The Eat at Joe's Kawai K5000 Message Board Digest
How the Memory Works
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A Bunch of Questions
Saturday, 24-Oct-98 13:29:28
38.27.216.118 writes:
I received my K5000s a couple of days ago, and I have some questions.
I'm a little confused with how the K5k's memory is set up. It uses "flash" memory
as its ROM and "ram" as its edit buffer, right?
1. Does that mean that when I load a bank of patches that they are automatically
saved to the flash memory? Or, is that what the "Backup" function is for?
2. When I am selecting a single or a multi, is that patch taken from the flash
memory and copied to the ram for editing? Or, are all of the patches in both
banks loaded into the ram at start up?
3. When writing a "multi" to disk, are the single patches used in that "multi"
written with it? Or, does it just write the location of the single patches
within the "A" or "D" banks?
4. Is there a copy command for single patches and multi patches? Right now,
I've been using a floppy to make copies of patches.
5. Does the K5k have a compare function that I have missed? I would like to
compare what I have edited with the original. I have found that I can save a
patch to disk and then load that same patch into another location so I can
compare the two after editing one.
The way the K5k handles midi data dumps has me confused as well.
1. If I use my sequencer to record a midi dump of one patch, how will that dump
be handled when I send it back? Does the K5k put that patch back in its original
location, and is it written to the "flash" memory? Do I need to use the backup
command?
2. If I record a midi dump of a multi, will that dump include the single patches
that are used in the multi? When a multi is received, will it put back in its
original location too?
Bank Select.
I have looked at the midi implementation chart and it says that the K5k
recognizes controllers 0, 32 for bank select, but I am unable to get it to change
to the D bank. Will I be able to access the E and F bank when I receive the
ME-1 memory expander? I've set up a multi patch that has each section on its
own midi channel and I have set up the reception of program changes (in the
system page) to "section". I used my sequencer-Logic-to send out controller
0 or 32 and then a program change message, and after trying all 128 values of
each controller (0, 32), I am still unable to access the D bank.
I was looking at the digests, and there have been some comments that within
Cakewalk, you can use bank #356 to access the A bank, and bank #358 to access the
D bank. This has got to be something specifically for cakewalk. I had no idea the
midi specs went beyond 128.
Anyway, the sounds in the K5k are absolutely amazing. I am so impressed that I
feel that I should know this piece inside and out. Any help with these questions
would be greatly appreciated, and I hope that I can contribute my learned knowledge
of the board in the future. I have a feeling that learning about Additive
Synthesis is going to be a lot of fun.
Cheers,
John
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Re: A Bunch of Questions
Monday, 26-Oct-98 05:31:19
194.172.230.108 writes:
> I'm a little confused with how the K5k's memory is set up. It uses "flash"
> memory as its ROM and "ram" as its edit buffer, right?
Right. RAM is empty after switching-off. "Flash" memory is non-volatile.
> 1. Does that mean that when I load a bank of patches that they are automatically
> saved to the flash memory? Or, is that what the "Backup" function is for?
If you load a bank of patches from a diskette, you don't need a "Backup" function.
If you load them via MIDI, I don't know.
(See below)
> 2. When I am selecting a single or a multi, is that patch taken from the flash
> memory and copied to the ram for editing?
I think so. The "Write" function copies it back to the flash memory (with the
current changes you made).
> 3. When writing a "multi" to disk, are the single patches used in that "multi"
> written with it? Or, does it just write the location of the single patches within
> the "A" or "D" banks?
The latter. It's the pointer principle, like on the Internet, together with all
its problems: Change a Single location, and the Multi referring to it will be kaputt.
> 4. Is there a copy command for single patches and multi patches?
Yes. Use the "Write" menu. You can select a new patch location there. If in edit
mode, it writes the edit buffer, if not, it copies the flash memory content.
> 5. Does the K5k have a compare function that I have missed?
No, unfortunately.
> The way the K5k handles midi data dumps has me confused as well.
I don't understand what the manual says about "Backup" and "Reset", either.
Does anyone?
Jens Groh
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squeals and storing
Saturday, 31-Oct-98 09:11:08
168.100.206.18 writes:
[section on resonance clipping removed]
Secondly, I'm really puzzled by the memory/load story. I tried to edit a patch and
store in the blank spots in the "A" bank. I got a message saying "Error, memory
full". Same story trying to load off of disk, although I was able to store a single
patch into the "D" bank. What gives? Also, is there a way of loading a group of
patches without wiping out what's already stored. It seems that banks always load
at location 1. Is there a way of loading 10 new patches into locations other that
1-10 without going through the very slow one-at-a-time-load.
The K5000 does make some very interesting sounds, and I'd like to be convinced that
it will work for me, but at the moment I'm a bit discouraged.
Thanks,
Elby
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Re: squeals and storing
Monday, 02-Nov-98 00:57:45
153.37.7.110 writes:
[section on resonance clipping removed]
The second problem is due to the way the K5000 stores patches in memory. While there
are 128 slots to store patches in, there is also a limited amount of memory for each
bank. The number of patches you can store in a bank depends on how large the patches
are, and it is usually somewhere around 65. Patches will be larger if you use
additive sources and also if you use more sources.
Kenji
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How much memory is that anyway?
