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Lando
Full Member

Joined: 08 Feb 2011
Posts: 100
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:01 pm Post subject:

SpIdErWeB wrote:

The size taken in memory is due to the number of samples, length of each samples that needs to be loaded. A drumkit with several different samples for each notes, with different velocities, will surely not take the same amount of RAM than a very long note of a piano.

However, it might be safe to extra-polate the size to get an idea... so it might between 35% and 45% Wink

In the other hand, we can imagine than we can load 12 Gb of Expansion sounds with only 1 Gb of RAM... So with 4 Gb of RAM (and 3 Gb free for samples), we can easily imagine to get something such 36 Gb of Expansion samples...

Since the current Expansions pack are versatile and contain both drumkit, long samples, short samples, various kind of sounds... it should be pretty similar with other Expansions.

In that case, 4Gb would clearly be a huge benefit for the Kronos and put over any competition, even DAW or "PC" keyboard. On 36 Gb, you can get huge Orchestral Library such Symphobia, great guitars such OT Strawberry or Vir2 Acoustic HD, or even lots of Ethnic ones too...WITHOUT loading time when switching between presets... NO other keyboard or DAW can do that!

Phil

The second part would be true if we could stream user samples, which we can not, so no loading 36 gig into 3 free gig memory.

Also comparing piano samples to drum samples: The piano sounds most likely has only the start of each note in memory and the rest of each notes sample streams from the HD. That means that a drumset with 88 short sounds might take just as much memory as a full piano even if the piano (with it's long samples) takes vastly much more space on the HD. The drum samples are mostly kind of short and needs to be completely in memory, the piano only needs it's attack (or at least only a short part of the 30 sec sample).

SpIdErWeB
Full Member

Joined: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 209
Location: France

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:09 pm Post subject:

EXer wrote:

Sorry if my question seems silly to the more technically aware members, but why should 'ROM' or EXs samples be loaded into RAM when the samples can be streamed from the SSD?

In my EX5 and in a Motif XF, the samples can be read from the flash RAM *directly*; isn't a SSD just flash RAM and a controller?

Well, SSD isn't quite the same than ROM or Flash RAM in term of access. Pre-loading of attacks allows to play the beginning of samples while the system is requiring to the SSD to read the rest of multiple samples, which could require a tiny little access time due to the architecture.

DfD on Kontakt or GigaSampler does exactly the same. The rate between Library size and RAM requirement is actually pretty good (at least 1:10, 1:14 in average, and even up to 1:21 in the case of very long non-looped samples for the pianos).

As just explained in the previous post, with more RAM (such 4Gb), it would open the possibilities to use very large amount of samples... That's something not available anywhere, not even on a DAW.

Phil

SpIdErWeB
Full Member

Joined: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 209
Location: France

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:18 pm Post subject:

Lando wrote:

The second part would be true...

No no, it is true... But I'm talking about EXPANSION samples...

Quote:

...if we could stream user samples, which we can not, so no loading 36 gig into 3 free gig memory.

I agree, it would be great to be able to stream our own samples. However, instead to stream user samples, I'd rather like to have an internal EXs builder. You do choose your user samples directly from the Kronos and you build your own EXs... Allowing to use it as any other EXs or even propose it for other customers (to sell or even for free).

The result for the user will be the same, but internally it will avoid the system to deal with non-structural disorganized user samples... By building the EXs, it will certify the Expansion will respect the Korg architecture and requirement to be flawlessly used with the VMT and SSD for the Streaming.

Phil

danatkorg
Product Manager, Korg R&D

Joined: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 4204
Location: California, USA

Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:59 pm Post subject:

EXer wrote:

There are different kinds of flash memory. Two main kinds are NOR and NAND. I'm not an expert here, so don't take what I say as gospel - and with tech, things can always change in the future. All caveats aside, then, comparing the two:

* NOR is more expensive, faster for reads, and much slower for writes. For read purposes only (not writes!), it is considered an alternative to RAM.
* NAND is less expensive, available in higher capacities, slightly slower for reads, and much faster for writes. It is generally considered an alternative to hard drives.

