Kronos File Management

[LZ]

I apologize if this has been addressed - I tried searching but it returned a ton of responses and none talked about anything close to what I was looking for.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on how the Kronos handles samples, multisamples, etc. and how to preload/load, but now I've run into some things that have confused me a bit. I've ended up with samples not loaded, and not being able access them from the programs even after loading them from disk, unless I create a NEW program from the multisample.

Let's back up. I play in 2 bands - a 5pc with no sequences and only a few samples, mostly piano, EP, organ, and VA stuff - and am now putting together an 80s duo that will be all sequences and I've been doing a lot more samples. I recently upgraded the OS so it can stream from an EXi but haven't really done my homework into this method.

While I currently have plenty of space, I was thinking it'd be best to keep the 2 projects separate - preload what I need for the 5 pc. Save everything I do for the duo in a separate folder that I can manually load, clearing what's already there. I figure I have to load anyway since there's not a way to preload songs (right?).

OK, so I was saving everything in a folder called "Two Cents" with a name of "2cents" (don't ask). That was working until one day some of my samples that had been loading before didn't, but newer ones I had done did. Actually, that happened after I accidentally let it save within the folder I had been saving but under a different name...so it overwrote some stuff but not others. So I deleted the whole thing and did a new "Save All" in the same folder.

So after I fixed that, rather than saving in that folder, just in case, I created a new folder called "Atari Twins" (the duo name) and did SAVE ALL named "AT1" (anticipating there may be AT2, 3, etc). So trying to understand the files.

In that folder is:

AT1 (folder)
4 files named AT1: .KGE, .KSC, .PGC, .SNG
AT1_UserBank.KSC

In the AT1 folder:
a collection of KSF, KMP, and folders. In some cases, there is a matching KSF, KMP, and folder (names) that I recall saving. In other cases, there are KSF's with no matching of the others, and in some cases, they are named something like TAKEO003. In the folders are generic names like MS001000.KSF.

In AT1_UserBank.KSC
Folders EXs1-9, Smp: AT1, and 2Cents (what I had saved everything as before). Inside 2Cents:
2 folders:
Multisamples
Drumsamples
Multisamples has one sample in it, drumsamples has most of the others it would appear.


I'm a bit confused with the folders inside folders - mainly the extra "AT1" folder and its contents, and the "_userbank.KSC"

I'm guessing maybe the separate _userbank.KSC had to be added when the newer OS allowed for user banks AA-GG? What about the other folder though? And I'm unclear as to what causes a sample to be saved as a Multisample or a drumsample? I think I created/saved the same each time, but maybe not.

[LZ]

To be clear, my goal is to, moving forward, have a good system and methodology of naming/saving/loading to keep everything clean. I don't have a good enough understanding of the structure now to get a handle on what's going on when things go squirly. Like I'm assuming there are "fragments" of previous attempts at some samples - maybe they're used, maybe they aren't. Maybe some stuff could be deleted, maybe some stuff could be renamed to make sense, or relocated.

[X-Trade]

The Extra AT1 folder under AT1 would be caused when saving sampling data. Basically, this contains the individual user samples in KSF format. I think.

[LZ]

Ok, but some my samples occur in other places as well.

OK...

in AT1.KSC I have:

a folder called Sampling Mode Date, that contains:
Multisamples folder with:
Science_MS (which contains "Science"), BLT Samples, and TakeOnMe
Un-referenced Samples folder with:
BLT_Intro, BLT_End, TakeOnMe

a folder called 2Cents, that contains:
Multisamples folder containing:
Tainted
Drumsamples folder containing:
Dink, hh, hit, laser (all aforementioned used in Tainted), Rio, TakeOnMe

in AT1_UserBank.KSC, I have:

Smp: AT1 folder containing:

Multisamples folder containing:
Science_MS, BLT Samples, TakeOnMe
Drumsamples folder containing:
Science, BLT_Intro, BLT_End, TakeOnMe

2Cents folder containing:

Multisamples folder containing:
Tainted
Drumsamples folder containing:
[everything in the drumsamples folder in the AT1.KSC folder]



The extra AT1 folder in the root contains a bunch of KSF, KMP, and folders with KSF's as listed in my initial post.

I don't know if things are just showing up all over the place from me haphazardly trying to get things to work along the way or if I'm doing something wrong.

How SHOULD it look?

[X-Trade]

Note that you can open KSC and PCG files to 'browse' data but the KSC is a file that references other data. And the PCG contains these banks encoded within it, but these are not actual 'folders' in the filesystem.

[LZ]

OK, so you got me thinking....In preload, all you're loading is the .KSC file. So if I manually load, is it redundant to select the .KSC file AND that folder that contains all the .KSF and .KMP files? If I JUST loaded the .KSC file would it automatically grab those?

Also, the .PCG file is just backup, right? I don't really need to load that because once I hit "write", it's automatically there, only any associated samples need to be loaded, right?

Finally songs - those always need to be loaded manually, right? There's no way to "preload" songs?

Oh, and finally...the _userbanks.KSC file. I assume that's only samples associated with the new banks AA-GG, is that correct? Since it doesn't have it's own folder associated with it, should I assume its .KSF and .KMP files are in the same folder as the ones for the other .KSC file?

[Yuma]

OK, so you got me thinking....In preload, all you're loading is the .KSC file. So if I manually load, is it redundant to select the .KSC file AND that folder that contains all the .KSF and .KMP files? If I JUST loaded the .KSC file would it automatically grab those?

Correct. In normal situations you don't have to open the KSC-file at all.
All you need to do is load the KSC-file. The Kronos will sort the rest.
Alternatively you can auto load the KSC-files (you can set this in Global mode).

Also, the .PCG file is just backup, right? I don't really need to load that because once I hit "write", it's automatically there, only any associated samples need to be loaded, right?

Correct. Programs, Combi's, Global settings and a few other things are not written in the RAM (but in some persistent memory instead) and will still be there after a reboot.
Samples are loaded into RAM though, thus will be gone after a reboot. Fortunately you can auto load them.

Finally songs - those always need to be loaded manually, right? There's no way to "preload" songs?

Correct, unfortunately. It doesn't take long to load them manually though.

Oh, and finally...the _userbanks.KSC file. I assume that's only samples associated with the new banks AA-GG, is that correct? Since it doesn't have it's own folder associated with it, should I assume its .KSF and .KMP files are in the same folder as the ones for the other .KSC file?

The _userbank.KSC file is the file you want to load.
This is basically the KSC-file that makes streaming samples from your SSD possible.
It contains references to the associated KSC-file.

So if you for example have these two files:
* CoolSounds.KSC
* CoolSounds_userbank.KSC
then load the CoolSounds_userbank.KSC, as this one will only load a portion of the samples into RAM, while streaming the rest from your SSD into RAM in real time when needed.
In short: you'll save memory, so you can load even more samples.