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I'm curious if anyone actually sees value in all the keyboard sounds (piano, EP, organ, clav) in the HD1 INT-B bank?

These just strike me as inferior versions of things that also exist in more expressive forms via dedicated eXi. Am I missing something, or are these samples just a waste of space?

I totally agree with you.... it is waste of space IMO. And please don't get me started on the triple GM banks .
. Man that oasys piano patch to me sounds as bad as a casio, i wonder if that was the real oasis piano yach .
But then again there will always be a user stating his love for this inferior sounds.
Well, at least the farting and sneezing sounds efx are funny.

I also agree that the HD1 piano, EP, organ and GM sounds are largely redundant and the GM sounds should be available as a downloadable EXI for those who simply must have GM compatibility on the Kronos.

The space taken up by these 'redundant' HD1 sounds could have been put to better use such as better acoustic and electric guitars. Yep, I'm harping on about this again but seriously, Korg have really let themselves down in the fretted instrument area......unless a forthcoming EXI dealing with this sonic area is forthcoming.

is it possible to initialize these "useless" banks and then use the space to fill it with user sounds?

I mean since you're saying the space is wasted....

this does bring this question to mind...

what good is HD-1?.....(i'm just saying..., based on the comments.)

HD-1 is not without usefulness altogether, and it also serves as the synth-engine processing user samples/external libraries that are not EXis. It's just that the piano, e piano, organ and synth patches are covered extremely well by the EXis.
You could initialize the banks but you will lose some combi configurations. Of course, you could reassign them using EXi sounds... But nobody has got to it yet. And come OS 1.5 (October) nobody will have to because there will be seven more empty program banks.

By the way, an argument can also be made for backwards compatibility (for people coming from an Oasys and always used HD1 for EPs and pianos), as well as for voice economy (from a workstation/sequencing perspective) since HD1 has much higher polyphony than some of the EXis.

Aside from being one of the best sampling engines around, the HD-1 represents the most direct path to porting sounds from older Korg synths, such as the Triton, Trinity, Wavestation, etc. There are only a few sound categories that have largely been supplanted by the other engines.

That said, to answer the OP's question, no, I don't use the HD-1 sounds for pianos, EPs or organs. I do use it heavily for my older Trinity and Triton sounds, though, among other things.

The HD-1 engine is fine, but the present system of old Oasys patchbanks needs a lot of refreshing/removing from my view.

I beg to differ actually,in some instances you may not want,say for instance in a sequence to use all Exi's for these types of sounds.I understand how many will see the HD-1 counterparts as inferior but that doesn't mean you cant get useable versions.

Not all piano's, ep's and organs have to be exact,precise copies of the original instrument.I suppose it depends on what type of music you play and how you wish to sound,authentic or not.

And to say what is the point of HD-1 is limiting yourselves on the processing power of the sample playback engine.

Plus its about choice,I would much prefer a KRONOS with HD-1 than without.

We do not remotely talk about removing HD-1, and not even of removing ALL it's piano, epiano and organ patches.

But as it is now, there is MUCH too much material of mediocre or lower quality in these banks, with quite a high degree of redundant/removable sounds IMO, and some better quality sounds missing in certain areas.

It's just a bad idea from my view to keep all and everything from former times over years, while fewer patches based on higher quality samples would in fact be much more helpful for music making.

apex wrote:is it possible to initialize these "useless" banks and then use the space to fill it with user sounds?

I mean since you're saying the space is wasted....

I've been wondering about this too.

I've seen mention of long boot times and lack of sampling memory here and there, and they seem to be tied to the large number of samples loaded that the Kronos loads by default on boot.

Can the Kronos owner deactivate some of the default programs, combis, or banks that they're not going to use, and reclaim the load times and sampling memory? Is this sort of thing possible?

islanddave wrote: Can the Kronos owner deactivate some of the default programs, combis, or banks that they're not going to use, and reclaim the load times and sampling memory? Is this sort of thing possible?

It would seem that the factory RAM sample set is all or nothing. You can't re-save factory samples to a new folder for selective loading. But you can overwrite the factory programs (remembering that banks will only allow you to save either HD-1 or EXs - you can't mix them in a single bank).

Don't forget that next month we get the new OS with additional user banks and the RAM upgrade option. I don't personally find the load times excessive... I still have to wait patiently for a good 10 mins or so for my Fantom to load my sample set

Kronik wrote: It would seem that the factory RAM sample set is all or nothing. [...]

Don't forget that next month we get the new OS with additional user banks and the RAM upgrade option. I don't personally find the load times excessive... I still have to wait patiently for a good 10 mins or so for my Fantom to load my sample set

Cheers for your points, Kronik. To be honest I'm not actually that concerned about load times or sampling memory, although I understand that they could be problems for some. I am interested in the inner workings of the keyboard from a purely academic perspective, so it's interesting to note what you can and can't do with the preloaded sounds and samples.

apex wrote:what good is HD-1?.....(i'm just saying..., based on the comments.)

Where do you think the amazing orchestras, brass, sfx, etc.. come from? While I agree, that there is some redundancy with the pianos, eps, and organs, HD-1 is VERY needed.

EnjoyRC wrote:

apex wrote:what good is HD-1?.....(i'm just saying..., based on the comments.)

Where do you think the amazing orchestras, brass, sfx, etc.. come from? While I agree, that there is some redundancy with the pianos, eps, and organs, HD-1 is VERY needed.

I also had this opinion when reading the thread ... HD-1 should (could) only be removed when there are enough EXIs so that any instrument can be physically modelled (in Kronos 8 or so).

shawnhar wrote:I'm curious if anyone actually sees value in all the keyboard sounds (piano, EP, organ, clav) in the HD1 INT-B bank?

These just strike me as inferior versions of things that also exist in more expressive forms via dedicated eXi. Am I missing something, or are these samples just a waste of space?

If you don't like the presets in INT-B then re-work them into something you do like!

HD-1 is very powerful - one just has to learn how to use it.

Also, they are very useful if used in combis layering with the 'superior' versions you allude to. Makes the sound very full, round and expressive.