These are general comparisons, and as anyone who's shopped for camera memory cards knows, speed can vary widely.

The Motif uses NOR flash. It's pricey, at $300/GB, and the write speed is noticeably slow, but it's suitable for playing samples directly.

In general, SSDs, memory cards, USB sticks and so on use NAND flash. It can be very fast, but most systems still have to use it in conjunction with RAM. That's why computers, iPods, etc. still have RAM as well as flash.

Hope this helps,

Dan
_________________
Dan Phillips
Manager of Product Development, Korg R&D
Personal website: www.danphillips.com
For technical support, please contact your Korg Distributor: http://www.korg.co.jp/English/Distributors/
Regretfully, I cannot offer technical support directly.
If you need to contact me for purposes other than technical support, please do not send PMs; instead, send email to dan@korgrd.com

EvilDragon
Platinum Member

Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 1992
Location: Croatia

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:12 am Post subject:

SpIdErWeB wrote:

On 36 Gb, you can get huge Orchestral Library such Symphobia, great guitars such OT Strawberry or Vir2 Acoustic HD, or even lots of Ethnic ones too...WITHOUT loading time when switching between presets... NO other keyboard or DAW can do that!

Well, even if we could stream user samples (which we can't), OTS Strawberry relies on Kontakt's scripting to provide the level of playability it provides. Kronos has nothing of such sort inside, so you can forget about it. Same goes with a lot of other excellent-quality Kontakt-based libraries.

I'd be wary of that last statement of yours. You can also preload all the patches you need within Kontakt itself (use instrument banks) to get seamless patch switching!

Flash & The Pan
Guest

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:29 am Post subject:

danatkorg wrote:

EXer wrote:

Agree & disagree, they call up "Pure Marketing", anyways...
I like "Kronos" pretty much,but some here were are only "Homies" not Pro's but we are not idiots, and You are telling us on some point "This is the stupidity of the Krono's RAM memory in 2011"..wait a minute, my old Yamaha 2010 XF includes 128 mb RAM ready to use, plus 751 mb of ROM samples (great ones), plus 2 (two) Gigabytes of "NON-VOLATILE" RAM MEMORY to use how and whatever I want it or need it and I'm able to use all that Memory at the same time!!!!.
In Kronos you need to choose from?...yeah, the pianos, but not the Moog Synth, the arp...?, yeah but not the Ob strings...Gosh,what kind of 2011 memory is this?The Synth sounds terrific in some ways, but be honest to the future costumers...Memory designed Failed!! so far and for now is Junk! memory, don't come to me with the sweetness words to try to fooling US not in 2011!
-KRONOS RAM SYSTEM IS A SHAME AND YOU KNOW THIS FROM THE SCRATCH-

zahush76
Junior Member

Joined: 09 Mar 2011
Posts: 98

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:12 am Post subject:

danatkorg wrote:

zahush76 wrote:

1) Can i unload specific sounds or do i have to unload the whole expansion? For example, if i don't like the trumpet sound from the brass expansion - can i unload that specific sound or do i have to unload the complete expansion?

Yes, you can load and/or unload specific sounds from an EXs.

zahush76 wrote:

2) What is the relative size of the expansions when translated to what goes into ram?
If i give up the 4.7 gb german grand piano expansion - how much ram gets free?

216 MB.

Hope this helps,

Dan

That's great! Thanks, and sorry about earlier.
I think one grand piano would be more than enough for me.
Right now, on my nord stage, i use one grand piano and never use the others.
I would also unload many of the brass sounds. So according to your math it should be more than 500mb of free ram if i give up these sounds.

Another question that comes to mind is sample compression. I know nord's sample editor uses some kind of data compression technique without loosing quality, so you can get the samples in about 1\2 or even 1\3 of their original size.

