Question on user contribution

[ed_f]

Having been a member on here since it opened (lost my old user name) back when I first got my Triton, I have had this feeling that there are a LOT less programs, combis, etc. being offered up by users than there was by the Triton community - I even remember a time we did a chain mail with about 5 CDs worth of content that we contributed to and sent around to everybody. (download time could get expensive) Sharp's post about fixing the download section made me start wondering and noticed how many Triton downloads there are.

So, any thoughts on what the difference is?
* Is the Kronos too complicated for the more people to submit things?
* Has that kind of sharing just become less common over the years?
* Are there too many things lost in forum discussions that don't get to a download section?
* Is it too much hassle to save files so you have a pcg with just your program for example?
* Are drum track patterns, wave sequences, and other non combi/prog files something worth sharing?

I am really just curious about this, not trying to get in a debate about who DOES give what around here. (or a 'I don't see much from you' comment). Curious about those who have
other manufactured keyboards and follow those forums, any comparison? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

[GregC]

likely the Triton ( and the Trinity) were 10 times ( pick a #) more popular and the forum community was more of a novel experience 10 years ago.

Simply, the Triton was a farking cool board at the time. And it was easier to use.

Since the forum has mostly noobs I don't expect a volume of custom programs , custom combis. Keep in mind, the Kronos already has a strong collection of Programs. Combis are a matter of taste

[HardSync]

Earlier Korg synths certainly had more user-created sounds, I agree. The Wavestation, for instance, which a lot of people had complained was too complicated to program, had quite a large number of community banks available. That was primarily because of Ben Hall and his site back then -- he did more to keep the WS community going than anyone else. Also the M1 has a bazillion user programs and multis, but it was enormously popular.

I do think that the current generation of Korg synths take a bit more time to program than Korg's other synths, as they have far more options, controllers and modulating routings to consider, etc. The synths now are much more complex and I think it does keep some from even attempting to program their own custom programs and combis.

The M3 also suffers from a lack of user-created sounds, notwithstanding Qui's contributions and Dan Stesco's along with a few others'. But with the M3, many people had certain expectations, such as programming your combis with KARMA. That can take days just for a single combi. That fact alone will put off some people from contributing or even considering making their own combis. I have even seen someone complain about a user's sounds because they didn't program any KARMA stuff, an attitude that again will put others off from submitting their own work.

And I believe that those with an inclination for programming complete sound sets, with or without KARMA, are a little more likely to want to make money from their work because it does take a long time to do. Fair play to them if they can make a bit of dosh.

Anyway, the reasons vary, and as GregC said, the Kronos does have a strong collection of sounds already, including a good number of 3rd party sets. Plus, soft synths are used more and more, and those have a huge number of programs, too, so there is less imperative to make your own when you can just call up endless presets... I guess.

[SanderXpander]

The Triton series ran for what, ten years nearly? They're still widely used. The Kronos has been out for two years and has only been easily available over here for one. In that time, Qui has brought a lot of free sounds to the Kronos, William Busch has brought us a couple of excellent sample libraries, Dan Stesco made some, Sharp did too, and a bunch of others have made individual sounds or small patch collections. Plus all the Oasys content that directly carries over, and all the soundfonts you can make. I think it's quite a lot already to be honest. But I fully expect more to come.

[RKfan]

I think that there are loads of people out there sharing stuff. The Kronos is a complex beast and I am only just getting used to programming some of the synth engines (getting OK at MS20 and Poly6, but havent had time to look at Mod-7 (nice sound) and STR1 (love some of the weirder stuff - but how do you make em). One of the things that took me a long time to work out was how things fit together and what pages you need to go to to get an LFO to modulate the filter (takes a bit of hunting some times - to my logic I woud lgo to the LFO and say what am I going to make this affect - but its really the other way around (here's my filter how am I going to modultate it - same thing different logic). One thing I keep loosing (because its not where I want it - in the common menu) is how to set the relative volumes of two parts of a two engine patch.

As far as sharing files I have had a few PMs from people with patches in them (thanks you know who you are). If I wanted to share a single patch I find it hard to write a single file - rather then save the whole bank (I bet its in one of the manuals somewhere).

The only thing which I find quite frusrating is when I build a new patch and I am thinking this is sooo coool and I want to record something because the inspiration to make music has come over me - I cant because I have to set up the patch all over again in SEQ mode (which is a pain if the patch has lots of effects settings) - it woudl be great to be able to press the SEQ record button (from the patch) and for it just to work (like it does on mu Juno-G).

I did try building a streaming sample at one point (with 128 mutisamples) but I got a bot lost and havent attempted it again.

My goodness the Kronos is so powerful and I dont have all the time I would like to be able to fully master it. But its a really fantastic piece of kit which I really really love. Oh - time to go home and (once sorted out he kids) explore some more.

[HardSync]

The only thing which I find quite frusrating is when I build a new patch and I am thinking this is sooo coool and I want to record something because the inspiration to make music has come over me - I cant because I have to set up the patch all over again in SEQ mode (which is a pain if the patch has lots of effects settings) - it woudl be great to be able to press the SEQ record button (from the patch) and for it just to work (like it does on mu Juno-G).

Save your patch first. Then whilst still in program mode, hold down the ENTER button and then press the SEQ REC/WRITE button. This is called Auto Song Setup. But again, you do have to save your program first otherwise those edits won't be carried over.

[SanderXpander]

Uhhh... Recording with the sequencer does work that way. In your patch, hold enter and press rec. Boom.
EDIT: ha, seems I was beaten to the punch. Hope it helps you!

[Kevin Nolan]

Interesting point.

