Korg Forums

[Space Girl]

I need to know if all my purchased EXs will fit ok on my K2 if I overwrite all the factory progs or most.
I just got my 2nd K2 and want to have one with factory progs (or some at least) and the other with all my purchased EXs but have no clue if they will fit ok sample wise that is.

Also not sure about Bank Types because I think mostly they use EXi I am not sure if any use the other bank type.

Here is the list, I think that's everything but I do not know if it will work especially because most use the same UG bank. In past on my first K2 I had to load them into other UF, UFF, UEE, IntA, IntB etc and then resolve the Wavsequences as they all pointed to the UG bank. I had to point each wavSeq to the new Bank and sure it would have been easier way to do it as it takes an eternity.

Anyone know if this will work or what challenges I might face?

EXs47 Symphonic Dreams 4 Epic Choirs, Drums & Textures
EXs117 Neural Dimensions
EXS-77 Granular Dreams 1
EXS-220 Epic Monumental Choir
EXS-29 Legacy 8 Bit Classics
EXS-27 Famous 12Bit Kult Sampler Vol. 2
Bolder EXS-162 Hammered Dulcimer
Bolder EXS-105 Crystals
KRS-33 EXi Atmospheres 3
KRS32 EXi Atmospheres 2
EXS-231 Voices of Native American V2
KAPRO Legendary Blue EXS-278
KAPRO Legendary Blue EXS-279
EXS-109 Bolder
EXS-138 Outer Space Ambience
EXS-17 SGX-2 Berlin D Piano
EXS-18 EXs Collections
EXS-19 KApro's Private Collections
EXS-94 Giant Evolve Drones
EXS-72 Modular Dreams

Would it be better to stretch my EXs patches across 2 Kronos's? I'd prefer to do it on one if possible. Anyone else done this or similar?

[voip]

That is quite a collection of Kronos sound expansions. Add together all of the soundpack sizes to see if they will fit onto the available space on the Kronos SSD. Based on the Korg Shop listings, EXs47, for example, requires 1.1GB, and EXs117 requires 1.7GB.

.

[AntonySharmman]

The only pros is that K2 SSD can support in size all those EXs sample contents
BUT
- Even if you overwrite all factory Program slots , you don't have enough Program banks to fit all those program contents.
- Even if you unload all factory EXs (uncheck Preload.KSC) your available user Ram is less than 1/2 of required Ram (in streaming mode) for having
on board all EXs samples loaded.

It's crystal clear that you can't have them all loaded !

- The best way is to make category groups of those EXs , loading some of them per time until fill available Ram to the limit , create some User Program
banks per group and save PCG & KSC files for loading them when needed ...
- Another way is to create partial Programs of the sounds you need , unload all , load required samples per Program sound and save PCG & KSC files
with samples reference.

Hope this helps
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[pete.m]

There are a few things to consider here;

You can change the bank types easily enough. I'm not at my Kronos at the moment, but I think it's in the Global menu.

As has been pointed out, your RAM won't be able to take all your expansions, even though they'll all fit onto your SSD. You could get around it by loading only the bits of each expansion that you actually want, and also by having different Auto-loads and PCGs for each project.

As far as the program banks are concerned, obviously you won't be able to fit all the programs from the expansions into the PCG banks, even without considering the preset programs that you'll want to keep. What works for me is to load the expansion, and then to audition its programs to see how much of it will ever be of use to me. To do that, I first needed to clear a bank, which I did by reorganising and getting rid of old programs that I would never need - there's plenty of those, at least half of the Factory PCG contents.

I'm sure you'll find that there's an awful lot of duplication (or near-duplication) going on in the expansions as well, and that you'll only need maybe one of (say) ten virtually identical piano or choir sounds. Out of a bank's worth of 128 piano sounds that I loaded last year, I ended up keeping fewer than 10. That might sound like a waste, but it wasn't. I can definitely say that I've only kept the right sounds for me, and that I still have space in my PCG for other things.

Ultimately, it all comes down to taking some time out to plan. If you're using two Ks, then dividing the expansions across the two in a way that fits your view of what you do sounds like a good possibility. If you then cut out all the stuff you don't need, I'm sure that you'll eventually get the set-up that suits you.
As I mentioned above, my first step when doing this sort of thing has been to work through the presets and get rid of all the makeweight programs - stuff like unusable saxophones, weak trombones and trumpets, duplicated piano and guitar sounds etc etc. These days, my PCG bears no relation to its original factory state, it has many hundreds of sounds from expansions and other assorted new programs. I have too many sounds to choose from, and I still have around five free program banks to use when I need them.
It's just going to take you a fair bit of time to truly organise it, but you'll only need to do it once and your Ks will be much more rewarding when it's done.

