Whats missing in KRONOS..

[thekeymaster]

As if 14 banks of programs (if I recall correctly) is not enough sonic sauce to weed through. Let's do the math. 14 program banks * 128 programs = 1792 programs. Assuming you play each one for 2 minutes to decide if it's something you would ever like to use, that would take you close to 60 hours, just to get a short impression of each program.

Really, I think people need to get over this fear of loading new data into the banks, and just learn to back up the stuff, get comfortable with it, so that you know how to backup your entire memory contents, load some new stuff, play around with it, revert to the previous stuff, load a new bank into one bank without disturbing anything else, etc.

I think people are, in general, so afraid to load data and "mess up their voicing" that they just want an infinite array of banks so they never have to backup or load anything.

I do get that it's convenient to have more banks; just, would you like to sacrifice even more RAM to do so?

I totally understand your response Stephen,that's why I asked.I assumed its not just as simple as.."there we go lets add these extra banks". The above point is what I alluded to at the end of my post.I think we do get caught up in the ability of not managing banks as effective as we should.I think I will hold my hand up and say I am one of these people.Like I stated, years ago you had to be more careful with limited amounts of space.

I think we also have to agree though that by providing more as Korg and many other manufacturers do they open themselves up to the fact that the customer will always want more,its just human nature I suppose.I just know from a personal point of view I shall have to seriously look at the way I work and start loading banks into memory for specific purposes rather than trying to have everything at hand all the time.

Thanks for the detailed response Im sure it will help people understand that its not just a case of adding extra slots.

[Megakazbek]

(Yes, I'm sure someone will say "but pshaw, it should be dynamically allocated, so that you only add a new bank when you need one." Incredibly complex to engineer that into a workstation, in the way these things are typically done. Of course, anything can be done. Anything is technically possible. But doing this sort of dynamic allocation would add months, if not a year to a product development cycle - and when all is said and done, for limited additional benefit, in terms of being able to sell the product.)

Well, it doesn't have to be completely dynamically allocated in run-time. There could be a checkbox like "Use extra banks" in global options that can be manually enabled or disabled.
Also, theoretically the banks don't have to be stored in RAM, as there is perfectly fine SSD inside Kronos.
I am well aware that I don't know how OASYS/Kronos works internally so I cannot know whether what I propose is an easy task for Korg or it's completely unfeasible. I am just telling what I wish to be improved, but of course I don't expect those wishes to be granted.

I think people are, in general, so afraid to load data and "mess up their voicing" that they just want an infinite array of banks so they never have to backup or load anything.

I don't consider myself afraid, but I anyway want to have all sounds available to me at any moment without any extra hassle.

[Scott]

Also, theoretically the banks don't have to be stored in RAM, as there is perfectly fine SSD inside Kronos.

Regardless of how easy it would be to access other banks on the fly from the SSD, it seems like, at a minimum, the SSD wold be a convenient place to be able to use as a destination for your "backup" libraries, even if you had to manually load the set you wanted to use.

[SpIdErWeB]

I personally believe that dedicated "banks buttons" are just useless... I would like better to have just one button "Browser" or "Sound", or even "Banks", and then have everything on the screen (like we do anyway).

You could still enter bank A + number or so to go quickly to your favorite sound... But all bank name and storage would be on the SSD and we could get I-A to I-Z for Factory and U-A to U-Z for Users... which means 26 x 128 (3328) memories for each one. Then you could even have different mode, with for instance Factory F-A to F-Z, Internal I-A to I-Z, User U-A to U-Z, etc... Factory being protected for over-writting to have access to absolute any single memory preset you do have on your unit, at any time... Internal would list only what you have loaded (EXi, and so on).

I doesn't have to take more RAM memory neither... Only the allocation table (bank, number, name) needs to be loaded in memory and could only be a simple dynamic xml file or so...

This system would allow more flexibility, easier future expansions, avoiding physical limitations, allowing easier front panel with less buttons... giving more room to include more important stuff such Pads and Function keys...

A well designed keyboard, would even allow to use the function keys for bank selection as soon you do press the Bank button, and use them for other feature such Chords Pads or even Fill-in, Breaks, Ends or even step sequencer or so in other mode such Karma, Sequencer, Sampler, etc...

In few words: There's room for improvement in that domain, and the whole old-school Bank names and stuff is not relevant today in an unit such the Kronos, that can do way more and way better than this.

Phil

[Scott]

the whole old-school Bank names and stuff is not relevant today in a unit such the Kronos, that can do way more and way better than this.

