Korg Forums

What are you missing on your KP3? Any bugs you discovered?

Most of the things I encountered were thru PC/KP3 transfers.
I make beats and sounds in sequencers, save them and then send them to the sampler.

OS: XP Pro
KP3 firmware: 1.03
USB-Midi driver: 1.11
KP3 editor: 1.01

Edit 01: I noticed there are wishes scattered all over this forum, so I took the liberty to include them here too.
I'm not 100% sure what some of the other requests mean since there are some advanced midi-trigger-sequence-while-using-an-external-CC-control-pedal-board-in-live-situations requests. So i put some "quotation marks" on requests other than my own.

Edit 02: It's available at korg.co.uk too now!
I'm going to revise the wishlist as we find what they did and didn't do yet.

Here's what we're missing:

1. Longer sample times; especially for one shots.

2. Alternative filenames; It's annoying that the sample names are limited to two digits.
00-99.kps, 00-99.wav and 00-99.aif. That leave us with 300 samples right?
Wait, the manual states: "NOTE In the case of WAVE files or AIFF files, the
KP3 will recognize only file names consisting of a two-digit number plus filename extension, such as "00.wav" or "99.aif". If both .wav and .aiff files with the same two-digit number exist, the WAVE file will take priority."
So only 200 time limited samples that can't be named.
There's both the little display and the touch pad to show longer filenames like "electro.beat.120.bpm.wav". Same with .aif .kps .kpa .kpp and .kpg.

3. Sub folders anyone? "Bass", "Arps", "Beats" and/or "Instruments"..

4. "The possibility to switch the FX depth knob with the FX release slider would be sweet." joesapo

5. Start/end point trim; brilliant! But how about a possibility to "move" the sample back/forward without cutting the end/start?

6. A switch between the toggle style use of samples/one shots and trigger and sustain (i.e. the style of playing when holding down a button, and lifting your finger stops the loop/shot).

7. "If you want to adjust the volume of the samples the others are muted, this is not so handy. You actually have a 4 channel touch screen mixer (which is very cool!) but when you want to change the volume of 1 sample the others are muted, why oh why Korg?" don't remember where I saw this one

8. An overall volume out level would be good.

9. We know that we have a 4 channel touch screen mixer for the volume (see #7). How about a a similar thing to assign the current effect to only one, two or three of the four banks?
Just vocoding on the D pad, or LFO on A & C pad only, not all of them at the same time.
Or how about FX on input only?
I know you can record the pad motion and resample the loop/one shot, but sometimes you might want to improvise something on the input or some of the banks.

10. The possibility to preview all banks in the KP3 editor simultaneously. Right now you can only listen to one at the time. It would be a time saver to not have to transfer the samples and then realize that the combo sounds like crap.

11. A metronome click (or beep) that doesn't get recorded while sampling. Good to have when you want to make a bass line (or melody) on one of the banks. Easier to follow than the flashing BPM light.

12. "I know it's a lot to ask, but it would be so great to be able to load samples while the Korg is playing material back. Perhaps automatically mute that slot when the sample gets loaded?" decrepitude

13. "I know we can assign a midi note to a sample pad to turn the sample on and off. I also noticed that when you go into sample record mode the midi note no longer works to trigger the pad. If it did we could setup a sequencer to trigger the sample recording at the exact right time. This would make the creation of perfect loops very simple." lukas412

14. "split loop and mute parts of loop without cut down of loop length and it could be great to be able to do this live (i dont want to remove parts of loop)" saw

15. "synchronize pad motion (midi loop) with midi out (now pad motion is just useless cool thing)" saw

16. "i want switch behind ext.ctrl (midi mode) and fx without turn off playing samples" saw

17. "usb audio with vst integration - vst could be a 4 channel real-time loop spliter which will be works with recorded loops in korg. so, it could be great for rearrange loops (copy/paste parts of slices etc.) and for sequencing parts of loops in sequencing software" saw

18. "1st why have you made this a shift function, it's vital, please put a midi note to it so i can send it every bar 1 beat 1 from the esx (I was thinking crash cymbal)" m4m

19. "the looper should change the length by halving and croping the end, not in th e middle of nowhere so when you sample a 1 bar starting on 1(kick) when it will go to 1/2 beat it will keep the kick start, not the upbeat of the 1 like it does now)" m4m

20. "would be nice to unlock the mod fx from the tempo with another shift function for nice LOOOONNNGGGGGG sweeps, not 1 bar" m4m

21. "one thing I really find annoying : when you're sampling only the BMP button/light flashes at the BPM speed, all the other buttons are flashing at another speed, its confusing" johnnyg0

22. "Some sort of auto align feature would be great when using the internal MIDI clock to drive other gear.
It would be really great if (when in Ext Ctrl mode) when you send a START Midi message to other gear, that automatically gets locked as the downbeat so sampled loops play perfectly in sync. At the moment, you have to align manually, which can be a bit hit and miss." matt_n
Edit:There is a workaround, but I agree it would still be nice to have it synced in the first place.

