I guess I don't get the file system after all!

[markone]

OK I thought I had figured out the file system...

No, it appears.

Yesterday I converted a massive bunch of samples from an Akai library I've been after for ages (Keith Emerson stuff). But it is in about 20 banks...

Now I thought, I'll use fusion sort to put them into banks of Lead Synths, Organs, Splits, FX.

Fine, I went ahead and created new banks with fusion sort, for Lead Synths, and dragged the stuff from the many banks created from the Akai disk, and lo and behold, after verifying everything, and a re-boot, now I get:

MISSING MULTISAMPLE

In Program [KE Lead Synths]
Lucky Man XS

Cannot Find Osc 1 [HD: KE Lead Synths]
Lucky Man XS

Replace with [ROM: PIANO]
A1 (000) Holy Grail Grand 3-Way Vel


Of course I can navigate the "Replace With" to the RIGHT Multisample bank, and the multisample I want but, there are a couple of hundred of these!!!

I thought moving a program to a new folder did NOT break it's relationship with it's multisamples in their original directory...

Anyone shed some light on this?

[markone]

If anyone could give me a clue as to a) what's going on and b) a solution, I'd be grateful...,

The thought of manually editing 200 programs is not one I want to contemplate!

[feez]

I've got this problem too ... a) sometimes Fusion decide to bug just to remind us that nothing is simple with processor... b) never move programs ... and wait until the next resarting to do something like that if you just have put in some new bank (and multisample and...) ...instead of moving, prefer copying into a desired bank ... Go to program mode and load a ROM program before copying new banks from USB ... Markone, i've no real miracle solution for you cause 200 programs is too big ! Try to reorganize this 20 banks as you want BEFORE using fusion sort and convert after that, so you don't have tocreate new banks on fusion and no need to move...sometimes it's better but remind a) .................. ;D

[savaino]

Unfortunately I cannot help but being a huge fan of KE I would LOVE to have those samples..... ;D
--sav

[Hollow Sun]

You win this month's 'Overuse of emoticons in a single post' award, Feez

But yes ....

+1 to your suggestion of "Try to reorganize this 20 banks as you want BEFORE using fusion sort and convert after that". That's how I did 'Nebulae'...

Originally, the various sounds were in separate banks that I tried to merge in Fusion. Big mistake!! So I started again, put everything together at source and converted THAT into one big bank. No problem.

Fusion's file system is flawed ... or rather, it is very strict. But no more so than other samplers. I've just been doing some work for a client this evening in Kontakt3. It all went well but I moved some stuff around to make life easier for him and it all went tits up with lost references that had to be fixed.


Steve

[markone]

Thanks Steve, but can you do any bank organisation using the Fusion converter?

I have an Akai disk with all this stuff on it. Fusion Converter (as far as I can tell) doesn't give you any options to do housekeeping, it just converts to Fusion format and maintains the bank structure on the CD. Or am I missing something?

Oh it would be so much easier with an Akai sampler so hand

[Hollow Sun]

All organisation is done on the Mac here BEFORE conversion.

Put all the Akai programs and samples you want to convert in one big folder and convert that. You'll end up with one big bank after conversion.


Steve

[Shreddie]

This thread is making some useful reading for me as in the near future I'm probably going to be doing quite a bit of file shuffling on my Fusion.

IMO Emulator X has one of the best file management systems around. It makes it fairly simple to merge/split banks or otherwise play around with your files.

[jiffy]

May 22, 2008 23:04:45 GMT savaino said:

Unfortunately I cannot help but being a huge fan of KE I would LOVE to have those samples..... ;D
--sav

You can't expect markone to share the samples (because of copywrite issues) but also as an Emmo fan, I'd be interested to know what the original sample cd was.

Paul

[feez]

May 23, 2008 10:28:12 GMT Hollow Sun said:

All organisation is done on the Mac here BEFORE conversion.

Put all the Akai programs and samples you want to convert in one big folder and convert that. You'll end up with one big bank after conversion.


Steve

Yes Steve ;)it's a good solution ;D
And i remember a tip with fusion convertor: right click on a bank and select "add", then choose the samples you need, convert , and do it again ;D...
(i need some holidays !)
Feez

[pev69]

The file system in Fusion is a good/bad example of usability design where a little more effort from the programmers could have saved a world of trouble for the users.