But we do need to stick with thinking in terms of banks of 128 sounds in order to maintain MIDI compatibility with sequencers and other gear.

[EvilDragon]

I'd so love to search the sounds by name, not only category. Kurzweils have text string search available on anything: programs, setups, FX chains, keymaps, whatever.

[ozy]

may you explain this, dragon? I didn't manage to do that on the pc3 yet.

thx in advance

[SpIdErWeB]

the whole old-school Bank names and stuff is not relevant today in a unit such the Kronos, that can do way more and way better than this.

But we do need to stick with thinking in terms of banks of 128 sounds in order to maintain MIDI compatibility with sequencers and other gear.

Of course Scott... I said Banks, not what is in the Bank
I agree, 128 presets per Bank is fundamental and shouldn't change.

However, since we already need to use LSB/MSB to change bank anyway and there's not really "standard" since it's different for each keyboard, I think more flexibility in that domain would be appreciated.

Phil

[SpIdErWeB]

I'd so love to search the sounds by name, not only category. Kurzweils have text string search available on anything: programs, setups, FX chains, keymaps, whatever.

Yep! There's so much great stuff Korg could be inspired from in that domain... in hardware but also software.

For instance, some search such Garage Band, NI Kore, and so on... with name, tags, categories, etc... are really more efficient (There's some of that in RiFF V2 from Open Labs for instance... but they do lack to keep the Midi implementation, so in the end it sucks).

Phil

[EvilDragon]

may you explain this, dragon? I didn't manage to do that on the pc3 yet.

thx in advance

When in program/setup mode, or when on any field that contains a name of something (keymap, program, setup, sample, fx chain), press and hold Enter, and press any of the numerical buttons. Thus you enter Search mode.

Then, after you enter your search string (can be a few characters only, for example "str"), use Enter+Jump buttons to go to next/previous match.


It's in the manual.

[ozy]

1) thanks a lot

2) I never, ever RTFM.

Except before buying some expensive keyboard. But then I don't look for the fine print

[EvilDragon]

2) You should.


It was not fine print.

[ozy]

pc3 is not expensive, so I bought it after asking just my ears and fingertips their opinion, no brain cortex involved

I later discovered that ray kurzweil expects me to HAVE a brain cortex. And a thick one.

[EvilDragon]

Well, you brought it to yourself.

I always read manuals before purchase. Doesn't matter if it's $100 or $4000.

[Akos Janca]

I had an idea regarding alphabetical order of sounds in a thread (about Factory or Producer order) at Karma-Lab. I post it here again - for Kronos:


FACTORY order itself is a great demo feature showing the wide sonic possibilities of the instrument. Mainly useful for virgin users who only know how to push the up/down buttons, helping to convince them quickly in the shop to buy the instrument. Other than that it's useless. For advanced users and for serious work better searching methods are needed to find a certain sound in a huge library. CATEGORY search by instrument groups is very useful, and with the sub-categories and FAVORITE marking I think it makes the PRODUCER order unnecessary. Almost perfect system. But one important thing would still make it better: the *alphabetical order*.

Humans usually remember a sound by its *name*, not the bank slot number. So finding it would be much easier scrolling a certain Category in alphabetical order. The best if OASYS automatically shows the Category list in this way. Factory and User sounds mixed, of course.

Another solution: please put a new button next to the Category, called Index or ABC. When pressing this, a new window should appear - as you see the attached picture - showing the alphabetical order.

<img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_tG_1 ... Search.gif">

Stephen liked my idea and forwarded to R&D (hopefully).

Hi Akos! This is actually quite a good idea. I would like to have a search feature as well, to search by name or wild card. But I like what you've done here, I'm going to forward it to the boys at Korg.

Then I improved my own idea:

Thank you Stephen, I'm happy to hear. (And I knew that. ) After sleeping I think I have a new form of my idea, that can be used well, too. Instead of the function mentioned above, another solution is simply implementing two radio-buttons on the Category Select windows, like this:

<img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_tG_1 ... Corder.gif">

The sorting mode could be changed easily by 1 press of a button between bank slot numbers and the alphabet. (In some cases the bank slot number is important, so we should keep that listing mode, too.) In this solution we can't directly press a certain starting letter, but the list is still usable, we can find a Combi/Program by name, provided that we know the ABC. Tip: The alphabetical list could contain also separating bold letters between the items for better view and faster visual search, if possible.

Certainly, after closing this dialog box, switching step by step with the Up/Down buttons should follow the recently chosen sorting mode (Slot/Name).

Regards,
Akos