Expansions and loading times

Hi. I picked up the Jupiter Rising expansion using the recent 50% off deal. I've got it installed to the SD card in my one, and that's fine, except it takes a long time for the contents to load when I browse to the expansion. It's especially annoying because every time it updates with a new patch, it resets the browse window - so if you're scrolling down through the patches, you'll suddenly find yourself back at the top of the list - and if you try to load a patch, there's a good chance the list will reset just before you tap Load, and you'll load a different one.

Is this normal behaviour with expansions on the SD card? It seems to behave OK once it's loaded, until the MPC is turned off or a new project is started, in which case it's back to square one. The SD card itself is fine as far as I can tell - patches load quickly enough, it's just the JR patch list that seems to be slow.

It's annoying, and I'm surprised a) that it takes so long to load a fairly small directory (I assume maybe it's loading in all the individual sample details at the same time in the background, which probably would take a while), b) that the data isn't cached for next time, and c) that it renders the files unusable in practice while it's happening.

I understand it's also not possible to copy the files to the internal storage (which might be quicker).

I don't know if Jupiter Rising is a special case as it contains lots of small samples, but it makes me wary of buying into any other expansions. Is this the general experience, or have I just picked a poor example as my first expansion? TBH I'm not really that interested in any of the other official packs, but the JR one seemed useful because of its single instrument focus.

Not heard of the browser window resetting, but I also cannot think of a technical reason why any one particular expansion would do that. BTW, if you are looking for MPC instrument expansions, it's our speciality, especially acoustic instruments: https://www.mpc-samples.com/section.php ... xpansions/

I have experienced similar on my MPC X with an SSD, especially for Expansions that have all of the content in the root directory, when viewing all of the files. I imagine that it has to do with how many files it has to load to get a file list together.

For me, I give it a bit of time on some of the Expansions to just load all the data off the disk before I start scrolling through.

Or try just looking at drum programs, for example, and see if that works better.

MPC-Tutor wrote:Not heard of the browser window resetting, but I also cannot think of a technical reason why any one particular expansion would do that. BTW, if you are looking for MPC instrument expansions, it's our speciality, especially acoustic instruments: https://www.mpc-samples.com/section.php ... xpansions/

I've checked out The Reaper, and it's great! I'll definitely be looking at your packs.

I suspect the issue here might be that the pack is largely built using layers of small / single-cycle waveforms, so while there's only a standard amount of patches, and the expansion doesn't take up much space, the list of wav files is probably huge. If the browser loads all views at once, I guess this could slow the lot down. As a pack developer, do you happen to know if this is the case?

I can't do much about it, I suppose, except experiment with a pack of my own and see if I can replicate the issue - maybe using the Adventure Kid waveforms or something like that.

NearTao wrote:I have experienced similar on my MPC X with an SSD, especially for Expansions that have all of the content in the root directory, when viewing all of the files. I imagine that it has to do with how many files it has to load to get a file list together.

I think so - but reading your reply, I'm wondering if it's feasible to manually split the expansion into bass / pad / lead etc. collections, and speed things up that way. Even if the MPC is trying to load the underlying wav files too, this might at least make browsing a little easier. Something like a favourites system would be a good development, too (unless it already exists and I just haven't found it yet).

Thanks!

NearTao wrote:I have experienced similar on my MPC X with an SSD, especially for Expansions that have all of the content in the root directory, when viewing all of the files. I imagine that it has to do with how many files it has to load to get a file list together.

For me, I give it a bit of time on some of the Expansions to just load all the data off the disk before I start scrolling through.

I experience the same thing. You just need to give it a minute to load up all of the samples etc. If you give it 15-20 seconds it will be fine. If you try to scroll too soon it will just reset. Hope this helps.

Just opened the folder up on my Mac: 3,800 items! So I think this is almost certainly the problem, especially if the MPC is doing any kind of analysis on the files. Looks like splitting things up would be a mammoth task, especially if the wavs are shared by programs, but I'll keep looking into it.

Alright! Just had some success here. The expansion files were well laid out, with each wav named for the patch it was part of, and the filenames all started with the patch type. So I created a new folder called Jupiter Rising - Bass, copied all the bass patches and wavs in there, along with a [Previews] folder. Copied the main XML file and image across, and edited both to mark it as bass only. Fired up the One and the folder loaded instantly - this was around 600 or so wav files, so I think if I split the lead, pad etc. samples the same way I'll end up with a much faster and less annoying way to get at the patches I'm interested in. Shouldn't take too long to do - I'll post if there are any complications, but certainly all the bass patches loaded and played fine, so so far, so good.

