FantomX file system Limits against Large Storage Media

[QuinnX]

I just though i would post an info sheet on what i feel is going to limit the FX in the near future unless roland fixes it to work correctly.


I have noticed that some people are getting excited by the availabilty of larger Flash and the more recent HDD>PC card.

All this sound great untill you examine the limits of the FX

Let lay it out as it is....


USER MEMORY:
this is also known as Non volitile ram, which means it will retain all information including sample and songs even when the FX is switch off.
However the Maximum capacity here is 32MB

EXPANDED MEMORY: (maximum 512MB)
This is memory you install in the form of a 512MB SDRAM PC 100/133

FLASH MEMORY:
Using the PC Card slot you can insert a variety of memory cards to give you extra storage, but roland official says its upto 512mb maybe 1GB even though you can access larger capacities above this.

Okay those are the specs now on to the problems:
any project that you develope internaly on the FX will limit you to 32MB unless you have expanded the FX with a 512MB SDRAM.
Unfortunatly this alone will not help because if your project expands beyond a total of 32mb, it cannot be saved internaly because you only have 32mb of USER MEMORY and will probably get the error USER MEMORY FULL!! if you try to save inexcess of this limit.

(Q: how do you get Those samples off the FX that are inexcess of 32 MB)
Since even if you start USB file storage, the mounted drive is only 32MB even with extra ram installed. so you can only access what has been saved to USER MEMMORY and not what is also available in RAM. (as far as i can see you can not)

To avoid this problem you will need to install for good measure a 512mb card.
From this point on, if the card is installed AND!! you will have 512MB expanded ram installed also, you can then build up your project upto a max of 512 or just below that limit, because every sample created will be stored at location C0000 to C9999 as apose to U0000-U9999 which is USER MEMORY stored samples, However you must! have choosen
SAVE SONG+SAMPLES before shutting down the FX in order to keep these samples because, although they are allocated a Card Slot (C0000-C9999), this only tells you where they will ultimatly be stored but are not yet stored untill you issued the SAVE SONG+SAMPLES.

Okay, so now we have our FX expanded to the limits and some of us will probably even put in a 2gig or even a 100gig!! flash.

BACK UP:
Heres where the problems start,
Roland in there wisdom have decided that when you hit BACKUP it does not display a file requester to allow you to select the location of your backup.
Instead it automaticaly saves all USER MEMORY the whole! 32MB to a folder in the root directory of the card which is
:BACKUP/
during this process the FX copies the ROLAND folder from user memory and dumps it in the BACKUP folder.
Although you may have a 100GB flash installed, you will only ever be able to make a single backup to a maximum of 32MB.
Thats limit No.1.
No.2
You now still have 100GB minus 32MB you have just backed up, what are you going to do with all that space.

Lets use it build projects that use C0000-C9999 from the card and since that has 100GB and not just 32MB where laughing (Arent? we??)
Nope!
Because any project you develope on the FX will be limited to 512MB expanded ram, which means you will never be able to build up a library inexcess of 512MB

Remember!
Any samples stored on the Flash card ALL!! get loaded when you load a song that uses any samples on the flash card.
Even if the song uses only 1 of those samples the FX will load ALL! samples contained and assigned to Slots C0000-C9999
If however the FX only loaded the samples that where being used in the current song, then and only then would you have the ability to build up a library in excess of 512MB.
However!
If you do manage to build up a library in excess of 512MB and lets say upto C0899 was just peeking the 512 limit.
Now we run in to

Problem 3:
While Samples stored upto C0899 bring the capacity to 512mb,
Samples number C0900 to C0910 now bring your library capacity to 550mb, and the song you are currently working on uses samples C0906-C0910.
Now lets save song and samples as MYNEWSONG
Next time you switch on the FX and try load MYNEWSONG, once again remember that although the song was only using 5 of those samples, the FX will insist on loading ALL! samples from the card.
The problem is, when it tries to do this, it will only manage to load samples C0000 to C0905
and if you try to play MYNEWSONG, samples C0906-C0910 will not have been loaded.
This goes for any song you now develope that has samples stored above this location.