It should really keep track of all references (e.g. song to programs or program to samples) automatically, and offer users a way to copy, move or delete reference trees as a whole, if wanted. The reference tracking could and should also be integrated into the "verify" paradigm, and so that no manual verification would be necessary after USB transfers.

That is all very much possible to implement, you know

[pev69]

You really think you didn't insult me? As a matter of fact I have seen you make many similar snide comments to various people's posts and then immediately accuse others of insulting you when they reply. You know, you are bound to get some insults back at you when you do that!

And I'm not interested in having you "take me seriously", I just made an observation, based on my experience about related technologies, about how the file system really could be better for the user, you didn't have to come at my face with your patronizing superiority.

[Hollow Sun]

C'mon girls - group hug

I imagine the file system could be made better (or simpler) but, having been involved in the design and development of embedded software-driven hardware products for over 20 years (not Fusion though), I can imagine all sorts of reasons why it wasn't made easier/better not least of which is the usual "It works... we have shitloads of other stuff to be getting on with... release deadline's looming... shit - another 20 bugs to sort out... no time .... What? It's being released tomorrow?" at which point the ugly spectre of compatibility, etc., raises its ugly head (and given the shit flying around when Fusion WAS originally released), tarting up the file system will have been a very low priority and will have remained low priority for a long time.

And no - Alesis WILL NOT be releasing the source code. Full stop/period!!!

For me, the best route they could have taken would be to just have everything in one directory (programs, samples, multi-samples) with no path names ... like Akai did on their samplers. It's simple and easily understood, the only downside being (perhaps) unnecessary duplication of data ... but with the size and low cost of drives these days, that's hardly a problem.


Steve

[falcon]

Yah . Hey Gwen, back to 5 stars in how many months?

As far as the file-system (or rather: object-system) is concerned: I don't think it is flawed. Not in a sense of 'not working well'. *BUT*, it seems to have a hidden feature built-in which could be (ab)used without knowning it.

Basically a program refers to a (multi)sample by volume-, bank- and item-name. However, when examining a program, the bank and/or volume name is sometimes missing. I suppose should this should be interpreted as "when bank-/volume-name is missing (empty) then use same bank-/volume-name as refering item".

Actually, this feature is not bad at all! It would mean (if it is true) that you could (technically) create banks of programs/samples/etc. on harddisk and then move them over to CF without problems, because the volume/bank reference would be relative to it's referer.

The problem is that both absolute and relative methods are used inconsistenly. Programs created onboard seem to use absolute reference (with bankname), whereas items created with convertor seem to use the relative method (without bankname).

So.... programs created with convertor actually appear to break the rule "you can rename a program without causing a reference to a sample".

This sucks, excusez moi. I think that the absolute+relative reference feature is basically a useful thing, just like you can use abs/rel paths in a regular filesystem; each in it's own fashion. But it should have been documented (to the user) in the first place and there should have been guidelines on which scenario to use (for convertor).

As a practical solution (Mark), you could try renaming the sample and multisample banks in the same manner as the program banks. This might work.

As an alternative, you could *before renaming/moving the programs* browse through all the programs and simply store them back. This will probably add the volume/bank reference name to the program (testrun adviced). You can then rename/move the programs.

Bottom line is that the issue seems to be caused by fusion and convertor generating different style of data references. Sadly... The fusion object-system by itself doesn't appear to be flawed at all.

[jokeyman123]

This is a zombie post-I put this here as a warning-read these posts and then try to understand-this is how user groups fail. A shame-such knowledgable people descend to petty personal crap. Keep your egos out of the way-and stick to useful, helpful information or solutions. Principles, not personalities. Can't afford to lose even one person on these groups-real technical and personal experience/knowledge is becoming harder and harder to find online now. I've joined groups like this precisiely because I want to learn something new and share in the creative process or 2) help someone else who doesn't understand a concept/technical function or just plain needs encouragement in the creative process. Anything else, well seems a little less relevant to me.  Synchronicity...what I look for. Remember what Joanie Mitchell said-"you don't know what you've got 'til its gone".