Enhanced GM sounds for Pa800

[LightGreen]

Hi everyone,

I'm through with my first attempt of massive improvement of GM sounds on my Pa800. I spend many hours in Sound Editor changing samples, tweaking filters, adding new layers, etc.

Changes were made to over 90 GM sound programs. The reason was to make general midi files that utilize Bank 0 play better.

I decided to share the results and made a resource BKP file compatible with OS 1.60. It can be downloaded from here:

http://depositfiles.com/files/9krzea291
(this is the updated version 5 of the sound set!)

This BKP will overwrite any changes that you made to sounds and styles, so you'd better make your own backup if you want to experiment with this package or pick several sounds for future use. To install it go to MEDIA/Utility/Full resource restore.

I also prepared a user SET file containing all of the modified sounds (to be picked and copied manually). The zipped SET file can be downloaded from here:
http://depositfiles.com/files/n4l3475h2
(this is the updated version 5 of the sound set!)

NOTE The volume of GM sounds was adjusted according to a large collection of MIDI files of different genres.

Best regards,
Alex.

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Post edited on Nov 21, 2008.

[macboy]

Great work and effort LightGreen !!!

[mrkorg]

nice

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Alex,

Do you have a plan for how you will load the OS2 musical resources (with new DNC sounds) and not lose the work you've just done?

I'm a bit nervous for you my friend, because I think the only way you can preserve your good work is if you create a duplicate set of user sounds with the same modifications, back them up as a .SET file, and then do the OS2 upgrade. You will then be able to reload your .SET file.

You will not be able to load your .BKP file from OS1.6 on top of OS2.0, it will overwrite all the factory resources including DNC sounds and may even crash OS2.

I'd be delighted if you can prove me wrong about it !

I hit this problem after enthusiastically modifying alll the factory sounds on my (previous) Pa1x and then the OS3.00 upgrade came with a new sound data format and I could find no other way to merge my changes apart from what I said above.

Best regards,
Rob

[LightGreen]

Do you have a plan for how you will load the OS2 musical resources (with new DNC sounds) and not lose the work you've just done?

Hi Rob,

Korg PA operating systems really lack backward compatibility of musical resources. Ideally it would be great if Korg implemented selective resource backup/restore at least in OS 2.0 (or 2.1?).
Also there are other things that PA users really need like merging/splitting/editing SETs, style conversion, etc.
Korg does not implement it, but maybe they could share some file specifications so that third party developers could do the job for them.

I think the only way you can preserve your good work is if you create a duplicate set of user sounds with the same modifications, back them up as a .SET file, and then do the OS2 upgrade.

I wish I could switch the arranger to "bank view" and save the whole bank 0 as a SET file. But only user banks can be saved in that way. I guess I will just copy the updated sounds to User bank 1 preserving the GM patch order. As soon as I get this done, I will share the SET file.

Best regards,
Alex.

[BasariStudios]

You can save the Banks, turn off the Factory Sound Protection in Media>Preferences.

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Alex,

Thanks to Nedim's suggestion there is an easy solution:

a) Unprotect factory sounds
b) Save all of the factory banks of sounds (with the ones you modified) as a .SET file - maybe called Factory.SET
c) Then open the Factory.SET and open the SOUNDS folder inside it, and then open each BANK in turn and select the sounds you modified.
d) Load each of your mofified sounds into a User sound
e) Continue the process until you've loaded alll the sounds you modified
f) Save the user sound banks as a new .SET file say called User.SET
g) Upgrade to OS2
h) Load User.SET into the user sound banks.
i) Way to go!

Best regards,
Rob

[LightGreen]

Thanks Nedim, thanks Rob!

I've made more changes to GM sounds and have updated my first post.
Now it contains links to the newest BKP file and the accompanying user SET file with over 90 sound programs. As soon as OS 2.0 is out I'll try to transfer all the modified sounds back from the User bank to their respective places in primary sound banks.

This is version 5 of the enhanced GM sound set. I've tested it with a lot of MIDI files to make my Korg Pa800 a nice sounding General MIDI module. With some midi files the change is very noticeable. I guess the best way to feel the difference is to load the resources and try it on your favourite files. This is a matter of taste of course, but to my ear the improved GM sound set is closer to Yamaha sound modules.

And yes, several 'release notes' for version 5 of the sound set.
1. Sounds in the user bank are not in GM order. The order is close to that of primary banks to make manual copying easier.
2. The priority was to make the GM programs sound good together in a mix. I guess this was more or less accomplished.

Best regards,
Alex.

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Alex,

What you've done is extremely useful and may even be commercially valuable if it works (as I suspect it will) after the OS2 upgrade. I think once OS2 is released you should continue to improve your sounds by adding the new DNC facilities. Then I think you could approach a few people as potential testers. Then you should record some MP3 demos of MIDI files played "before" and "after". Then you should ask Sharp if he would sell your sounds via his web site at maybe 20 or 30 Euros for the set. I wish you lots of success with this.

Best regards,
Rob

[Nesh]

We can only appreciate the effort and contribution of Alex to the user community, and his willingness to share his work with the forum.

What I don't understand is why he is being encouraged to sell his work which I presume he did not intend to? Is this the sharing spirit most public forums are trying to promote? I hope people will not start charging money for every useful advice they give here (and there is plenty of invaluable knowledge here in this forum)

Just my 2 cents...

Nesh