For me the chord triggers have always been kind of useless and I really wanted to use them for other purposes, like program changes. I followed this tutorial for the M3 from Jerry(http://www.korg.com/ClassDetail.aspx?ID=111), and Rich Formidoni's RPPR video(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH6TqFbskDc, excellent job Rich). It took a workaround to get it on the M50 but it works. I have posted my sample SEQ here if you want to download and have a look:
http://sites.google.com/site/justincarp ... RDTRIG.SNG
In my example press trigger 1 for plain M50 Grand Piano, trigger 2 for an EP with a Phaser effect, trigger 3 for an organ with some distortion and Leslie, and 4 for a pad. You could make you own with any combination you like.
The idea is that you set up a song and record some sysex data into a track in realtime, such as a track program change, and IFX routing change (I can explain more if anyone is interested, on the M3 this is possble by simply adding the sysex messages, but I did not find anywhere you could do this on M50 so I just hit record and did it in real time). Then move them into the first beat using P6-Track Edit->topmenu->Event Edit. Change it to the first beat and cut/insert as needed to get it there (this is the M50 workaround). Next set up a pattern on P10 and get the data from the track using topmenu->'Get From Track'. Then you assign the pattern to a key via RPPR, and then play the key with a Chord Trigger (I had to turn off RPPR to assign the Chord Trigger). Erase the track. The end result is that you can set up the 4 chord triggers to goto 4 different programs on the fly. They cause a program change to the track your switching, so there is no 'polyphony stealing' that you might have with an effect muting scheme.
You can also change the effects routing at the same time which I am doing in this example. One other cool thing is that the notes from the current sound don't stop for the program change, they continue to sound. You can switch back and forth and holding the keys or using the damper you can play over the previous sound (until you run out of polyphony of course). There is bleed through on the effects and EQ however so its not perfect, but better than a hard cutoff.
Two drawbacks:
-I have the 88 so I lose the bottom octave and a half like all RPPR, and 4 other of the top keys for the assignments. But that's not a too bad price to pay for the functionality. I still have 5+ octaves. I'm not sure how that works out on 61 or 73.
-You can only use 5 IFX and you can't swap those out. You must pick 5, although you can change the mapping anyway you like. But you could also use the MFX for a 6th and 7th effect by sending only one timbre to them if you really needed them.
There are other uses, in fact anything you can record into a track and copy to a pattern can be used this way. These are outlined on page 211 of the Parameter Guide. This application is just the tip of the iceberg.
-You could perform multiple program changes to switch layered sounds as well. Just be sure to set the MIDI channel to the same as the track you are playing. All the EQ data is recordable also.
-It would be really fun to control the ARPs to pick different beats and bass lines. Copy a Combi to a song, program a few beat & bass changes and you could create a 'mini-arranger' on the chord triggers. I'm trying this next!
-How about a dedicated piano song that has 4 different EQs assigned so you could bring out the sound in the mix with a button push preset instead of the twist of a knob (that might not be better, just an idea).
-You could assign 1 of the buttons to mute a different track and the other to unmute to bring in another sound. That would be like two more switches like SW1 & SW2!
-It would also be really fun to play with the effects and LFO settings.
Let me know what you think! And kudo's to Korg just for making such a configurable workstation at this price point. Where else can you get this for about $1000 ?!? I am one happy customer!
