I need an explanation of korg formats and how kross 2 works

[m0rix93]

Hi! I purchased the Kross 2 a few months ago and have been trying to read both the operating guide and the paramatrix guide but can't seem to grasp some concepts. I think it's due to two factors: English is not my native language and I think the manuals take some things for granted and remain vague.
There are two unresolved issues:

• 1) I can't come to terms completely with the korg formats.
  2) I can't understand how the keyboard is structured internally.

For the moment what I have figured out is:

• - KSF represents the single sample (as if it were the audio of a single note)
  - KMP groups many KSF files to form a multisample
  - KSC is used to tell the keyboard which KMP and KSF files to store.
  - PCG contains all the data of the keyboard (also the global settings).
  - PCM? (don't know)
  - KEP ? (don't know)
  - EX-PCM ? (don't know)

Regarding the internal workings, I can tell you some questions that I asked myself:

• - What is the difference between the preloaded programs and the factory ones ? Aren't they all loaded before?
  - What do I save in the 128MB memory? PCM or EX-PCM or KEP or KSC files?

I know that question 2) is very vague but if you could answer 1) it would be great.
One of my final goals would be to understand if I can load in the keyboard, presets from other keyboards or how to create my own multisample that I take from some vst.

Thanks a lot!

[hans1966]

Hello m0rix93, I am the same as you.
I have Kross 2 two months ago, and I have also considered the same as you regarding the PCG, PCM, KSF, KSC, and KEP formats.

In the specifications it appears:
User Programs: 1280
Preload: 768
Combinations
Username: 896
Preload: 384

I would also like to know what these values ​​mean, and because the expansion memory is so limited (only 128MB) there is really very little that can be done with this capacity in terms of sampling and / or loading of samples.

regards

[OpAmp]

Hi,

Q1: Preloaded programs and factory programs are in fact the same.
Well most of the time. It could be that your board comes also with additional programs set up in the user banks (preloaded). The non-user banks can be restored with factory reset. The preloaded user banks not. If you want to keep them for later, you'll need to back them up on a SD card

Q2: in the 128MB, you store basically samples, that can be used for the pads or as instrument sample for a program, depending on the file type that you start from.
* .wav -> for the pad sampler
* .kep, .ksf, .kmp, .ksc -> will appear as samples in the Program/Osc pages when selecting the RamS/RamM bank.

The 128MB should roughly correspond to 23 minutes of audio (mono 48kHz, 16 bit linear PCM data). Of course there will be some data overhead, which makes that it can not be used to the full extent for audio data.

Bye.

[m0rix93]

Thank you for your response. Actually after your reply and some further research and field testing, I was able to understand more or less how it works:

• - PCM: I's a audio format
  - KEP stands for Korg Ex-Pcm: includes the pcm of the samples and some pcg based on them

128Mb are really limited.

[OpAmp]

Jep...

PCM stands for Pulse Code Modulation. There is more behind the name, but it is enough to know it is a way to represent audio (an analog concept) in a digital device (basically a list of samples).

Ex PCM in the Korg dictionary stands for Expansion PCM or memory to expand the factory PCM samples with user ones. (The 128MB)

.KEP is indeed a fileformat which contains on one side an instrument sample, which will be loaded into the Ex-PCM memory. On the other side it contains also a program based on that sample. The progam will be loaded into the User Banks.

128MB is indeed small in terms of memories available these days in PCs, Raspberry Pi and similar devices... And it eats easily away when you want to build your own program using a detailed sampleset: stereo data (div by 2), multisample (several samples across the keyboard), up to 4 multi samples per oscillator (selection based on velocity), 2 oscillators, ...

Bye