What can I safely delete in the Program Banks

[mosspa]

While I think that the Expanded M3 is a good thing, overall, I am a little disappointed at the rediculous amount of on-board memory the program sets eat up. There is a stupid amount of duplication (how many suitcase pianos do you really need?), and littl;e room for the construction of your own programs. Yes, I realize that the majority of workstatiopn users are heavily dependent on other people's sounds, but even then, having only 2 available program banks severely limits what after-market sounds you can load in at any one time. Making the ceciaion to allow the Expanded standard to eat up so much room was idiotic for Korg to have done. Sure, it lets them brag about how much stuff is on-board, but at what sacrifice to the end user/programmer. I have been crafting synth programs for over 25 years. I would like to think that I can market my new program banks to other users who might want them. However, the current system discourages this kind of development.

So, what banks can I just get rid of to free up program space. Has anybody suggested a program-subset that MUST be adhered to by people developing Combi banks, so that that oboe in program 97 of User Bank 4 isn't used. Kurzweil got around this by cross laying ROM with RAM. That is,m if you really don't need a particular program in the ROM you can write over it with a RAM program. While I believe the M3 to be an incredible synth, this programming thing is a pain.

John

[Gargamel314]

You won't find many people complaining here about all the programs Korg has given us, a lot of free stuff.

Generally the entire U-G bank and U-F banks are pretty clear, I haven't found anything to put in the F-bank, and the G-bank is just "favorites" from user libraries and my own creations.

Also... if you look on Karma-lab forums, there's actually a thread/poll asking which would be the best bank to keep clear for "3rd-party" libraries... i think the general standard is bank U-G (and then people just take their favorites and put them in bank F or whatever). I think the M3 actually gives you more liberties than most of their past synths, where you'd get like one user-bank, if any (thinking back to the 01W and N364 when you actually had to load banks over-top of the factory presets).

I sort of think you're mistaking an advantage for a limitation. If Korg had given us a lot of empty RAM banks... i know I would be disappointed that I couldn't fill them up. All of the programs ARE backed up in ROM, which doesn't seem much different from what you said of what Kurzweil does...except that they're RAM, and you can alter and change any program as you like.

[BasariStudios]

On the M3 you have 320 Empty spaces, U-F and U-G and also 64 in U-E.
U-E is usually our User Bank since the Triton Era, i think most of them are
duplicated which also gives you a full U-E empty bank.
I personally think having over 300 Empty spaces is enough.

[jmexio]

Not to mention the internal banks (I-A thru I-G) are also overwritable. And you can save your entire sound set to USB and reload VERY easily....

So, if the 300 program slots are not enough for you, you can start with a blank slate to get 14x128 sounds (that is almost 1800 programs!!) and switch banks with a few button pushes.... Actually, since the whole memory is something like 20MB on the stick, you can have tens of thounsands of sounds on even the most modest thumb drive... And if 300 sounds are not enough for you, surely a few button pushes and 20 or 30 seconds of waiting for 1800 sounds among 10.000+ available to load is not a big nuissance, right?

I do think calling Korg idiotic for including this amount of awesome sounds is out of line, by the way. I can see how YOU might need more than 300 empty spaces, but you must surely understand that not everyone is on your page. Quite the contrary, I would say.

Cheers!

[kid_nepro_2002]

Has anybody suggested a program-subset that MUST be adhered to by people developing Combi banks, so that that oboe in program 97 of User Bank 4 isn't used.

I always set up my stuff for USER-E or USER-G and use the USER-F bank for Radias Stuff. When I offer a sound set for sale I include two PCG's so the customer will have a choice as to where they would like to it to live. Seems to work good.

I also like to create new programs along with the new combis and don't usually use factory programs in the combis. When I do use a factory program, I usually store those in the same bank that I have my stuff in (User-E or G). Then everything is self contained in one bank and the sound set does not depend on the factory sounds being in their original places. Also works good.

One thing I've learned is that after a synth has been around for a few years and changes owners a few times data gets moved around and anything is possible. This seems to me as the safest way to do things.

Proton
www.kidnepro.com

[mosspa]

Here's my point Proton. Suppose I really like both Kid Nepro soundsets and would like to have them available. Also, suppose I have an on-board Radias. Now suppose, I want to add some banks by ProRec or other vendor (me, for example). Where would I put them? Sure it is easy to say that you have over 300 program locations available, but if they aren't contiguous they are very difficult to work with. My main concern isn't in overwriting the Korg programs. The problem is overwriting ones that are used by Combis I like and will use. There must be a reason why there seems to be so little 3td party program development for the M3. If I would have to guess, the limited amount of "available unused user space" might contribute.

So, let me ask this a bit differently. Is there any program or utility that cross references programs used in Combis? I don't mind doing a bit of grunt work, but going through each Combi and hand mapping its subordinate programs seems like time better spent doing something more productive. If such a utility isn't available, is there some place where the data format for Combi banks is discussed thoroughly enough so that one could develop such a utility? As Proton observed, this would help tremendously in dealing with user juxtaposed banks. If the information about bank organization exists, but a cross reference utility doesn't, I'll write the damn thing myself and make it available here.

[kanthos]

I think Daz, one of the forum admins, was writing one for the M3. There certainly are programs like this for the Triton-generation keyboards - I used one to do exactly this kind of thing a few months ago.