Upgrade NS2 to NS2 EX - Program Replication

[ericL]

I don't think this has been discussed very much, so here's my situation. I'm in the process of moving from a NS2 to NS2 EX. I have years of meticulously crafted programs in my NS2 and I want to bring these over to the NS2 EX. I believe I can do a full backup of my old NS2 and then restore that into the new NS2 EX, which would do the trick. There may be a file naming convention change needed for this.

I'm torn a bit with the full backup vs. doing some bundles on focused programs. I don't have the time to manually recreate ALL of my programs, but I think there may be a healthy balance between the easy backup and a more time-consuming reprogramming of the sounds. Since the NS2 EX has more memory, I'll want to refactor some of my sounds during this process.

Has anyone been through this and care to share how you managed it? Thanks!

[Frantz]

Done that a few weeks ago, I had > 200 progs in a backup from my 2011 NS2.
I unziped the backup and picked the files I was interested in.
I used the "relink" option in Nord Sound Manager quite a lot.
It took some time, a few evenings, but at the end it's a "best of", I have only 130 presets in the ns2ex now.

[pablomastodon]

The program formats of the two instruments are, by design, identical and programming can freely be loaded from either one to either one. The only caveat is that full backups done on an EX version will need to take care that less than 50% of the piano memory is used in order for that file to load onto a non-EX NS2.

Frantz, I assume that you no longer access to NS2 when you did the unzip of old backup file and transported things piecemeal, which would result in lots of Relinking as you mention.

If you want to trim down your load, bundles will definitely be a more efficient way to go, but of course you need to have access to the NS2 to create these bundles first, then load into NS2EX. No need to manually recreate any programs at all.

Bless,

Pablo

[ericL]

Ok, thanks! I am keeping my NS2 for the foreseeable future, so I'll have easy access to everything. I think I have most of it already sitting in my Mac anyways. I'm planning a move from NS2 88HA to NS2 EX 76HP for a couple of reasons. One, I've been using the NS2 for I think nearly 5 years and while it is very reliable, I want a second one in case I ever have an issue. Two, I have enjoyed the HP action on my NE5 and would love this on the NS2, plus the weight savings of nearly 14 lbs will make this much easier to transport. I will likely switch between the two and plan to keep them relatively synched up in case I alternate between the NS2 and NS2 EX. Some of the older sounds in my NS2 are there for posterity sake, but are rarely used...but I don't want to lose them. I think I may first start with some focused bundles for all of the current sounds I'm using vs. doing an entire backup. I've also found that the entire backup process takes a LONG time, as I did some of this on the NE5. What I'll need to figure out is how to grab the bundles, whether song by song or in groups of songs (I have between 2-4 NS2 programs set up for many songs).

[ericL]

Pablo, it was good to see you again at NAMM!!! Sorry you were not feeling well. I had some friends that ended up with NAMMthrax as well.

[Frantz]

The ns2p file alone keeps references to used samples.
That means when you drag n drop a ns2p file into the ns2ex it tells you the name of the sample that is missing.

I chose not to copy the samples from my backup to the ns2ex, but started with the ones I like, selected from my NE5.
After the process of drag 'n dropping my ns2p files, from the unzipped ns2 backup, to the ns2ex, I had a few sample missing.
Then I used re-link. This way I refreshed my old ns2 programs into the ns2ex.

Very happy with Nord Sound Manager and the compatibility.
There are some "under the hood" conversion, I saw the "version" column in NSM changing, handled automatically by NSM that worked fine

Edit : I don't dare to use bundles anymore.
When I tried to save 1 program into 1 bundle, NSM saved all samples used by that program into the bundle (including piano) with it.
Doing that per program you end up with the same samples in each bundle.
I takes time to transfer the same sample / piano each time for each program and have it in everybundle.
That's why I prefer the full backup, I transfer every sample, only once.

NSM is very nice telling us what samples are not used, I have no unused sample in my board.

[ericL]

Thanks for the feedback on what worked well for you. I will likely follow a similar path.