Thursday, 05-Nov-98 18:12:55
152.206.94.58 writes:
How much memory is on that card/module, and what type is it, is there a possiblity
for aftermarket? or is it totally proprietary?
While we're on the subject, how much memory comes stock in the K5k s/r/w?
thanx :)
Wes
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Amount of memory in a bank
Thursday, 05-Nov-98 20:08:42
192.86.155.92 writes:
Well a KAA file is always 134,660 bytes, and since that's a full bank dump and the
size never changes no matter the number of patches I would guess it's an exact
duplicate of memory. Figuring you hold about 65 patches that's an average of
around 2000 bytes per patch. According to the list of possible patch file sizes
(it's in the digest at ka1 format if you haven't seen it already) and from
experience this seems to be a reasonable average for patch sizes.
If someone really wants to verify that the K5K uses memory in a predictable way
they could try load a 6 ADD patch over and over and see how far they get. It should
be only a little over twenty patches. Twenty four using straight division, but the
K5K probably needs to use some memory to store a table in memory of where patches
begin and end or something like that, no? This would mean less than 24 patches with
six ADD sources.
This means that each bank is only around 128 K of memory! That is not so good
considering how cheap memory is (and was even when the K5K first came out). It
would have been nice if there was a bit more per bank....couldn't they have
doubled the memory on the R/S for a very piddly amount of money? How much does 256K
of RAM go for these days anyway?????
Now that I have, I wish I hadn't thought about this so much.....:(
Kenji
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To cheer you up
Thursday, 05-Nov-98 21:03:20
152.173.55.233 writes:
thanx for your response kenji! to cheer you up I beleeive it is using Sram, rather
than normal ram. which is alot more expensive, but still should have been cheap
enough to implement say 512k. Sometimes the penny pinchers win a few in
R&D I suppose.
wes
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Re: To cheer you up
Thursday, 05-Nov-98 22:07:57
199.199.157.31 writes:
>I beleeive it is using Sram, rather than normal ram
Can you tell by looking at the memory expansion board?
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Re: Re: To cheer you up
Friday, 06-Nov-98 04:40:03
194.172.230.108 writes:
>>I beleeive it is using Sram, rather than normal ram
I'd believe it is using flash memory, because SRAM needs battery back-up.
>Can you tell by looking at the memory expansion board?
If you have a memory expansion board and the chips are visible, tell me what's
written on them. Perhaps I can find it out.
Jens Groh
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memory expansion question / complaint
Monday, 11-Jan-99 11:00:03
166.55.4.147 writes:
I've had my k5000w for about a week now and I know this. I want more memory! What
I can't understand is kawai's decision on the memory.Why wouldn't they make it so
it has enough to hold a full A bank of the largest possible patches?
If I buy the expansion will I get the same thing? 2 extra banks that can hold 60
out of 128 locations? Or will it allow me to have 3 banks ( ABC ) of 128 patches?
Thanks
Stewart
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Re: Re: memory expansion question / complaint
Monday, 11-Jan-99 17:19:46
205.227.43.14 writes:
Patches can range in size from 254 bytes (2 PCM sources) to 5434 bytes (6 ADD
sources). Since a kaa file is always 134,660 bytes in size, I will assume that
there is approximately that much memory per bank (most likely a little less in
reality), which gives a total of 269,320 bytes of memory for patches. This means
a total of 49.56 patches (269,320 / 5434). Since you can't have a fraction of a
patch, according to this system you would have been given one patch bank with 49
patch slots.
Pretty darn shabby!
Now lets say you fill up your one patch bank with the smallest types of patches.
You could still only store 49 of them when there should be enough memory in the
machine to store 1,060 of them (in theory)! Now that's a tremendous waste of
memory!!!
I agree with the way Kawai has implemented the patch banks. Consider that an
additive patch has to store 64 parameters where most patches store one (waveform
type). Then you have the formant filter, which adds more than 70 parameters where
most synths don't have any! These additions can be multiplied as many as six
times when you figure you can have up to six sources. While additive patches
aren't as large as samples, I think that they still take up much more memory than
a subtractive synth patch (or pretty much any other type of synth that I can think
of). I think Kawai had to do it this way because of the unusual amount of variance
there is in patch size. Samplers run out of memory too correct?
If the K5K was given more memory the price would have been higher. The initial
price for the K5KS was $1400 and only a few of us were buying it. It has to be
reduced to 2/5 of it's original price to move! I think a higher price would have
been a disaster.
All said, I would rather have the freedom to control memory usage myself rather
than have the machine architecture impose a needless restriction on me.
Kenji
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Re: Re: Re: memory expansion question / complaint
Monday, 18-Jan-99 20:31:45
205.188.199.58 writes:
Regarding memory allocation on the K5K.
The memory for each Additive bank (including the internal & memory expansion banks)
is allocated by ADD sources PCM sources don't count as memory. There are 137 ADD
sources per bank. If you make patches using only PCM sources you could fill all 128
patch locations (I've never tried it because I'm more interested in the additive
capabilities of the K5K but unless there's a system bug it should be possible). If
you make patches using 6 ADD sources you would only get Approx. 22
patches per bank. I made a bank with 97 patches so I know it is possible get over
90 patches in a bank. This bank contained patches using both ADD and PCM sources
but no patches using only PCM.
Just FYI
Kawaipd@aol.com
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