Electribe Sampler (ES2) confusion...

[Calpal91]

Hey guys. I recently got the new ES2 and am quite confused by the sample memory/saving samples to the internal memory. I had an ESX-1 and had thought the ES2 would be similar in how it handled saving samples but am so lost I had to create an account on here to ask for help. So here is my dilemma.

[The Problem] I was under the impression that you once you "Import" samples from the SD card they are saved on to the internal memory of the ES2. I will import a sample from SD card put it into a pattern and write the pattern with the sample. When I turn off the ES2 sampler and turn it back on the sample is no longer on there and I have to re-import to the same spot. Furthermore I have been able to import a sample into a pattern, take the SD card out and it will play fine (as if it were saved onto internal memory) but even though i've written the patterns with the sample, upon turning it back on it's gone again...

[My Question] Shouldn't the samples be saved onto the ES2 after I import them from the SD card? Does the ES2 have internal memory to save to? Am I not saving my patterns correctly? Do I need to have the SD card in for it to play samples I want to import? Do I need to re-import the samples every time I turn it on?

I noticed that when I "export all samples" it will save a file (which takes a while to load upon turning it on) but will have the samples saved on it as a (.all) file, do I need to "Export all samples" every time I've made a change to my patterns so that they load up with my samples when I turn it back on? Do I need to export everything to a file which imports it all again?

Would really appreciate some help and insight from the forum. I have tried to figure this out from other posts but can't quite get a full answer from other's discussions. This has been very frustrating.

*Further details that might be useful, I deleted a bunch of the factory samples but have left on enough to mix in with ones I'd like to import*

*I am building one big set of patterns to play all together*

[djkenstone]

This really confused me also.

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=98089

As far as I can tell the E2S uses the SD card and the .all file for us to save our samples to. So yes it appears we have to keep doing the export all, which takes forever, and let it import the .all file from the SD card every time it powers up.

Also does anyone know if there a way to see how much memory (seconds) is used and how much is available for samples?

[Calpal91]

It just makes no sense to do that.

Especially when I can import a bunch of samples TAKE OUT THE SD CARD and they play just fine as if they were saved into internal memory.

[gizmoismogwai]

Hey there. I hope I can explain this clearly. Here goes.

The ES2 does have internal memory but it's a bit funny. It persistently stores Pattern data even when it gets shut down. You might have noticed that, though.

The audio portion of the memory is volatile, which is to say that it does not persistently store anything after a shut down unless you specifically back up the current memory state to an SD card. When this is done it gets stored as a ".all" file that is named specifically. When the ES2 boots up it looks to the SD card for this .all file and if it is present loads it into the memory, effectively bringing things back to where you left off when you shut down. It's not as straightforward as the ESX but it's not hard to get used to.

To export your samples and create the .all file you want to go into the menu's Data submenu and look for EXPORT SAMPLE ALL. This copies every sample to the .all file. Depending on how much you have in there it can take a couple of minutes. Once you've done this once for any given set of samples you want to work with you won't have to do it again until you either add/subtract a sample or make changes (like changing loop points) to old ones. But if you're only dealing with one or two new samples or changes then you could instead use EXPORT SAMPLE which would write a single sample to the .all file. Thus you wouldn't have to wait for the machine to needlessly store everything all over again.

Once that .all file is on the card, you can back it up to your computer and rename it. If you wanted to you could put the renamed file back on the card and at any time load that specific set of files in. But remember that the original .all file needs to be present and named what the ES2 named it in order for the sampler to boot into that state.

I hope that all makes sense!

[Calpal91]

Hey there. I hope I can explain this clearly. Here goes.

The ES2 does have internal memory but it's a bit funny. It persistently stores Pattern data even when it gets shut down. You might have noticed that, though.

The audio portion of the memory is volatile, which is to say that it does not persistently store anything after a shut down unless you specifically back up the current memory state to an SD card. When this is done it gets stored as a ".all" file that is named specifically. When the ES2 boots up it looks to the SD card for this .all file and if it is present loads it into the memory, effectively bringing things back to where you left off when you shut down. It's not as straightforward as the ESX but it's not hard to get used to.