I think it's down to a few reasons -

1) As pointed out - most of the synth engines are complex and MOD-7, STR-1 and MS20EX demand a huge amount of effort and probably remain not understood to most owners

2) There are so many exquisitely programmed sounds on it already that there is probably less demand for new programs or less urge for an owner to create their own

3) In my opinion - even in the time of Triton - owning such an instrument was more niche - as in - a narrower user base. Now, the Kronos is probably owned by a far wider range of musicians so there's less connectivity across users

4) Probably associated with the point above is that a smaller fraction of Kronos owners frequent this forum than Triton owners did

5) The Triton series were around longer than Kronos (to date)

[ed_f]

Thanks for some good points folks. I don't think the length of time on the Triton accounts for a whole lot, seems early on there was tons of stuff flying around.

I am getting a sense that maybe complexity is really the issue.

I appreciate all the reasonable and thought out replies!

[Bald Eagle]

I think it's simply that the Triton was more popular and sold more units. You also have to consider the overall quality of all those Triton freebies. It's easy to put together some mediocre programs and combis but producing the quality you tend to see in the Kronos downloads takes considerably more time and there are fewer people doing it.

[ed_f]

I think it's simply that the Triton was more popular and sold more units. You also have to consider the overall quality of all those Triton freebies. It's easy to put together some mediocre programs and combis but producing the quality you tend to see in the Kronos downloads takes considerably more time and there are fewer people doing it.

Some truth there - but a lot of the samples were really good - good enough I have converted them over to the kronos.

I am also starting to think that that since the Kronos comes with so much out of the box there is less need that with the Triton to expand the sound set.

[michelkeijzers]

When I had a Kawai K4 (very l ong ago) I mostly did my own programs. Reason: the built in programs were limited and/or bad.

With the Kronos we have thousands of programs so for the majority there are good programs in any kind of genre.

So except for those who either like to program or people who want to play covers with approximating the original sounds as far as possible, there is no real need for additional programs.

Don't get me wrong: I like it when people share programs for free, or even when people sell them or a combination of this (like the great sounds of Qui Robinez).

[cynkh]

I agree with what others are saying about popularity. It may also be that it's such a new product (in the grand scheme of things).

I've been procrastinating with proferring my programs and combis mostly because it doesn't feel right sharing a 600+kB file with just a handful of programs in it (I'm defaulting to sharing PCG files). I think a shift in thinking about this approach is in order. I will share just a dozen or so of my (admittedly less than professional ) programs (no combis yet ) and you can add what you have to it, work on versions of what I have and I'll do the same and we can quickly double or quadruple the programs and ultimately "curate" a more professional sounding collection.

Who's on board with this approach?

Having been a member on here since it opened (lost my old user name) back when I first got my Triton, I have had this feeling that there are a LOT less programs, combis, etc. being offered up by users than there was by the Triton community - I even remember a time we did a chain mail with about 5 CDs worth of content that we contributed to and sent around to everybody. (download time could get expensive) Sharp's post about fixing the download section made me start wondering and noticed how many Triton downloads there are.

So, any thoughts on what the difference is?
* Is the Kronos too complicated for the more people to submit things?
* Has that kind of sharing just become less common over the years?
* Are there too many things lost in forum discussions that don't get to a download section?
* Is it too much hassle to save files so you have a pcg with just your program for example?
* Are drum track patterns, wave sequences, and other non combi/prog files something worth sharing?

I am really just curious about this, not trying to get in a debate about who DOES give what around here. (or a 'I don't see much from you' comment). Curious about those who have
other manufactured keyboards and follow those forums, any comparison? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

[michelkeijzers]

I agree with what others are saying about popularity. It may also be that it's such a new product (in the grand scheme of things).

I've been procrastinating with proferring my programs and combis mostly because it doesn't feel right sharing a 600+kB file with just a handful of programs in it (I'm defaulting to sharing PCG files). I think a shift in thinking about this approach is in order. I will share just a dozen or so of my (admittedly less than professional ) programs (no combis yet ) and you can add what you have to it, work on versions of what I have and I'll do the same and we can quickly double or quadruple the programs and ultimately "curate" a more professional sounding collection.

Who's on board with this approach?

Having been a member on here since it opened (lost my old user name) back when I first got my Triton, I have had this feeling that there are a LOT less programs, combis, etc. being offered up by users than there was by the Triton community - I even remember a time we did a chain mail with about 5 CDs worth of content that we contributed to and sent around to everybody. (download time could get expensive) Sharp's post about fixing the download section made me start wondering and noticed how many Triton downloads there are.

So, any thoughts on what the difference is?
* Is the Kronos too complicated for the more people to submit things?
* Has that kind of sharing just become less common over the years?
* Are there too many things lost in forum discussions that don't get to a download section?
* Is it too much hassle to save files so you have a pcg with just your program for example?
* Are drum track patterns, wave sequences, and other non combi/prog files something worth sharing?

I am really just curious about this, not trying to get in a debate about who DOES give what around here. (or a 'I don't see much from you' comment). Curious about those who have
other manufactured keyboards and follow those forums, any comparison? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

If you only want to spread programs, you can just save a single program bank or does that cost already 600 KB?. Due to the large amoun of parameters it could. On the other hand, don't forget about inflation and especially in the ' computer world' / law of Morgan it is about double each two years. So about 8 years ago, 100 KB is now 800 KB.

In theory it would be possible to create PCG files which contain less programs than 128, but I'm not sure if a Korg would read such file ... might be a nice thing to try.

In case anybody want to spread a combi without having all program banks added, in PCG Tools you can just copy/paste the created combi and paste the used programs by those combis in one bank (or two if they are both HD1/EXi) and as long as they are not more than 128 per bank of course.

[ed_f]

Michel - good point on using PCGTools. That was certainly a problem back in the triton days, getting files organized, outputting just what you needed. I still have files that are complete factory sounds except one patch by someone tucked away on some slot and named terribly.