23. "Please try to improve the auto BPM. It sometimes goes randomly from 90 to 190 BPM." Takkero

24. "The auto BPM turns off when I press sample, can this be fixed too?" Takkero

25. "The sample auto starts when finishing the acquisition, can this be an option to turn on/off?" Takkero
I cleaned up these last three ones to make them a little more understandable and a little less fuming..



Bugs I've (and others) noticed:

1. Transferring a loop often pitches it down. The tempo stays the same, but it's down a semitone. And yes, the (wave) sample is a 48 kHz 8/16/24-bit linear PCM mono/stereo file. (Trust me I've tried all kinds of combinations.)

2. There is a serious sync problem. At first I thought I was the retard and had to shift the start point all the time. But after many trials and errors I loaded the exact same sample on all four banks.
A simple 16 beat, 120 bpm with a double hi-hat to mark the end of the loop.
None of them were in sync.
Shift start on bank A on 0.0, B had to be +1.0 to align (with a missing bar), then C had to be on -0.7 (but it's one bar behind with the hi-hat, I can't dial enough to compensate) and C have to be on -0.19 (now it's two bars behind, can't dial enough to compensate that one either). This is of course since the "trimming" cuts a bar or two instead of moving them to align. [Sorted: Now I know the use of “Shift+Align”]

3. When (if) you manage to get four samples to sync and save it on your SD card (or computer) and then load it again later, then one or two banks are often out of sync again.

4. I'm creating a .kpa file in the KP3 editor in let’s say 140 or 90 bpm. But when I send it to the sampler it stays at the default 120 bpm. Doesn't "a" stand for "all" in .kpa?

5. "I have not tried this yet, but I was about to once I found a decent enough CC control pedal board. I found what I want to use and now I stumble onto this little post that triggering the ABCD pads via midi for setting off the pads to record a loop is not possible in Sample mode. This is truly a BUG that needs fixing. I thought not having the record and shift keys midi maped in global was bad but wow...we need this fixed along with the volume / sample edit/ sliced beat issue." SMK

6. "still alot of bad issues when it comes to slaving its midi clock...
it recieves the clock with -0.1.... no matter what the host...
this sucks... where can i find info on using the kp3 as clockmaster?" reSet

I don't know if it's something you all experienced or if I just got a dodgy machine.

Anything you noticed or are missing?
/Maako

First I must say - very nice post! You've been very thorough in your explanations and you've uncovered new ground.

It's interesting to note that many of the frustrations expressed here lately have to do with the notion of using the KP3 as a more traditional loop sampler. And what I mean by this is many people get the idea to use the KP3 as a playback machine for prepared loops. This is usually to augment other midi sequenced hardware.

Now while this notion of synced loop playback IS actually possible, let's all admit right here and now that this is not the original intention of the KP3. So the idea of synchronized playback of prepared loops on the KP3 running along with other midi sequenced material is by definition a "hack". And in fact, I can say from experience that the greatest joys and satisfaction comes from capturing material in a live setting on the fly. But that is for another discussion.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about the sampler and I would suggest you take a look at the "Tips and Tricks" thread. There is a tip I posted that actually comes from Electronic Musician Magazine called "Loop Trigger Hack." This may shed some light on any confusion with the sampler.

Here's the link:
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=21973

OK, now to address a few of your questions:
-Longer Sample times-
It's a bit silly, but one workaround is sampling a one shot at 74 BPM - this would be the max sample time.

-Alternative filenames-
Not sure how to do this with a 3 digit LCD.

-Sub folders-
Certainly this could be implemented. But I would venture that it again would have to be using numbers.

-In regard to #4, #5 and #6-
Brilliant suggestions!

-In regard to #7-
Everyone wants this. Let's hope Korg is listening.

-Overall volume level-
I can't agree with you here. It's surprises me that many people are using the the KP as their main output. This is a bad idea in my professional opinion. The KP should have it's output attenuated by a mixer. That's why it's a LINE OUT.