Although, I have this thought of going through all the programs in my NS2 and "optimizing" them such that there would be limited replication of the same samples...for example, if a program is only using organ then I would move the unused piano section to Clav for the smaller setting and thus maximize the memory utilization or make the bundles smaller at a minimum. I am very new to even using bundles, so I may do a little experimentation with this.

One thing that has gradually happened for me is I have a lot of duplicate sounds in my NS2. The reason for this is that I deleted all the internal memory some years ago to start mostly from scratch. I built up large collections of sounds associated with the songs my band plays. I have just about all of my catalog of sounds saved in the B and C banks, then I use A and D on the fly for each gig, typically switching between the two, but saving off backups of the programs in case I accidentally lose something.

The way I typically handle each new gig in terms of getting the sounds arranged is I hook up the NS2 to my Mac, open up Sound Manager and then pick the opposite bank from what I last used, either A or D. I usually delete all of those sounds so the bank is empty. Then I drag and drop sounds from the other banks as applicable. If our set does not change much, I will just edit whichever bank I last used.

Using this approach, my A and D banks will often house many of the same sounds, with B and C being more legacy copies or backlog sounds. It is good to have them there on the fly if a random song surfaces during the gig, but lower priority. I think when I get around to moving sounds from NS2 to NS2 EX, I will very carefully consider how I approach the sounds and samples. I know for sure that the EX will have a bunch of things I don't have in my NS2 since I blew out almost all of the original sample library in my NS2 and replaced it (same for the synth sounds as well). I bet I'll find some new inspiration from whatever Nord is stocking in the newest sample and synth sections.

[pablomastodon]

Edit : I don't dare to use bundles anymore.
When I tried to save 1 program into 1 bundle, NSM saved all samples used by that program into the bundle (including piano) with it.
Doing that per program you end up with the same samples in each bundle.
I takes time to transfer the same sample / piano each time for each program and have it in everybundle.
That's why I prefer the full backup, I transfer every sample, only once.

Certainly that works, but a couple notes here:

Why bundle only one program at a time? The main point of bundling is to be able to grab the 15-20 programs one may need for a particular gig and bundle them all together with the pianos/samples needed to fully and correctly reproduce them. One at a time seems like overkill.

Using bundles really saves time, too. When restoring from a backup file, the entire data contents are rewritten, consuming much time. When loading a bundle into the instrument, however, NSM will take a sneak peak in advance and when it sees that any particular piano or sample already resides in memory, that writing operation is bypassed entirely, speeding up the whole operation greatly.

Different situations will call for different strategies to optimize data transfers, but the bundle feature should not be overlooked entirely.

Bless,

Pablo

[RedLeo]

When restoring from a backup file, the entire data contents are rewritten, consuming much time. When loading a bundle into the instrument, however, NSM will take a sneak peak in advance and when it sees that any particular piano or sample already resides in memory, that writing operation is bypassed entirely, speeding up the whole operation greatly.

Actually, backup and restore do the same as bundles in that they DO check for existing duplicate samples (or piano samples at least, don't know about the others as I have an older Stage). I keep the same pianos in my Stage all the time, and my backups and restores take about a minute each (or something similar, never actually timed them).

Edit: Just timed them. About ten seconds each for a backup then restore.

Handy time-saving tip; If you've changed some of the piano samples in your Stage and then want to do a new fresh full backup instead of updating the old backup, copy your backup file in your computer (a matter of seconds), rename it, and then do a backup onto that. This way, backup only ever needs to upload the new piano samples, not the ones that haven't changed. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the same will work for sample library samples as well.

[There is a potential downside, though - if your original backup was corrupted, then any copies of it will also be corrupted. I've never actually had a corrupted Sound Manager backup, but I'm guessing that Sound Manager would have spotted it in the first place?]

[Frantz]

The main point of bundling is to be able to grab the 15-20 programs one may need for a particular gig and bundle them all together with the pianos/samples needed to fully and correctly reproduce them.

Yes, I'd use bundles for that