To export your samples and create the .all file you want to go into the menu's Data submenu and look for EXPORT SAMPLE ALL. This copies every sample to the .all file. Depending on how much you have in there it can take a couple of minutes. Once you've done this once for any given set of samples you want to work with you won't have to do it again until you either add/subtract a sample or make changes (like changing loop points) to old ones. But if you're only dealing with one or two new samples or changes then you could instead use EXPORT SAMPLE which would write a single sample to the .all file. Thus you wouldn't have to wait for the machine to needlessly store everything all over again.

Once that .all file is on the card, you can back it up to your computer and rename it. If you wanted to you could put the renamed file back on the card and at any time load that specific set of files in. But remember that the original .all file needs to be present and named what the ES2 named it in order for the sampler to boot into that state.

I hope that all makes sense!

Thank you!

So each time I hit export all it will overwrite the previous file to update the set of patterns etc i'm working on?

I gotta say that's a pretty stupid workflow decision by Korg. I can't save my own samples into the factory sample slots but those factory samples add to the load times of the .all files? Damn...makes me miss my ESX-1, none the less i'm gonna try to make it work.

Cheers

[gizmoismogwai]

Hey there. I hope I can explain this clearly. Here goes.

The ES2 does have internal memory but it's a bit funny. It persistently stores Pattern data even when it gets shut down. You might have noticed that, though.

The audio portion of the memory is volatile, which is to say that it does not persistently store anything after a shut down unless you specifically back up the current memory state to an SD card. When this is done it gets stored as a ".all" file that is named specifically. When the ES2 boots up it looks to the SD card for this .all file and if it is present loads it into the memory, effectively bringing things back to where you left off when you shut down. It's not as straightforward as the ESX but it's not hard to get used to.

To export your samples and create the .all file you want to go into the menu's Data submenu and look for EXPORT SAMPLE ALL. This copies every sample to the .all file. Depending on how much you have in there it can take a couple of minutes. Once you've done this once for any given set of samples you want to work with you won't have to do it again until you either add/subtract a sample or make changes (like changing loop points) to old ones. But if you're only dealing with one or two new samples or changes then you could instead use EXPORT SAMPLE which would write a single sample to the .all file. Thus you wouldn't have to wait for the machine to needlessly store everything all over again.

Once that .all file is on the card, you can back it up to your computer and rename it. If you wanted to you could put the renamed file back on the card and at any time load that specific set of files in. But remember that the original .all file needs to be present and named what the ES2 named it in order for the sampler to boot into that state.

I hope that all makes sense!

Thank you!

So each time I hit export all it will overwrite the previous file to update the set of patterns etc i'm working on?

I gotta say that's a pretty stupid workflow decision by Korg. I can't save my own samples into the factory sample slots but those factory samples add to the load times of the .all files? Damn...makes me miss my ESX-1, none the less i'm gonna try to make it work.

Cheers

I agree it isn't as intuitive or fast. After about a week with this ES2 I'll say that it hasn't bothered me all much because I don't change up my samples very often. But if you do plan to add, change or swap samples every time you use the machine it would probably feel more like a hindrance. Either way I think anyone could get used to it if you like the other features of the ES2 enough.

EDIT: I forgot to answer your first question. Each time you do an export it overwrites that .all file. Either the whole thing if you did EXPORT SAMPLE ALL or just one sample if you did EXPORT SAMPLE. If you had a particular kick sample on slot 501 and then deleted or replaced it, every pattern that references that kick will now either play the new sample you replaced the kick with or nothing if you erased the sample loaded in that slot. When you select a sample slot while building a pattern all you're doing is asking it to play whatever sample is in that slot.

