Universal EXB Sample ROM card - who wants one or two?

[Rob Sherratt]

As you know, Korg have had to withdraw the EXB ROM expansion board products from the European market, due to RoHS - Reduction of Hazardous Substances (lead in solder) legislation, which is a shame. The only way at present to load custom PCM samples on the Pa1x is via HD and this takes over a minute for 16 Mbytes or more, making this not viable during live performances.

I'm thinking of organising the supply of an RoHS compliant product which would be a "universal" PCM sample EXB board accepting an SD FLASH memory daughter card supplied by the user, that can be reprogrammed via a PC. You could fit two of these, one to each of the EXB-ROM sockets. This accessory would be used to load new user samples to prevent any start up delay while the Pa1x loads (at present) user samples from disk. The modules would each provide 16 Mb capacity, and would read the first 16 Mb from whatever capacity SD or MMC card the user supplies.

This will be a small production run project to supply 100 universal EXB boards costing either 150 Euros for one, or 250 Euros for two. If more than 100 are needed, then the price might drop. If less than 100 are needed, then the project is not viable. Hence please respond to the poll.

If anyone can organise the project at a lower price, please feel free to send me an email and you can take the project from me! I would also appreciate being notified by any RoHS compliant manufacturer who wants to undertake this project. I reserve the right to drop the project if it becomes either technically or commercially not viable. I'm not accepting orders at present, this will take several months to organise.

Best regards,
Rob

[karmathanever]

Hi Rob

Love this idea... however I may be wrong here, but I think the boards you are proposing require a little more "non -technical" explanation.

....a "universal" PCM sample EXB board accepting an SD FLASH memory daughter card supplied by the user, that can be reprogrammed via a PC....

I think this would raise some questions regarding "..exactly what does the "user" need in order to utilise these cards.." etc...
Are you saying that we will be able to have the "Korg" expansion cards as they originally configured them?


...just a suggestion - not a criticism...

Cheers

Pete

[ashboe]

Hi Rob,
I might be interested in this, however, I don't fully understand what it is you are proposing and what these things do... could you explain again, but simpler...
thanks
sean

[Rob Sherratt]

Simple explanation:

Korg EXB ROM sound/sample cards are no longer available due to EU legislation rendering them illegal.

Here is my plan for a "universal" replacement:
User sound/sample expansion using the EXB-ROM slots on the Pa1x
No delay - user samples available instantly
The user samples are available instantly
Reprogrammable by the user using a PC card reader/writer
Each card gives 16 Mbytes, 2 cards would give 32 Mbytes

Best regards,
Rob

[karmathanever]

Hi Rob

Thanks for that - I was sort of hoping to get the Latin card but it seems that your proposal is to increase RAM with EPROM cards for user configuration.

A similar suggestion was raised quite some time ago and the question of Korg warranty was an issue. Any thoughts?
Will these be to Korg design specifications? If Korg agreed to supply their "Latin" & Piano" data for these cards then this would be a good replacement for their products. Yes it would be good to have an additional 32MB of sample (self-programmable) ROM

Reprogrammable by the user using a PC card reader/writer

(IMHO, I think this will concern a lot of users)

Thanks

Pete

[DjStiky]

Oh hell yeah!! It would be a dream come true! I'd order 2 for sure!

[Rob Sherratt]

I've been in conversation with Oliver Schwarz from Musitronics (www.musitronics.de). Musitronics are about to launch a new EXB-ROM flash memory card for the Pa1x which meets the EU's RoHS regulations. Musitronics can program the cards for resale customers, but the cards can not be programmed by end users. I believe the price from Musitronics is approx 150 Euros for each 16 MB card, I am not sure what the minimum order quantity is.

In view of the product from Musitronics, I won't be going ahead with the project I described. There's not a big enough market for two similar products.

Regards,
Rob

[Sharp]

Shame you weren't around a few years ago with this.

There would have been insane interest in something like this for the Triton Series, and I would have taken a LOT of them off you myself to resell with my software on them.

Regards.
Sharp.

[marlo74]

Rob,
Let's say these kind of cards become available in the future. And somehow The supplier was able to burn my set samples into the EXB card Will I be able to load other/additional sounds to my RAM (another 32MB) and that way I can expand the number of personal samples in my PA1X?

[Goce]

Rob, I would love to have the rom expansion on my pa1xpro. I would also be interested in buying larger quantity becausethere is a good market for these. Major selling point is that samples are instantly reloaded. Just one question: Does this mean that we would have total of 64MB (including the current 32MB Ram)?

Thank you

[Rob Sherratt]

Shame you weren't around a few years ago with this. There would have been insane interest in something like this for the Triton Series, and I would have taken a LOT of them off you myself to resell with my software on them. Regards. Sharp.

Hi Sharp,

Talk to Oliver at www.musitronics.de Contact details are on the web site. His boards are Flash reprogrammable. He has a reprogrammer that connects to a PC via a USB port, and I think he would be willing to sell you one. He will also take Irish Acts samples and sounds and program these up into the Flash boards for you. I think the price is about 150 Euros for 16 MB board. The boards are RoHS compliant.

The design I was talking about with an SD daughter card was getting complicated. The SD cards only offer a data transfer rate of 2 MB/sec, whereas the sample memory needs to provide 56 MB/sec or above. So, I'd have ended up with a SIMM card containing a microprocessor and SIMM RAM chips interfaced to the SD daughter card, so the content of the SD card could be transferred to RAM so there would be a fast enough sampling interface into the Pa1x. I could not do this for 150 Euros per card unless there was a market for at least 1000 cards, which I doubt.

I hope your review copy of the DVD has arrived, and I look forward to your comments in due course.

Best regards,
Rob

[Rob Sherratt]

Rob, I would love to have the rom expansion on my pa1xpro. I would also be interested in buying larger quantity because there is a good market for these. Major selling point is that samples are instantly reloaded. Just one question: Does this mean that we would have total of 64MB (including the current 32MB Ram)? Thank you

Yes there can be a total of 64 MB, using all four 16 MB SIMM sockets beneath the Pa1X. Two of the SIMM sockets take RAM and two take ROM. Oliver Schwartz at www.musitonics.de has Flash reprogrammable ROM cards available at approx 150 Euros each. Using Oliver's cards in the ROM slots, the samples are instantly available, no load delay time. He will probably also sell a USB based reprogrammer that allows you to reprogram the cards from your PC, but I don't know the price of the programmer yet.

[dimitris]

Interesting idea, Rob!!! I would buy 2 of them even if already own Korg's Latin and Piano card.

Regards,
Dimitris