Is this possible with the kronos's sample editor?

Thanks

rrricky rrrecordo
Senior Member

Joined: 26 Jan 2011
Posts: 448

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 4:45 am Post subject:

Quote:

memories... of the way we were

Different memory management, I guess. The whole package seems to run nicely, sounds great from what I've heard, and you can load in stuff, that's all most people will need to be happy I think.

I have an XS with 1GB memory installed, and its cool. Sounds like Kronos can do better, maybe 4GB? That's wicked Very Happy

mrk
Junior Member

Joined: 31 Jan 2011
Posts: 58

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:59 am Post subject:

Flash & The Pan wrote:

What 'stupidity' are you talking about? (Sorry, did not understand your statment completely.)

Quote:

..wait a minute, my old Yamaha 2010 XF

...old.. that thing is so new, that it is still warm! Wink

Quote:

includes 128 mb RAM ready to use, plus 751 mb of ROM samples (great ones), plus 2 (two) Gigabytes of "NON-VOLATILE" RAM MEMORY to use how and whatever I want it or need it and I'm able to use all that Memory at the same time!!!!.

The Kronos includes 1 (one) Gigabyte RAM ready to use plus 32 Gigabytes "NON-VOLATILE" MEMORY and you can use all that 'at the same time!!!!.'

How long does it take after creating a 1min audio track in sequencer mode to put that sample into the non-volatile Flash in the XF? As far as I know the "COPY TO FLASH" takes longer than the usual file loading on the XS, which is about 1.5MiB/s. This means on equal speed it would take 10sec to store that 1min stereo sample to flash. On Kronos this action is just instant. Even the screen redraw on a XS/XF takes longer than that.

So with this multi-layered memory approach of SSD/memory/CPU you can have direct access to way more than to 2GB sample data. This approach is not only 'not stupid', but the way almost all computer hardware is doing it in the last 40 years.

Quote:

In Kronos you need to choose from?...yeah, the pianos, but not the Moog Synth, the arp...?, yeah but not the Ob strings...

Well, if you have too much samples, then you have to choose - as on any other platform. But talking of EXs you can have a way bigger amount of samples for direct use on Kronos than on a XF, so I don't understand your point.

Quote:

Gosh,what kind of 2011 memory is this?The Synth sounds terrific in some ways, but be honest to the future costumers...Memory designed Failed!!

Could you elaborate a little more how this memory design is failed?

Quote:

so far and for now is Junk! memory, don't come to me with the sweetness words to try to fooling US not in 2011! -KRONOS RAM SYSTEM IS A SHAME AND YOU KNOW THIS FROM THE SCRATCH-

Then your PC, cell phone, server, whatever RAM system is also a shame -- as it is the same...

danatkorg
Product Manager, Korg R&D

Joined: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 4204
Location: California, USA

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:08 am Post subject:

zahush76 wrote:

Another question that comes to mind is sample compression. I know nord's sample editor uses some kind of data compression technique without loosing quality, so you can get the samples in about 1\2 or even 1\3 of their original size.

Is this possible with the kronos's sample editor?

Thanks

That would be cool, but no. EXs samples use lossless compression for a modest reduction in size, but user samples are entirely uncompressed.

Best regards,

Dan
_________________
Dan Phillips
Manager of Product Development, Korg R&D
Personal website: www.danphillips.com
For technical support, please contact your Korg Distributor: http://www.korg.co.jp/English/Distributors/
Regretfully, I cannot offer technical support directly.
If you need to contact me for purposes other than technical support, please do not send PMs; instead, send email to dan@korgrd.com

zahush76
Junior Member

Joined: 09 Mar 2011
Posts: 98

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:52 am Post subject:

danatkorg wrote:

EXs samples use lossless compression for a modest reduction in size

Thanks again.