For the record you can also export all pattern information but this is divorced from the sample information. So if you meant to have a full backup you'd want to pair these together in a folder and perhaps name them similarly so in the future you remember to load both. This is something the ESX made easier, pattern info and sample info were lumped together in .esx files. Again, for me it's not a huge deal but I can see it being annoying for some. In fact I kind of like the idea of mixing and matching pattern information with samples not originally intended for those patterns. Might get some cool stuff out of that.

[djkenstone]

Yeah almost every time I use it I'm adding new samples so I have to find something else to do while it's doing it's export all thing.

I did notice that when [re]sampling it tells you how many seconds are remaining. It would be nice to have that info. also when importing.

if you do plan to add, change or swap samples every time you use the machine it would probably feel more like a hindrance.

[gizmoismogwai]

Yeah almost every time I use it I'm adding new samples so I have to find something else to do while it's doing it's export all thing.

Provided you aren't changing every single sample you previously loaded into it, it might be faster if you use EXPORT SAMPLE instead to only export the new stuff one-by-one. The old stuff will get loaded in again at start-up provided it was previously exported.

[djkenstone]

I was thinking that but this morning I imported about six so I just went ahead with the export all again. I will try the export sample the next time I have just one or two to see how that goes.

Provided you aren't changing every single sample you previously loaded into it, it might be faster if you use EXPORT SAMPLE instead to only export the new stuff one-by-one. The old stuff will get loaded in again at start-up provided it was previously exported.

[Calpal91]

Yeah almost every time I use it I'm adding new samples so I have to find something else to do while it's doing it's export all thing.

Provided you aren't changing every single sample you previously loaded into it, it might be faster if you use EXPORT SAMPLE instead to only export the new stuff one-by-one. The old stuff will get loaded in again at start-up provided it was previously exported.

Even if I export all once and then do it one at a time doesn't it have to load all of it again every time you boot up?

Is there anyway I can load a bunch on, export them all and not have to load everything each boot up.

[1_inch_punch]

Of the 3 pages of the manual dedicated to the sampler -

Page 16:

"Even if you press the Write button to save the user sample,
it will be erased when you turn off the power. If you want
to keep the user samples, use the DATA utility menu
command EXPORT ALL SAMPLE or EXPORT SAMPLE to
write the sample data to a memory card before you turn
off the power."

Page 17: (once!)

"Even if you press the Write button to save the user sample,
it will be erased when you turn off the power. If you want
to keep the user samples, use the DATA utility menu
command EXPORT ALL SAMPLE or EXPORT SAMPLE to
write the sample data to a memory card before you turn
off the power."

Page 17: (twice!!)

"Even if you press the Write button to save the user sample,
it will be erased when you turn off the power. If you want
to keep the user samples, use the DATA utility menu
command EXPORT ALL SAMPLE or EXPORT SAMPLE to
write the sample data to a memory card before you turn
off the power."

Oh dear. Even the manual author has little confidence in the unit.

or is he happily and eagerly repeatedly expressing a new added feature(!)

[colulizard]

Finally got my sampler yesterday and had a little play(just with the default sounds, so getting the hang of writing patterns, using IFX, MFX etc).

I then turned my attention to importing my old sounds as I don't want to use Korg's forever.

So it seems that if I want to import samples via the SD card I need to add these manually one by one and assign each one to the next available empty "slot" in the 501+ space.

Am i missing a trick here? I would like to import loads of one hit samples. I have added kicks on a folder called "kick", claps n a folder called "claps" etc.

Each time I import a sample, the cursor then goes back to the "folder level" part, and so I have to remember which of the samples I just uploaded and then scroll through to the next one. Luckily it is not going back to slot 501, so I don't need to scroll through that.

I am guessing this is just the pain I'll need to go through to set this up initially, but if there's a bulk import function it would be good to know now!

Cheers

PS
The actual workflow part is pretty good. I've never owned a previous Electribe, so no idea how different it is. I haven't heard any obvious clicks gaps etc when changing patterns, and the lack of FX tail changing patterns doesn't seem to show up on anything I've done.