So now you have to ask your self this question..
What use is it having a flash or hdd capacity in excess of 512MB when
1) you can only make 1 backup of 32MB
2) you can only everload a max of 512MB
3) Total usage 544MB (not including songs and performances and patches and maybe some personal samples like CD ready .wavs)

So before you start geting excited (and i wish i could) about larger capacities.
Remember the above...






Results not Excuse`s



QuinnX universal tranlator below:-
(lets not be misunderstood)

!!!!!! ephasis not anger
!!?? confusion or Stupidity
ABC are you getting the point
&*$% Anger (but rarely seen)

[nsheldon]

Hi QuinnX.

Just a small correction to your specs. Roland's official stated limit for card storage space is 1 GB, not 512 MB.

Regards,

Nathan Sheldon
http://www.nathansheldon.com/

[Vintage Chyld]

Good point Nathan ...matter of fact it can hold beyond 1GB I have a 2.2 GB card and it works perfectly.

It's such a wonderful world...minus the ignorance.

[QuinnX]

"I have a 2.2 GB card"
So do I

Results not Excuse`s



QuinnX universal tranlator below:-
(lets not be misunderstood)

!!!!!! ephasis not anger
!!?? confusion or Stupidity
ABC are you getting the point
&*$% Anger (but rarely seen)

[Vintage Chyld]

Wow thats great man now have something in common

Peace & Love man

It's such a wonderful world...minus the ignorance.

[Rick4001]

Vintage Chyld: what format is your 2.2GB card? Is it a PC/HDD card? Or microdrive or compact flash?

[Sami Cokar]

Having an FS, I would love to know from Roland engineers how much of the RAM memory and Card memory limits are OS based or HW based.

[Vintage Chyld]

Hi Rick4001 , yeah my card is a Hitachi Microdrive.

It's such a wonderful world...minus the ignorance.

[ZStang]

Quinxx:
What use is it having a flash or hdd capacity in excess of 512MB when
1) you can only make 1 backup of 32MB
2) you can only everload a max of 512MB
3) Total usage 544MB (not including songs and performances and patches and maybe some personal samples like CD ready .wavs)

Assume: Fully expanded i.e 512MB DIMM and 2GB CF upgrade

There are other ways of backing up your data so the 32MB user memory backup limitation is practically irrelevant. Anything else in the expanded memory is likely to be samples/patches currently loaded in temp area which can be easily saved to a PC card

Loading/saving 512MB should be enough to record a 16track for one song. Hence, a bigger storage media makes it easier to keep a whole project on just one card(maybe more) reducing the need to keep switching cards and rebooting.

In terms of performance, 512MB of samples/patches is plenty

In addition, its so much easier to bookmark the song load screen and just load another song.

In my opinion, the only limitation is in the case that a single performance warrants the use of more than 512MB

Mustang Fanatic

[QuinnX]

im not making any arguments here.(though i could)
im simply stating facts for
other users to evaluate before deciding to invest in extra capacity for the FX.
Its also to add further explaination on how the FX file system and memory is working and clarify any confusion.

Results not Excuse`s



QuinnX universal tranlator below:-
(lets not be misunderstood)

!!!!!! ephasis not anger
!!?? confusion or Stupidity
ABC are you getting the point
&*$% Anger (but rarely seen)

[CHEO]

i just saw an HItachi microdrive with a 4gb capacity...can i use all this memory in my Fantom? sorry...i´m wayyyyyy newbie....

[dkpcola]

I simply don't get the point of the person who started this post. 32Mb..int RAM..user RAM.. 512..blah..blah...
What is the point of doing those things??
Try loading all free programs from the net to fill up your computer hard disk and see what gonna happened.
User memory/RAM is not a trash can. It belongs to meaningful data only. If that capacity is not enough, try housekeeping/data management a little bit.

[The_Czar]

Or just don't sample so much. Sampling's cool, and you can get a certain sound you want, but I personally don't think that there is a ton of creativity in sampling. I mean, yeah, you had the forsight to think of using that sample, but it's still someone else's effort.

I just want to clarify that I'm not necessarily talking about one-shot hits. I'm talking about sampled phrases and stuff like that. Not like a bass kick here or a stab there.

Smoke Club!