Korg Forums

Well, everybody noticed that booting up the M3 takes ages, especially with autoloading EXB1-4.
I just got my M3-73, it came with XPanded 2.0.0 software and the EXB-Radias (which I really love!). After 2 days I bought the EXB-M256 and hooked up a USB flash pendrive to provide the EXB1-4 sounds. Although I think it's really annoying that the M3 doesn't store this in memory at least when it's plugged in, there's not much to do about that, so can I speed up the loading process?
Maybe buy me a 2,5" HDD (7200rpm) with an enclosure? Or is it something else that makes it so slow, it takes minutes now...

djkoelkast wrote: Although I think it's really annoying that the M3 doesn't store this in memory at least when it's plugged in, there's not much to do about that, so can I speed up the loading process?

This is the case with ALL samplers. The samples have to be loaded into memory at startup.

The only thing you can try is to 'AutoLoad' and try a different USB 2.0 flash drive.

Shakil wrote:

djkoelkast wrote: Although I think it's really annoying that the M3 doesn't store this in memory at least when it's plugged in, there's not much to do about that, so can I speed up the loading process?

This is the case with ALL samplers. The samples have to be loaded into memory at startup.

The only thing you can try is to 'AutoLoad' and try a different USB 2.0 flash drive.

Not ALL, my roland SP-555, which is a sampler, never has to reload samples from the CF card, it reads them from the CF card on the fly.

Will the harddrive be a fast and good idea or is the datatransfer limited by the M3? I already have the Autoload function on for all 4 expansions (and I love them!)

Maybe buy me a 2,5" HDD (7200rpm) with an enclosure?

Spare your money... I even tried a velociraptor with enclosure! The difference is about 1-2 secs for OS and all exb's. M3's internal bandwith is the "weak link".

You might try copying the EXBs to internal SD card.

http://karma-lab.wikidot.com/korg-m3:ex ... to-2-gbyte

J.Q wrote:You might try copying the EXBs to internal SD card.

http://karma-lab.wikidot.com/korg-m3:ex ... to-2-gbyte

That's certainly worth a try, thanks!

djkoelkast... yes you are right about the Roland SP series.. I meant RAM based samplers... (Except YAMAHA EX5 16MB Flash RAM and the Kurzweil PC3K 128MB Flash Ram)

SP series streams from flash cards. But, then you loose polyphony, multisampling and velocity layering.

For loops based samples nothing beats SP series... auto-bpm, no loading time.... no match there.

I use my SP555 as jingle player in my radio studio, fits the purpose
At the moment I have my M3 module opened up, removed the SD and copied everything on a Sandisk Extreme III 2GB, including the EXB stuff, let's have a look what it does

So it works!
It isn't flying, but it did speed up *a lot* compared to the old way (USB Flash drive).

I've made some pictures.
Here's the beast opened up:



The old and the new card:



There goes the new one:



At least is it booting straight away:



Loading the EXBs:




I'm really happy now

Hey that's great!

Thanks for letting us know that it did speed up. Maybe it's due to the type of SD Card you are using.

Shakil wrote:Hey that's great!

Thanks for letting us know that it did speed up. Maybe it's due to the type of SD Card you are using.

Yeah, it's one of the fastest cards still out there. I wasn't able to find the recommended Transcend 150x speed, so I thought this Extreme III card would be good too, and so it is.

If I add the 256MB memory expanion...will I be able to load ALL three KORG kep files and then some?

BillyB wrote:If I add the 256MB memory expanion...will I be able to load ALL three KORG kep files and then some?

Yes, you are. That's what I did too.
Actually there are four of them.

Could you please tell us the before and after load time in seconds? Thanks

I've read about this before and I know they reference that it may void your warranty. Does anyone know for sure if it voids it or not?