BUGS:
#1 - I need to do a bit more testing, but as far as pitch problems go, are you saying this happens when you simply copy files to the SD card? If you use the software editor to transfer samples to the KP3, you should not be having any pitch problems. (fwiw, all the samples I've transferred so far have been 44.1 sample rate. I suppose it's possible the manual has a typo. I'll investigate this more later.)

#2 - Try the loop trigger hack as I've mentioned above. You should be able to get all the loops to playback on the downbeat.

#4 - Not a bug. Tempo is independent from the ALL file. Samples loaded of the SD card always adhere to the current tempo.


It doesn't sound like a dodgy machine - the two main hardware defects usually reported are:
- inability to format SD cards, or
- malfunctioning touchpads

Hope this helps!

I've noticed something when using the KP3 just as a pure effects unit:

When alternating between programs (eg. Delay to LFO back to Delay) that the level of the effect dips by about 30%, which is corrected by nudging the level knob.

Likewise when booting up the unit, nudging the level knob seems to make the effect volume "spike" back to it's proper level - if I left the level knob untouched at boot-up the effect would be at say, 70% of the correct volume.

Is this normal on all units, or is mine faulty?

decrepitude wrote:First I must say - very nice post! You've been very thorough in your explanations and you've uncovered new ground.

-Alternative filenames-
Not sure how to do this with a 3 digit LCD.

BUGS:
#1 - I need to do a bit more testing, but as far as pitch problems go, are you saying this happens when you simply copy files to the SD card? If you use the software editor to transfer samples to the KP3, you should not be having any pitch problems. (fwiw, all the samples I've transferred so far have been 44.1 sample rate. I suppose it's possible the manual has a typo. I'll investigate this more later.)

Thank you!
That hack really solved my biggest issue.

-Alternative filenames-
Yes, the 3 digit LCD is way to small, but we got that big pad that can scroll custom messages, so why not filenames? Nothing is impossible, it just takes a little longer time, hehe..

Pitch bug:
What happens is that I create different tracks in Acid Pro, make them in a certain tempo and measure, then export them as individual (wave) files.

The problem comes when I import them to the KP3 Editor.
Not everything gets pitched down, but some samples do.
I haven't figured out why yet, but it tends to pitch down samples I've done with my vocoder.
One shots are always ok, but loops go down a semitone or two. I haven't had any problems with beats so far. I'm still green, so I'll experiment with different instruments to see if I can find a common factor for the pitch down.

I 'm sure they are working on some improvements over at Korg.
Not like Akai “Pro”. Ever sent them an email?
It took them almost a year to come up with this update for their MPC1000:
"New features/Changes:
1. Increased maximum number of programs from 24 to 128.
2. Changed default when saving entire memory for "Replace same files"
to YES.
3. Improved error messages.
4. Additional support for manufacturing."

I just love number 3, hehe..

Rich Curtis wrote:I've noticed something when using the KP3 just as a pure effects unit:

When alternating between programs (eg. Delay to LFO back to Delay) that the level of the effect dips by about 30%, which is corrected by nudging the level knob.

Likewise when booting up the unit, nudging the level knob seems to make the effect volume "spike" back to it's proper level - if I left the level knob untouched at boot-up the effect would be at say, 70% of the correct volume.

Is this normal on all units, or is mine faulty?

Perhaps you should get your levels matched, then save as a .pgm. From the manual:

"The PROGRAM MEMORY buttons allow
you to save and instantly recall your eight
favorite KP3 programs and settings.
The following data will be stored:
• Effect program
• FX/DEPTH knob setting
• Pad motion
• The on/off status of the HOLD button
and its position (coordinates)"


Not the most complete solution, but closer at least....

Ok, back to the wish list.

Sorry for the bump, but I thought It would be better to edit my first post instead of making this thread too damn long. I added other users wishes too.
I'd be happy to add other wishes too, so keep em' coming!

maako wrote:2. There is a serious sync problem. At first I thought I was the retard and had to shift the start point all the time. But after many trials and errors I loaded the exact same sample on all four banks.
A simple 16 beat, 120 bpm with a double hi-hat to mark the end of the loop.
None of them were in sync.
Shift start on bank A on 0.0, B had to be +1.0 to align (with a missing bar), then C had to be on -0.7 (but it's one bar behind with the hi-hat, I can't dial enough to compensate) and C have to be on -0.19 (now it's two bars behind, can't dial enough to compensate that one either). This is of course since the "trimming" cuts a bar or two instead of moving them to align.

