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This has always been a minus.........or one of the major cons......

I have been told and I understand that this is mainly due to the effect reset.
As far as the "simple" sound generation is concerned, the solution is quite simple (until you have enough polyphony), but if you have two different effect in the same slot of two different combis, the problem arises.........

Kurzweil and Roland Fantom G seem do not suffer of this inconvenience.
Anybody knows how they solved the problem or how their internal achitecture lets them perform a flawless combi change?

I also head that something can also be done with oasys thanks to Karma........but this is all I know.

what's the Firth of Fifth trick??? I've been after one of those!!!

Zzzins wrote:what's the Firth of Fifth trick??? I've been after one of those!!!

I do FoF in a band...the only trick for me is playing through the intro 2-3 times a day. I can do it without thinking now.

As far as quick combi switching, I'm in the same boat. I almost dropped $6000 on an Oasys last weekend, but wasn't satisfied with the speed at which it can switch between combis. I'm on my way to play a Fantom G right now. I'm not entirely pleased with the soundset in it (and it's no longer expandable via SRX), but I'd be willing to do some sampling if I could gig with one ROMpler that could switch between groups of sounds without dropouts or effects glitches.

BillW wrote:

Zzzins wrote:what's the Firth of Fifth trick??? I've been after one of those!!!

I do FoF in a band...the only trick for me is playing through the intro 2-3 times a day. I can do it without thinking now.

Well that's the way it should be......

Since the days of the Triton Classic I practiced on the "combi change" as part of the score.
It becomes an annoying problem when you have to switch more than 100 combis in a 2 and a half hours gig (using the switch pedal).
Carrying around a single keyboard (and now with the Oasys sound quality), pays back this shortcoming.

Hope I will never have to mess mess with the Kurzweil user interface.
I also do not like too much Roland environment.
Korg's main advantage is in the user interface, clear, logical, friendly.

However, improvements are always welcome.

Just played the Fantom G...I'll pass. There is no new sonic ground there, so it sounds exactly like every Roland ROMpler I've ever owned. I was able to cook up a couple of live setups that switched seamlessly, but given the "same old thing" sound palette, I'll keep my M3-73 (+EXB-RADIAS) for now.

Hi Tony,
You can resave the combis you intend to use in an empty user bank. Next, once you have this new bank saved, you can go about "normalizing" the mix, volume and EQ of each combi. Don't forget you have MFX and TFX including levels to work with to try to bring everything in line. Give it a shot.

As for the delays switching from one combi to the next, this is going to be unavoidable, not just because of IFX/EQ discrepancy, but mostly because there are too many Karma realtime parameters that need to be disengaged in one combi, then re-engaged in the next. This is not a problem for Roland, Yamaha, or Kurzweil sounds, because they just don't have as many realtime parameters to contend with, at least not on the scale of KARMA.
Cheers,
Eric

EJ2 wrote: As for the delays switching from one combi to the next, this is going to be unavoidable, not just because of IFX/EQ discrepancy, but mostly because there are too many Karma realtime parameters that need to be disengaged in one combi, then re-engaged in the next. This is not a problem for Roland, Yamaha, or Kurzweil sounds, because they just don't have as many realtime parameters to contend with, at least not on the scale of KARMA.
Cheers,
Eric

I have an M3-73 and was in the habit of turning Karma off globally since I don't use it live and combi switching on some of my setups with Karma enabled can reach 5 seconds (which is ridiculous). However, globally disabling Karma also disables pad memory settings per combi and I was using the pads to trigger samples, notes or chords. Right now, you can't have it both ways...bummer. I did talk to Korg about this and they're investigating it.

Karma is causing problems to my Oasys too when switched off in global mode (audible pop in combi/prog change when "moss" kind of sounds are used).
However, I heard about the possibility to use karma features, for flawless combi change. Still had no time to investigate deeper (read: pay a visit to MP). But you cannot do this with the switch pedal.

EJ2: I already have a folder in which I keep the combis organized in "songs" (a sequence of combis to be progressively switched).
They are located into combi int A and B. the other Int combi banks are empty.
They are already EQed (sometimes I prefer to switch to another combi instead of managing with the volume pedal........).
Before each gig (I do not do that many) after the playlist is decided I load the combi sequence into an int emprty bank and make a back up both as a CD and an USB key.

Did you mean 0.5 seconds or 5 seconds??? Man, some of my designs have all 16 timbres operational, all 4 KARMA Modules running with variations on all KARMA Scenes, multiple IFX chains, not to mention multiple controller assignments, etc. etc, etc, and I'm not experiencing anything of that sort. Are you switching combis within a sequence? Five seconds even there sounds like an inordinant gap. I will grant you that we should have it both ways with respect to memorizing the chord/trigger pad assignments.