Speaking of EXs - now that i saw on the KARO site the "Karo goes kronos" title, and (i know it isn't official, but non the less) new EXs might be available:
In that case, a new EX that i buy from karo will be streaminig from the ssd, or will it behave like user samples that has to be preloaded into ram?

I'm specifically looking at the Philharmonic Strings library and i see it uses 2gb. Does that translate into 2gb on the ssd and only a portion of that goes into ram - or all of it...? Rolling Eyes

Thanks.

SpIdErWeB
Full Member

Joined: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 209
Location: France

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:48 pm Post subject:

EvilDragon wrote:

I'd be wary of that last statement of yours. You can also preload all the patches you need within Kontakt itself (use instrument banks) to get seamless patch switching!

Nope, it won't work as seamlessly than the Kronos. Kontakt doesn't handle well sample sharing.

I've been working for Open Labs R&D over 4 years (until 2010), doing all this kind of test and haven't find a single software that could manage memory and sample sharing the way Korg does.

The only one I know, was Proteus X which has great filters and good sample management, but the VST plugin wasn't well written/coded and wasn't very stable (That's the reason why it has been removed for lastest Gen).

I haven't check the new Gen6 so I don't know if it's still the case now, but as long the sample management and sample player will be part of the "hosting" environment, I doubt it'll be any change in this domain...

Phil

Last edited by SpIdErWeB on Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

SpIdErWeB
Full Member

Joined: 24 Sep 2005
Posts: 209
Location: France

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:03 pm Post subject:

EvilDragon wrote:

BTW, learn to read... I wrote "we could get huge library SUCH...", and haven't write "we could get THESE libraries".

Even if it would be really great to have some evolved conditional scripting included directly in the HD-1, it doesn't matter in my comment.

The SGX-1 pianos sounds probably as good as Ivory, even thought it doesn't use the same "scripting" or so than Ivory...

KARO library surely sounds as good as IK Multimedia Philarmonik, even thought it doesn't use the same "scripting" than SampleTank...

The examples I wrote are just an example of Sound quality we could get... Look the difference between Oasys EXs-2 Piano, and the Kronos EXs-6 Piano... Size matters in this case! 500 Mb in one side and 4.7 Gb in the other one.

Do the same with Guitars, Strings, etc... and the keyboard will sound as well as what we do know with huge libraries on computer.

That was my point...

Phil

zahush76
Junior Member

Joined: 09 Mar 2011
Posts: 98

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:23 pm Post subject:

SpIdErWeB wrote:

Look the difference between Oasys EXs-2 Piano, and the Kronos EXs-6 Piano... Size matters in this case! 500 Mb in one side and 4.7 Gb in the other one.

Do the same with Guitars, Strings, etc... and the keyboard will sound as well as what we do know with huge libraries on computer.

That was my point...

Phil

Exactly.
In all video demos with rich f, he repeats saying:

Quote:

instead of dealing with a rom size that's measured in megabytes, we've got nearly 12 gb worth of sound that we can play back directly from that solid state drive

.

After taking both grand pianos that inhabit 9gb - you are left with less than 3 gb for hundreds of sounds.
Sorry, but that means that all these sounds - strings, brass etc - are still "measured in megabytes".
I really hope larger samples will be available for the kronos.

BTW, i noticed that on the pdf document of karo's orchestral library, there's the strings and also the ex-3 brass expansion. I assume that part is already in the kronos (the brass, that is)?

EvilDragon
Platinum Member

Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Posts: 1992
Location: Croatia

Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2011 3:38 pm Post subject:

SpIdErWeB wrote:

Nope, it won't work as seamlessly than the Kronos. Kontakt doesn't handle well sample sharing.

Yes, it will. Sample sharing - it does it beautifully. All bugs regarding sample sharing were fixed in the latest 4.2 version, so this statement of yours is no longer true.

Instrument banks have always worked beautifully over here, too.

Oh. We still don't have round-robin on these workstations of today... Laughing

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