SCSI

Explanation:

Scsi:

[TRITON]--[ZIP]--[PC,scsi interface]----[cd-burner]

To host:

[TRITON]---[PC,com2]

Scsi is used to transfer files, while the "to host" cable is used for midi data. In its present state, the triton does not allow for direct communication with a computer (Scsi Musical Data Interchange), but using this setup, one can share a zipdrive, cd-rom or hard-drive, and store files with one and loading them into the other without powering anything on or off or touching any cables.

Cables

You may buy the Scsi cable in any computer store. Remember to get the old scsi2 db25-type cable for the triton end. The other end may vary, but it is often either a db25 (zipdrives) or mini db50 (hard-drives and computers). The "to host" cable is a simple serial cable with a mini-din plug on one end (similar to s-video plugs). I think this is a standard, because the Roland cable works great on the Korg.

General

Here are some tips that I have picked up, but other scsi interfaces may behave differently. The industry-standard really is adaptec cards that are fast and expensive, but I am using a cheap taiwan card. The triton (and any other hardware sampler) will not take advantage of even the available bandwidth of scsi2, much less any wide/fast/ultra enhancements. The triton works well with zip 100/250 and a plentitude of cd-roms and hard-drives (I am using a cd-burner, yamaha 4416s). Go to Korg us for a complete listing

As far as I know, Korg never mentions the possibility of connecting two scsi masters like this, so you may void you warranty, and I am not responsible for any hardware or software problems that may occur.

Speed

What kind of scsi speed can I expect? Samplers seldom take advantage of the available resources of the scsi format. The Triton is no exception. It is about 3 times faster than the Yamaha ex-series, but not quite as fast as Kurzweil k2x00 series. I have done some testing with zip, 16x max cd-rom and hd, and this is what I found out:

The triton maxes out at about 220kB/s with a fast scsi harddrive. This is compareable to a 1.5x cd-rom! However, the speed follows the speed of the medium, although at a much lower multiplier than what is possible on a computer. Therefore, it may make sense to have a reasonably fast medium. The theoretical limit of the scsi2 standard used by the triton is 20MB/s.

There is little difference between loading korg sample files or wav, suggesting that the limit is in the scsi interface/connection to cpu, not in the cpu itself. Other synths are known to take substatially longer time to load non-native formats.

The triton 3.5" floppy is about half the speed of my computer floppy drive.

Guidelines:

*Follow normal scsi rules, as to lenght, cable quality and noise sources.

*Turn on your computer first, then the triton. Turn off your triton first, then the computer.

*Do not access common units from windows while the triton is on its disk-page (-->crash) If you store anything on zip, you have to take the disk out and put it back in in order for the triton to see any changes. I dont know if this applies to hard drives. Possibily this can be done by pressing the drives name on the disk page, too?

*The triton will only discover the first session of a multi session cd-rom.

*Don`t use the "scan SCSI device" command added in version 2.0 with this setup, as it will cause lockup.

More to come... Please let me know if there are any errors or you have good advices.