MIDI/Korg M1R/Scala help request

Hi all,

I find myself in possession of a Korg M1R synth, which is supposedly[1] capable of being retuned via sysex dump. The problem is, I'm still fairly ignorant when it comes to MIDI. Also, I don't have a manual for the M1R (I've purchased one online in PDF form, but haven't received the download link yet).

I've got the M1R connected to my laptop with an M-Audio USB Midi 1x1, and have been trying to talk to it with Scala, but with unsatisfactory results. When I try Scala's Chromatic Clavier, I can get a note, but it takes several more attempts to get another note to sound. The Chords dialog isn't working either -- the most I get from any chord is a single note. And I don't understand how to produce a sysex tuning dump and send it to the M1R. (BTW, Scala works very nicely with my USB Sound Blaster Audigy 2NX.)

So I guess I have a few specific questions:

- Does anyone have any experience using Scala with a Korg M1R?
- Does anyone have any experience in general with the M1R?
- Can someone point me at a good general MIDI resource that includes an explanation of sysex messages?

I've been working as a programmer for about 20 years, so I'm up for any good technical resource. I also have at my disposal a Roland EP-7 II keyboard, an Evolution UC-16 controller (which I'm learning to use with Csound), and I just installed MIDI-OX. But I'm somewhat at sea trying to figure out how all this stuff works together.

- Dave

[1] http://home.austin.rr.com/ginasbaskets/microtonal-synthesis/micro_gm.html