Building custom effects and oscillators is one of the coolest things a musician, or anyone imho, can do. Not only do you get the ability to build unique, custom sounds, but the bragging rights that comes with it. Unfortunately, sometimes the barrier to entry is daunting. So much so, it turns many away from what would have otherwised been a fullfilling experience.

To remedy this, I've written up this tutorial on how to install everything necessary to begin writing custom effects and oscillators. I chose Linux because it was both easier to setup, and offers a more fluid developing experience compared to Windows (I don't have any Macs, lol). That being said, you absolutely can setup your machine to do this on Windows or Mac. Here's a great tutorial for setting up Windows with MSYS. That all being said, let's begin!

For this tutorial, I'll be using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. You are welcome to use any Linux distro you choose, but know that you might need to change the commands to download things accordingly.

First things first, let's make a directory to keep our code. You may name this folder whatever you like, but for this example, we'll name our new directory, "Code."

mkdir Code

Now let's move into the new directory.

cd Code

Before continuing, let's make sure we have Git installed.

git --version

If it's installed, it'll display the version. If not, you'll need to install Git.

sudo apt install git

You'll also need some additional software. Confirm all three of these are installed.

tar --version
bzip2 --version
make --version

Now let's clone the Logue-SDK repository into our new directory.

git clone https://github.com/korginc/logue-sdk.git

Move into the repository.

cd logue-sdk

Pull the submodules into the repository.

git submodule update --init

Install the ARM compilers.

sudo apt install gcc-arm-none-eabi

Next, we'll install the ARM compilers provided by Korg.
First, move into the compiler script directory.

cd tools/gcc/

Then, run the provided script.

./get_gcc_5_4-2016q3_linux.sh

After the script finishes installing the compilers, move to the NTS-1 mk 1 directory.

cd ../../platform/nutekt-digital/

Pull down the Reverse-Echo Delay FX from Github.

git clone https://github.com/MKoussa/reverse-echo.git

Move into the directory.

cd reverse-echo

Make the effect!

make

If everything worked, you'll have compiled the reverse-echo.ntkdigunit file!
If not, see the Troubleshooting area below.

Now let's install the Logue-SDK CLI tool. This is how we'll be interfacing the with physical NTS-1 unit. First, let's move into the install directory.

cd ~/Code/logue-sdk/tools/logue-cli

Run the provided installation script.

./get_logue_cli_linux.sh

Run the Logue CLI and probe your USB ports

./logue-cli-linux64-0.07-2b/logue-cli probe

Congratulations, you're ready to start building your own custom effects and oscillators using the Korg Logue-SDK!