[Space Girl]

I appreciate your replies on this, thanks.

I have sort of done this a bit with my first K2, in removing unused instruments, adding parts of expansions & making PCGs of ones I use a lot.

Now I know that this won't all fit on my 2nd K2, I can maybe spread part of my expansions across both K2's and do what you said in removing more unusable sounds / instruments on my newer factory set K2.

If I'd have know more about this when I had my first K2, I'd have been able to organize it better.

I always knew I had way too many piano's, bass and hip hop / rap & drums that i'll never use. Just unsure which Piano's most factory combi's use, so have kept all of them just incase. Only recently started removing Jap Piano samples to make space to load.

Also still wondering why so many of the same drum kits in the GE bank, think that's what it's called ? If I remove these, does it make much difference or space? Assume they use most of the same samples.

Still learning after 2 years of owning K2.

[pete.m]

Yes, I agree with you about wishing I'd known some of this stuff early on. I also wish I had been braver about really getting stuck into unwanted programs early on, but I eventually couldn't avoid noticing the many hundreds of presets that just weren't 'me'. Now that they're gone, and have been replaced with stuff that I do like, it's so much quicker and easier for me to find sounds that help me.

Unlike you, though, I've never bothered with combis in my songs, and so all the reorganisation of programs has been much easier for me. Maybe if you could isolate the combis that really matter to you - same as with the programs - then the remapping could work out relatively smoothly. I've never used any of the editor/librarian programmes that are available - maybe they might help.

No idea about your drum kit question, unfortunately. With a little luck, once you sort out exactly what you're going to want to keep from your expansion packs, you might find that removing other samples from the Factory presets is no longer neccessary.

Finally, don't forget to back up regularly as you work through it all.

[pete.m]

I've taken another look at what you're trying to do, and I think it's probably a lot simpler than it first looked.

I started by working through your list of expansions to find out how much data is actually involved. Here's what I came up with;

SSD - The total disk space required for all the expansions is around 25gb, and so they'll easily fit on to one Kronos SSD.
RAM - Each Kronos has 3gb of RAM, 1gb of which is swallowed up by the Factory set (and a few other bits), leaving 2gb free on each Kronos. You'll be streaming your expansions, and the virtual memory they require is only about 1.57gb. So you can fit it all onto one Kronos. Maybe there's something I don't understand here - Anthony mentioned earlier in this thread that there wouldn't be enough RAM to stream them all, but that isn't how it looked to me.
MULTIS/SAMPLES - There's a limit of 4,000 multis and 16,000 samples per Kronos, but I don't think they come into play if you're streaming and so there's no problem there. Perhaps someone can confirm that.
PROGRAM SLOTS - Each Kronos has 20 banks of 128 programs, so 2,560 in total or 5,120 for your two Ks. The total number of presets for your expansions is just under 2,000, or a little over 15 banks' worth.

All of this gives you a number of options, none of which involve
having to delete any of the sample data that came with the Kronos.

1. You can use one Kronos exactly as it is now, and use the second purely for your expansions. In this case, you'd just overwrite the presets on the second one with the expansion's presets. You mentioned that you'd had problems before because new presets had to be loaded into certain banks, but that isn't the case - you can choose to place them wherever you want during the loading confirmation process by changing the destination bank.
The advantages to this option are that it's the quickest to do, and your combis don't get disturbed. The disadvantage is that you have thousands of presets that you'll almost certainly never use.
2. You could do it all on one Kronos. First, you'd need to filter out all the factory presets you don't want, and reorganising them should leave you with a lot of empty banks (you can change the bank type if need be, as I mentioned before). Then you'd load in the expansions one by one, and keep only the presets that you really want from each one. The disadvantage to this way is that it takes longer. The advantages are that you end up with the perfect PCG for yourself, and you no longer need your second Kronos.
3. You could do something between the two, and decide what expansions you'd prefer on which Kronos.

I think all this will work, but it would help if someone else could point out any potential pitfalls. Hope this helps, anyway.