KST to SET converter for KORG Pa keyboards

KST and SET: what is the difference?

A SET is the folder a Pa keyboard saves everything into: Styles, Sounds, Pads, Keyboard Sets or Performances, SongBook. Since the Pa3X they share one family of file formats, and the app converts between them.

The Pa5X brought a new structure, the KST, with one file per Style in folders, its own folders for Drum Kits and Multisamples, more Sound and sample memory, and new effects. In a SET, Styles sit in bank files of a fixed size: 48 Styles a bank on the Pa4X family, 40 on the Pa3X family, 32 on the Pa2X. Older keyboards cannot read a KST, so it has to be converted before it can be loaded.

What comes over to each keyboard

“List” means the SongBook entries are listed in a file next to the new SET, with where each entry’s Style went, because the app cannot write their SongBook from a Pa5X one yet. Global settings do not come over to any model.

To the Pa4X, Pa1000 and Pa700

• Styles: every element (Variations 1–4, Intros 1–2, Count-In, Fills 1–4, Break, Endings 1–3), all eight tracks, tempo, time signature, mixer, the four STS and the Style effects.
• Chord variations: the Pa5X has a chord table per track, the Pa4X one per element. Each different combination of the tracks’ variations becomes one Pa4X chord variation, up to 6 per Variation and 2 per other element.
• Effects 0–127 are copied with their parameters; Pa5X-only effects (128 and up) keep the Pa4X default. A Pa4X STS or Keyboard Set has two effects, so a third one in use is left out.
• Own Sounds and Drum Kits in the Pa4X format, with only the Multisamples, Drum Samples and samples they play; up to 768 Sounds and 384 Drum Kits in the SET. Drum Kit keys keep up to four velocity layers.
• Factory Sounds the model lacks get its closest factory Sound by name. The Pa1000, for example, lacks 167 Pa4X factory Sounds, so its own list is used.
• Keyboard Sets (four parts, two effects) and Pads (with Pad Type) point at the own Sounds in their new places.

To the Pa3X, Pa3X Le, Pa900, Pa600 and Pa300

• Styles go through the Pa4X step and are then written in the Pa3X format: tracks, STS, master effects, and Sounds mapped to the model’s own list. The Pa600 and Pa300 lack about 209 Pa3X factory Sounds, so their Styles are mapped to their own lists.
• Keyboard Sets become Performances in the model’s Performance banks, with Sounds mapped to its list.
• Pads go into the model’s Pad banks of 32; drum Pads stay on a Drum Kit.
• Own Sounds, Drum Kits and samples: the Styles use the closest factory Sound of your keyboard.

To the Pa2X

A Pa2X SET gets the Styles, the Keyboard Sets as Pa2X Performances, and the Pads. Own Sounds do not come over to a Pa2X: tracks that use one get the closest Pa2X factory Sound. The Pa2X does not read a newer SongBook.

Memory and banks of each model

Figures are Korg’s own (manuals, specifications, OS upgrade notes); “–” means Korg gives no sample-place figure for that model. For comparison, a Pa5X has 4 GB of user sample memory. Keyboard Sets: Pa4X 11 banks of 48, Pa1000 and Pa700 9 of 48. Performances: Pa3X 16 banks of 32, Pa3X Le, Pa900 and Pa600 8 of 40, Pa300 8 of 30. Pads: Pa4X family 10 banks of 48, Pa3X family 10 of 32, Pa300 8 of 32.

Limits to know

• Chord variations: at most 6 per Variation and 2 per other element on the Pa4X and older; more Pa5X combinations are reduced, and the log says where.
• Effects: Pa5X-only effects (128 and up) keep the target’s default; only two effects per STS or Keyboard Set.
• Drum Kits: at most four velocity layers per key.
• Factory Sounds: the Pa5X factory Sounds are part of the keyboard, not of the KST. Each one gets the closest factory Sound of your model.
• SongBook: listed next to the SET, not written into it.
• Global settings: not converted.
• Own Sound places in a Pa4X-format SET: 768 Sounds and 384 Drum Kits; past that the most used are kept and the rest get a factory Sound. For the Pa3X family and the Pa2X, the Styles use the closest factory Sound of your keyboard.
• Sample memory, sample places and banks: those of your exact model, in the tables above. The SET is checked against them after converting.
• Pa5X MG data is not supported yet.

Made for your exact model

Each Pa model has its own factory Sounds, banks and memory. You pick the exact keyboard (for a Pa4X also its OS), and the app plans the Sounds, the banks and the sample memory for it. Before converting it shows how your own Sounds fit: per SET, which fit the places and memory, which get a close factory Sound and which the standard Sound. For models that load compressed samples it can write plain samples Korg-compressed, at half the memory.

Nothing is cut without telling you. Everything goes into the SET, which is then checked the way a keyboard checks it before loading, and against your model’s banks, places and memory. If it holds more than the keyboard can, the log says what and by how much, and “DO NOT INSTALL AS IS.txt” is put inside the SET. Remove what you do not need in the SET / KST Manager before loading it: a SET over the keyboard’s memory can crash it.

Each Pa5X Style folder starts a new bank. Banks past your model’s own go into more banks of the same format in the same SET, which the keyboard does not load, so you move what you want into its own banks. Only when the Styles fill more bank files than one SET can name does a second SET start beside the first.

How to convert a KST to a SET

1. 1Plug in the USB stick with the KST, or copy the KST folder to your computer.
2. 2In Pa Studio Suite choose Convert SET and pick the KST.
3. 3Choose the keyboard you will load it on, and for a Pa4X its OS.
4. 4Check what comes over and how your own Sounds fit, then choose where to save.
5. 5Convert, read the log next to the new SET, and load the SET on the keyboard from the USB stick.

License

KST to SET, to every model on this page, is included in Pa Studio Suite Professional and All Access. The other way, SET Styles to a Pa5X KST, is in every license.

Questions