Merge several expansion packs into one

[Alexandre]

Hi friends,

The "Total Pack BR" is a set of 17 small individual packs with 5 styles each.
Does anyone know how to combine (merge) these packs into 2 or 3 larger packs in order to make it easier to select the styles when playing?
 
I've tried to do it via Expansion Manager but I haven't found a way.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. Thanks.

Regards,
Alexandre

[ckobu]

Hi Alexandre,

Watch this video, turn on subtitles.

[Alexandre]

Hi Ckobu,

Thank you for your interest and attention on the subject.

I watched the entire video but, unfortunately, the answer I'm looking for wasn't there...

What I need is to join several expansion packs together in order to create a SINGLE FOLDER after installing on the keyboard.

Or, In other words, create a single pack with the contents of several others packs.

I'm not sure if I made myself clear...
Any suggestions would be welcome.

Regards,
Alexandre

[aprilla]

Hi Ckobu,

Thank you for your interest and attention on the subject.

I watched the entire video but, unfortunately, the answer I'm looking for wasn't there...

What I need is to join several expansion packs together in order to create a SINGLE FOLDER after installing on the keyboard.

Or, In other words, create a single pack with the contents of several others packs.

I'm not sure if I made myself clear...
Any suggestions would be welcome.

Regards,
Alexandre

Alexandre, if you continue watching the series you will learn how to do this.
I watched it and it is there.

[ticktock]

The video showed to combine 5 packs and install them in keyboard with 5 separate packs in keyboard's expansion.
I think the original poster asked to combine 17 individual packs but only show 3 or 4 larger packs in keyboard's expansion.
I think if combine several packs into fewer number of packs, it will force to consolidate the LSBs and that will make some styles or voices become unusable.
Ted,

[ckobu]

Hi friends,

The "Total Pack BR" is a set of 17 small individual packs with 5 styles each.
Does anyone know how to combine (merge) these packs into 2 or 3 larger packs in order to make it easier to select the styles when playing?
 
I've tried to do it via Expansion Manager but I haven't found a way.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. Thanks.

Regards,
Alexandre

I saw the bold text so I thought the number of folders in the keyboard didn't matter to you.
If you want to reduce the number of folders, you can do it like in the video.

(Starts at 1 minute)

You should know that the number of places in one Pack is limited to 127. And you should know that when you transfer a certain Style, you must also transfer the Voice that plays in it.

[Bill]

Hi Alexandre

1: Why not save yourself a lot of frustration, once you have all your packs installed, simply copy all the styles to a Folder in your USER area. Call the Folder Expansion BR Styles (as an example). That way you have all the styles in one location. 
2: You could instead, also make a simply registration for each of the styles that are in the Brazil packs and have these registration stored in one folder.

Bill

[aprilla]

Hi Alexandre

1: Why not save yourself a lot of frustration, once you have all your packs installed, simply copy all the styles to a Folder in your USER area. Call the Folder Expansion BR Styles (as an example). That way you have all the styles in one location. 
2: You could instead, also make a simply registration for each of the styles that are in the Brazil packs and have these registration stored in one folder.

Bill

I've never used Expansion, just getting to grips with it before I do and this is really interesting Bill, I've not seen this information before and wonder if I'm thinking of it properly. Does that mean that once your files are in Expansion you can save them out into the User area and they will still work properly even if you change what's in Expansion?
Must it be User or can it be User or USB?

[valimaties]

You cannot change Expansion, even using YEM. If styles are using voices from Expansion, if you make changes to Expansion, by moving LSB, or moving voices in some packs, your copied styles will not read anymore correct voices.

Personally, I would use second approach of Bill, so creating registrations for your styles. It does not matter if you change the name of a pack in Expansion, it does not matter if you change voices names, because keyboard look for MSB:LSB:PC information, not by name. But NEVER move voices between a pack to another and expect your styles from user area to work, because will not.

