New Kronos Sound Libraries 1st July 2016

[karmathanever]

Korg is pleased to announce the availability of eight new Sound Libraries: six from Purgatory Creek Soundware including four collaborations with Acousticsamples, one from Kelfar Technologies, and one from KApro.

There are so many new sounds that we can only give you a taste in this email; for full details, including audio demos, please check out the KRONOS Sound Libraries site:

http://www.korg.com/news/2016/0701/
https://shop.korg.com/kronos/SoundLibraries

* * *
New libraries:

Purgatory Creek Soundware:
・ EXs149 Acousticsamples A-Pian: US $45
・ EXs150 Acousticsamples B-Pian: US $45
・ EXs151 Acousticsamples AkousKontr Bass: US $65
・ EXs152 Acousticsamples VibsyM: US $55
・ EXs153 Purgatory Creek Pianet N: US $25
・ EXs154 Purgatory Creek Sparkletop: US $25

Kelfar Technologies:
・ EXs171 Kelfar Sha’bi (arabic dance music): normally US$250, introductory price of US$200

The introductory price is available through July 31.

KApro:
・ KRS-30 KApro Incredible FM: US $19

* * *
Note: All of the new libraries from Purgatory Creek Soundware and Kelfar Technologies require KRONOS System Version 3.0.4 or later. KApro’s KRS-30 requires KRONOS System Version 3.0.2 or later.

Cheers
Pete

[Sharp]

Don't wish to sound negative but.....

There are too many overall to choose from because too many are not even close to being full banks of sounds.

I know it's not a requirement, but KORG should have made it one from day one. If you look at this realistically, there's so many small libraries available that it's just too much work to simply download them and try them out as demo's.

You still have to have a free bank to load one that might only contain a few sounds, and with so many only containing a few sounds, the number of libraries is too vast. Which means too many to download, unzip and actually install into your KRONOS. Then uninstall if you don't want it. Which btw still leaves you with the remains of that library sitting in your PROG Bank.

The reason why I see this all as a problem is because for most people to download and install just "ONE" library that they actually want to buy is a big deal for them. It can be very daunting and complicated for many.

Regards
Sharp.

[pete.m]

Hi Sharp,

Personally, I'm grateful for the opportunity to buy new sounds. For example, I do like the sound of those two new pianos and will buy them, although I can't imagine ever needing any more electric pianos. Ever.

But I'm pretty much with you all the way apart from that. There is an awful lot to sort out, and it can get way too messy. It's taken me a long time to get my head round it, and it's only recently that I have got my sounds sufficiently organised to be able to consider accommodating new ones. With 21 banks available to me, it's no longer a great hardship to keep one free, but it hasn't always felt that way. I guess I regard the inconvenience as being a fair price to pay for such a good workstation, though.

At the other end of the scale, I remember Brian Eno - during his days as a champion of the DX7 (which I found very hard to get much out of) - saying that he wished synthesizer manufacturers would produce synths that only had six preset sounds, and leave the rest up to us. There is something to be said for that approach.

Thanks for all you do for this forum, by the way. It's such a help to me.

Pete.

[burningbusch]

Well, I'm not seeing this as much of an issue myself. IMO, it doesn't make sense to have 128 Programs for basic instruments. You provide a number of reasonable sonic variations. After that, it more often becomes clutter that the end user needs to deal with. Even Korg provides ~32 Programs for their acoustic pianos. The idea is simple, if your needs call for a better ac. bass, AP, EP, flute, etc. then most people, at least those I've been dealing with, are interested purchasing those instruments singularly, at a reasonable cost. They don't want to pay for more than what they absolutely need.

As far as loading demo versions go, surprisingly I find a lot of people are seemingly unaware of that option. Many are purchasing the products based on audio demos alone.

For first time users, installation can be confusing as most don't know where to find the instructions (requires clicking on the blue question mark). But the instructions are clear and work if followed. After that I point them to a tutorial that details how to work with Programs, merging banks, etc.

Busch.

[SDDP]

Don't wish to sound negative but.....

There are too many overall to choose from because too many are not even close to being full banks of sounds.

I know it's not a requirement, but KORG should have made it one from day one. If you look at this realistically, there's so many small libraries available that it's just too much work to simply download them and try them out as demo's.

You still have to have a free bank to load one that might only contain a few sounds, and with so many only containing a few sounds, the number of libraries is too vast. Which means too many to download, unzip and actually install into your KRONOS. Then uninstall if you don't want it. Which btw still leaves you with the remains of that library sitting in your PROG Bank.

The reason why I see this all as a problem is because for most people to download and install just "ONE" library that they actually want to buy is a big deal for them. It can be very daunting and complicated for many.