Ministry of Undos wrote:Hi. I picked up the Jupiter Rising expansion using the recent 50% off deal. I've got it installed to the SD card in my one, and that's fine, except it takes a long time for the contents to load when I browse to the expansion. It's especially annoying because every time it updates with a new patch, it resets the browse window - so if you're scrolling down through the patches, you'll suddenly find yourself back at the top of the list - and if you try to load a patch, there's a good chance the list will reset just before you tap Load, and you'll load a different one.

Is this normal behaviour with expansions on the SD card? It seems to behave OK once it's loaded, until the MPC is turned off or a new project is started, in which case it's back to square one. The SD card itself is fine as far as I can tell - patches load quickly enough, it's just the JR patch list that seems to be slow.

It's annoying, and I'm surprised a) that it takes so long to load a fairly small directory (I assume maybe it's loading in all the individual sample details at the same time in the background, which probably would take a while), b) that the data isn't cached for next time, and c) that it renders the files unusable in practice while it's happening.

I understand it's also not possible to copy the files to the internal storage (which might be quicker).

I don't know if Jupiter Rising is a special case as it contains lots of small samples, but it makes me wary of buying into any other expansions. Is this the general experience, or have I just picked a poor example as my first expansion? TBH I'm not really that interested in any of the other official packs, but the JR one seemed useful because of its single instrument focus.

What is the class of your SD Card? Sounds like a data transfer rate issue, as I have absolutely no issues loading the Jupiter Rising patches on my MPC Live going through my SSD. Browser certainly doesn't do what your saying, anyway.

SD Cards come in all sorts of speeds. Also, make sure you are ejecting your SD Card via your OS before removing it from your PC or your MPC One, or you will corrupt the data.

I have never experienced these kind of slowdowns with any expansions, mine or 3rd party. The MPC is not doing any heavy lifting here, it's just displaying a file list. Audio previews only occur individually, on demand and are not preloaded.

It does sound like you might have a disk issue, maybe try a different disk/card, get a fast, known reliable brand, e.g. sandisk class 10

Could be an SD Card speed issue like someone else mentioned. I picked up the Jupiter Rising expansion as well. Have it loaded onto a 170mB/s SD card in an MPC One. When I tap the Expansion, it takes maybe 5 seconds for everything to load before I can scroll down through the different programs or samples. I got it on the SD card by using the EXPORT->EXPANSION option in the MPC Software. And then I just use the BROWSE->EXPANSIONS section on the MPC One.

morph860 wrote: picked up the Jupiter Rising expansion as well. Have it loaded onto a 170mB/s SD card in an MPC One. When I tap the Expansion, it takes maybe 5 seconds for everything to load before I can scroll down through the different programs or samples.

Wow, that's interesting - 5 seconds?? On my MPC Live using the SSD that I put in it, Jupiter Rising literally loads instantly as soon as I tap the Expansion.

I know my SD card is behaving, because it's fine when using the card on my Mac, and in general use on the MPC. I could use a faster class, and an SSD is bound to be faster still, but I'm confident the real issue here is the size of the expansion (or more accurately the amount of files in the expansion).

I've now split it into several folders by patch type, and they all load instantly except the biggest one, which has a slight delay (similar to the F9 expansion). So this fixes the issue for me - and it's also much more convenient to have the pack split into folders for bass, lead and so on - but I will try to find a faster card to see how much of a difference it makes. Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

EnochLight wrote:

morph860 wrote: picked up the Jupiter Rising expansion as well. Have it loaded onto a 170mB/s SD card in an MPC One. When I tap the Expansion, it takes maybe 5 seconds for everything to load before I can scroll down through the different programs or samples.

Wow, that's interesting - 5 seconds?? On my MPC Live using the SSD that I put in it, Jupiter Rising literally loads instantly as soon as I tap the Expansion.

Yea. When I had the Live with an SSD, it definitely loaded and saved quicker than the One with an SD card. If I try to scroll down the list before it finishes loading, it just keeps sending me back to the top of the list until it finishes. If I just leave it be for a few seconds, it's fine.

Jupiter Rising expansion was half off? Man I thought it was excluded from the sale. I tried SPRINGBEATS but it doesn't work on the last 3 expansions, but works on everything else.

What code did you use OP?