So, in conclusion, don't do any modification to your current expansion packs you have installed into your keyboard because those styles will not work anymore. Use registration instead, aditionally create playlist files you can use for different songs you play, and this will helps you. The base data (styles and voices) should remain always in the same position, because registrations will look for the position of the styles and of the voices saved in it, styles will look for the position of voices and drums you had when saved it in last location.

I hope I've made myself clear.

Regards,
Vali

[aprilla]

If styles are using voices from Expansion, if you make changes to Expansion, by moving LSB, or moving voices in some packs, your copied styles will not read anymore correct voices.

So the voices must remain in Expansion. Then care has to be taken to remember what you are using if you make any changes to Expansion.

[valimaties]

Personally, I don't use styles from Expansion. Because I need to edit them, which means I have to save them outside Expansion. (You cannot modify a style of a pack in expansion area in you keyboard, and override it, you have to save it in other location - user, USBs).

So, having that, it matters to know what voices are used from expansion area by your styles.

You gave me a great idea to expand the functionality of my YEM-CE v3 😁, and to display a list of voices that are used by the styles. Maybe I will expand it for registrations and Pads, as well. In this way we can know what voices are not used at all (Styles (+ OTS), Regs, PADs), maybe even show them in the UI with some icon or different background. Hmmm, nice 

Regards,
Vali

[aprilla]

So, having that, it matters to know what voices are used from expansion area by your styles.

I've been using keyboards for years but never did get much into areas that needed file management like Registrations and Expansion. It takes some getting used to, and needs care. I've already re-organised a couple of times for just Registrations so am trying to understand Expansion before I try it. I expect I'll mess up at first, but as long as I understand where I went wrong I should be able to sort things out... eventually.

Where can I find out more about your YEM-CE v3 program? Is it on your website? I do know where that is so I'll go check

[valimaties]

YEM-CE v3 is not released yet.

Expansion first needs Yamaha Expansion Manager. Most of us cannot work without Yamaha's software, because most of us have a lot of expansion packs installed. We don't get enough from factory voices, we need extra content 😁 I can't imagine my work without extra content, because I'm from Romania, South East Europe, we have a lot of instruments which does not come in factory voices, so, we have the need of extra content, which will be available only with help of Guests are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login software.

YEM-CE is my software which can get you some help when come to create some files for DAWs, if you use such software.
The second version, which is available on Guests are not allowed to view links. In order to access the links, please Register or Login helps you create such files. It also helps exporting all styles, pads, registration banks, etc, from PPF files installed into YEM (Yamaha Expansion Manager). It also have a backup function, to be able to backup the instance of YEM (all your installed packs in YEM, let's say an "image" of your YEM). It also will check for some damaged information in Expansion Manager and can delete the wrong information (damaged packs, I call them). It also have the Multi YEM Manager function, which will helps you to create multiple instances of YEM. For content creators it is very helpful, because it can create separate YEMs for each user, for example. If you don't want to mess up your things in YEM, and you don't want to add all keyboards of your customers in a single instance, Multi YEM Manager will help you creating a new instance for each customer, for example. Opening MultiYEM Manger screen you can choose which instance you want to use currently.

The third version, which is in development, has already all these functions, but will also helps you exporting sample files from the voices of PPF packs and it have a real time player which allows you to hear each sample. It will export samples from one voice, for all voices in one pack or for all voices in all PPF packs (Demo).
It will allows you to combine elements from multiple voices of the same type, from the same pack or from different packs (Demo).
So, probably, next week I will also developing the report for voices/drums used from expansion.

I'm waiting for framework developers to solve some issues regarding building process of the project to be able to make available the app.


Regards,
Vali

[aprilla]

YEM-CE v3 is not released yet.

Expansion first needs Yamaha Expansion Manager.

Ahhh! that explains why I couldn't find it!
But I have read many of the posts from since you first started developing YEM-CE and look forward to using v2. Thanks!