Regards
Sharp.

Where's the like button for your post

[GregC]

Don't wish to sound negative but.....

There are too many overall to choose from because too many are not even close to being full banks of sounds.

I know it's not a requirement, but KORG should have made it one from day one. If you look at this realistically, there's so many small libraries available that it's just too much work to simply download them and try them out as demo's.

You still have to have a free bank to load one that might only contain a few sounds, and with so many only containing a few sounds, the number of libraries is too vast. Which means too many to download, unzip and actually install into your KRONOS. Then uninstall if you don't want it. Which btw still leaves you with the remains of that library sitting in your PROG Bank.

The reason why I see this all as a problem is because for most people to download and install just "ONE" library that they actually want to buy is a big deal for them. It can be very daunting and complicated for many.

Regards
Sharp.

Where's the like button for your post

I am glad this is not FB

[enigmahack]

While I completely agree with Sharp, I think the biggest thing comes down to how these files are loaded.

I continue to insist that Korg has made an error in how files are loaded, specifically with the Program/Combi associations.

Kurzweil had this figured out back in the late 90's, that programs and setups (Kurzweil's version of a Combi) have a sort of UID for each program, so that you could load a Combi/Setup anywhere, and it could append-load programs in any bank/location and auto-update the Combi/Setup to point to that location during the loading process.

For me, and for many users, I would be completely happy being able to append entire banks. Right now, I have several banks that only go up to say... Program 032 or 064 because of partial loads as Sharp is describing.

There are applications that exist and I'm very grateful that they exist that allow you to connect to a PC and move things around while maintaining those program/combi references... However this is a concerning issue.

When I do work for some of my clients, I have to maintain complete databases of their setups so I don't accidentally overwrite their existing setups, or worse move program locations and break their existing Combi configurations.

Take this a step further, and the same issue exists between programs and Sample keymaps.

Needless to say, of all of the things that I wish Korg would fix about their boards, it's how samples/programs/combi's relate to one another. Right now, everything is an unlinked pointer. It would be great if we could have some Unique ID in the backend instead, and when you move a program, the Combi looks for the UID instead and auto-updates.

I digress. I feel like this issue is a symptom of another deeper problem, one that is fixable.

[burningbusch]

I understand the issue with the relationship between Programs/Combis but I don't see it with Samples/Programs at all.

With most hardware samplers that I've encountered, the program's link to its samples depends entirely on the position the samples/multisamples reside in RAM (Flash as well). Everything is fine if you load RAM the same every time, but delete some samples/multisamples, the order gets messed up and the programs now point to the wrong samples.

Korg issues a unique ID when the KSC is created. It doesn't matter what order you load KSCs. It doesn't matter if you move the KSC (and related files) to some other area on the SSD. In fact you don't even need to go to DISK mode and search for a KSC to load, from the Program you can select LOAD REQUIRED SAMPLES and it will find them and load either just the necessary samples for that program or the entire bank. I don't know of any other system that's as smart as this. Kontakt isn't that smart.

If there are other hardware samplers that properly deal with this issue I'd like to know about them. It is a big deal. This is one of the main reasons why I think Kronos users are far more likely to add libraries to their keyboard and why the Kronos sample library development is healthy (over 150 EXs at the store) while other platforms seem relatively stagnant.

Busch.

[NormC]

The loading of pcgs and kscs is archaic and confusing. For example: I loaded Enigmas great Uptown funk combi and it worked first time. Now it won't work at all. Samples are missing. Load required samples doesn't fix it. A new load from unzipped download doesn't fix it. It is just confusing. Data management on the kronos is the worst part of the software.

[AdDeRoo]

Kurzweil had this figured out back in the late 90's, that programs and setups (Kurzweil's version of a Combi) have a sort of UID for each program, so that you could load a Combi/Setup anywhere, and it could append-load programs in any bank/location and auto-update the Combi/Setup to point to that location during the loading process.

Having been a Kurzweil user, I think something like this would indeed help. Myself, I'm delighted to see every now and then new sounds being offered, and over the years I have tried the majority of them, bought ~10, and kept many of the free ones.

For sure, file management and organisation of all of the sample banks takes a while to learn, but then again the Kronos is the top-synth and thus reasonably complex. I'm myself not a deep synth progammer - and I also lack the time to learn it -, so I am happy to see others develop and I am ready to pay for that.

As for management, great tools are available such as PCGtools which helped me a lot. The 'load required samples' option is also great.

I see all the EXS as a large bookshop. Also there, I appreciate the large variety of choices..

But sure, if Korg can come up with simplification here, that would sure help many users.