Tony, why did you empty your factory preset combi banks? You have 8 user banks, that's 8 x 128 = 1024 locations for your own combis. You can fill up every single program and combi location, both Int and User, and you still won't degrade OASYS capacity.

All those combis designed by the Korg voicing team can be regarded not only as instant mini composistions, but, in your case, templates to jump off into your own direction. There is simply too much programming that you are throwing away. I don't get it.

EJ2 wrote:Tony, why did you empty your factory preset combi banks? You have 8 user banks, that's 8 x 128 = 1024 locations for your own combis. You can fill up every single program and combi location, both Int and User, and you still won't degrade OASYS capacity.

All those combis designed by the Korg voicing team can be regarded not only as instant mini composistions, but, in your case, templates to jump off into your own direction. There is simply too much programming that you are throwing away. I don't get it.

Uh, nooooooo I did not throw anything away!
As far as I do not use the internal disk for HDrecording operations, I have plenty of room for storing single different set ups (prog combi global etc etc etc)
So I have folders in which I have all the original sound banks and other in which I only have the sounds I use with (for instance) the genesis tribute band.
I also remember that the HD contains a locked factory preset folder (un-erease-able).
The Korg voicing team's sounds are always just some click away..............(disk/folder/prog or combi/ load).

Still haven't understood how kurzweil and roland perform the flawless combi change.

EJ2 wrote:Did you mean 0.5 seconds or 5 seconds??? Man, some of my designs have all 16 timbres operational, all 4 KARMA Modules running with variations on all KARMA Scenes, multiple IFX chains, not to mention multiple controller assignments, etc. etc, etc, and I'm not experiencing anything of that sort. Are you switching combis within a sequence? Five seconds even there sounds like an inordinant gap. I will grant you that we should have it both ways with respect to memorizing the chord/trigger pad assignments.

No, I mean 5 seconds. The M3 totally freezes while this is happening. If I play any notes during the freeze they all sound at once when it finally "thaws." I've been able to work around this so far by carefully programming splits and layers, even putting a few things on odd keys just to have access to the sounds during a song when I need them. So far, I have been able to avoid the need to switch combis mid-song altogether.

I should really try to track down exactly what's causing this. I don't recall it being a problem when Karma was off globally. If I get some time, I'll go through a process of elimination to see if I can nail it down to one thing. It could be Karma, parameter adjustments that I've saved with the combis, one or two particular insert effects, something to do with EXB-RADIAS, etc...who knows.

To BillW: I have the same issue with my M373. Sometimes it takes a good 3, 4, 5 seconds to change combis. I have noticed it with Karma on and off. It makes no difference. Especially when there is a combi with a Radias program included it sometimes takes a few seconds to change combis. I am afraid to use the M3 live for this very reason. I still use my Triton-Pro for live performance. The program/combi changing is much quicker on the Triton than the M3.

Now, I have seemed to have found a workaround to this issue. If you go to the M3 combi called "Piano and Strings", have Karma turned on, you can hit the on/off button of Karma and the String or Piano sound will turn on and off while still using the sustain pedal with no cutoff of sound. I have been trying to apply this particular Karma module to a number of other combis, i.e. Piano/organ, synth/organ and so on. It actually works very well. The change in sound is very fast and there isn't that awful cutoff of sound. The drawback is you can only use one combi at a time using whatever programs are in that particular combi and that combi's FX. I wish Stephen Kay or Korg would perhaps expand the live issue with the M3 using Karma for live performance. The M3 blows away the Triton in the sound department, but slow program/combi changes along with rather delicate buttons makes it difficult for live performance IMHO.

drama1 wrote:Now, I have seemed to have found a workaround to this issue. If you go to the M3 combi called "Piano and Strings", have Karma turned on, you can hit the on/off button of Karma and the String or Piano sound will turn on and off while still using the sustain pedal with no cutoff of sound. I have been trying to apply this particular Karma module to a number of other combis, i.e. Piano/organ, synth/organ and so on. It actually works very well. The change in sound is very fast and there isn't that awful cutoff of sound. The drawback is you can only use one combi at a time using whatever programs are in that particular combi and that combi's FX.

Hmmm...thanks for that tip, I'll look into it! Like I said, I've learned to work around that limitation with some clever programming.

I'm also going to replace my Fantom X6 with a G7. I have been ragging on Roland for the "best of SRX" choices they made in that base sound ROM for the G, but the addition of multisampling and the way it switches performances without a hiccup outweigh any of the negatives for me right now.