3. When (if) you manage to get four samples to sync and save it on your SD card (or computer) and then load it again later, then one or two banks are often out of sync again.

4. I'm creating a .kpa file in the KP3 editor in let’s say 140 or 90 bpm. But when I send it to the sampler it stays at the default 120 bpm. Doesn't "a" stand for "all" in .kpa?

5. "I have not tried this yet, but I was about to once I found a decent enough CC control pedal board. I found what I want to use and now I stumble onto this little post that triggering the ABCD pads via midi for setting off the pads to record a loop is not possible in Sample mode. This is truly a BUG that needs fixing. I thought not having the record and shift keys midi maped in global was bad but wow...we need this fixed along with the volume / sample edit/ sliced beat issue." SMK

I have experienced all of these, exactly. Frustrating, isn't it? (especially #3 and #5)

have you got any information that someone works into kp3 2.0 os update?
electribe has only one (?) small update. i dont believe that we see new version of kp3 os. for example novation has great support. they always answer the questions and works under new os/soft (SL line will be have 3rd (!) BIG update - not only bug fixes)

The most important bugs to fix in the next OS update are:

1) un-mute the other samples in sample edit mode so while you are editing the volume of one sample you can here the other samples in relationship to it.

2) while in sample record mode and resample mode make it possilbe to trigger the sample pads via midi in both note number and control number.
Imagine being able to use a midi foot controller to trigger the pad to record a sample (or stop record for a one shot). Imagine being able to resample on the final pad what you trigger off on the other three via a midi sequencer like an ES1.

The fact one can't effect the sample pads via midi is an obvious bug.

Hi everyone, I just got my KP3 and obviously loves it very much. But there one thing I really find annoying : when you're sampling only the BMP button/light flashes at the BPM speed, all the other buttons are flashing at another speed, its confusing.

When you're sampling over a playing beat, its not that annoying, but when you're sampling from scratch (like beat boxing from a microphone), its really hard to start at the right time. What I do is I use a track to do only a 1 beat "hi hat", then I use this track as the BPM.

Another small bug I noticed is when I quickly drop a finger on two opposite corners, the pad will sometimes light up for a second in one of the two other corners. I noticed when I use two fingers on the pad at the same time, it will light up between them until one of the fingers is released, but this is not the same.

I have yet to start using an SD and record the stuff I do, but already in two weeks I'm completely hooked on that thing , to know it will get even better is really cool.

one thing I really find annoying : when you're sampling only the BMP button/light flashes at the BPM speed, all the other buttons are flashing at another speed, its confusing.

Yes indeed, the KP3 flashes like an UFO on disco drugs!
To sync the lights would definitely help. Especially since the BMP button is the smaller light.
Wish added as nr. 21.

When you're sampling over a playing beat, its not that annoying, but when you're sampling from scratch (like beat boxing from a microphone), its really hard to start at the right time. What I do is I use a track to do only a 1 beat "hi hat", then I use this track as the BPM.

Ahh.. You might be thinking of wish nr. 11. Then that 1 beat hi hat won't be recorded on top of your beat boxing.

Another small bug I noticed is when I quickly drop a finger on two opposite corners, the pad will sometimes light up for a second in one of the two other corners. I noticed when I use two fingers on the pad at the same time, it will light up between them until one of the fingers is released, but this is not the same.

Hmm.. I tried this in various ways. 2, 3 even 4 fingers. The light stays in between in all cases, no lights in the other corners.
Is it just a visual bug or does it affect the sound effects too?

Sorry for the bump. I added some stuff to wish nr. 9.

Some sort of auto align feature would be great when using the internal MIDI clock to drive other gear.

It would be really great if (when in Ext Ctrl mode) when you send a START Midi message to other gear, that automatically gets locked as the downbeat so sampled loops play perfectly in sync. At the moment, you have to align manually, which can be a bit hit and miss.

I play music with a MIDI sync'ed Gameboy, backed up with beats from a drum machine. If they could add an auto align feature, I could sample drum loops on my KP3 and literally get rid of all my other gear!

Matt_n,

Check out the tips and tricks thread. I've posted a workaround to your problem in the tips and tricks section entitled "Triggering samples in sync with an external sequencer."

It's not perfect but I think it'll do what your asking for.

Still a good wish.
Added as wish nr. 22.