/wet level of the first effect (set in iM1).

Comments

  • thecalimakithecalimaki
    edited December 2025

    I know this is a bit of a asinine complaint, but I’m not really sure I like the fact that I could be blindly browsing presets in Darwin without realizing that they may not sound exactly the same as they were programmed in iM1.

    I only realized this when I came across “79 - JH DistGtr” in the Bunmay card and realizing that it sounded identical to “73 - JH SynGtr2” just a few programs prior.

    Upon checking both programs in iM1, the only difference between the two was that SynGtr2 had the reverb portion of the parallel fx set to a 22% wet/dry level, while DistGtr had the reverb set to a 100% wet/dry level. For both programs, the delay portion of the parallel fx was set to a 19% wet/dry level.

    So only one knob differed between the two programs in iM1, but the difference in sound was very noticeable. But in Gadget, Darwin then seems to convert the reverb on both programs to a 19% wet/dry level, presumably to be the same as the delay.

  • wimwim

    Be sure to let Korg tech support know. There's a good chance they'll get that fixed sometime before 2049.

  • SamuSamu

    Darwin is just a ‘simplified’ playback version of the iM1 with a few relative controls by design.

    I’d rather see Korg spend some effort on bringing AUv3 support to their other apps but at this phase it’ll take until at least 2030 if we get lucky :sunglasses:

  • thecalimakithecalimaki

    @Samu said:
    Darwin is just a ‘simplified’ playback version of the iM1 with a few relative controls by design.

    I’d rather see Korg spend some effort on bringing AUv3 support to their other apps but at this phase it’ll take until at least 2030 if we get lucky :sunglasses:

    Yeah, but I would have assumed that the same patch would sound identical (in its default state) whether in iM1 or Darwin. This is an (admittedly uncommon) case where Darwin changes the default value of a parameter compared to what was programmed in iM1. Although, I guess I could live with simply avoiding Parallel Effects in iM1 to reduce potential discrepancies with Darwin. The amount of times I’ll run into this issue will admittedly be very insignificant lol.

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