diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 59fa215f..9bcd34f5 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@
 **/buffer/*
 **/sed_config.yaml
 **/datasets.json
+copy_yaml_to_json.ipynb
+
+# local copies
+**/*.local.*
 
 # Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
 __pycache__/
@@ -145,3 +149,6 @@ dmypy.json
 
 # IDE stuff
 \.vscode
+
+# poetry local config
+poetry.toml
diff --git a/sed/binning/binning.py b/sed/binning/binning.py
index 4f904275..8646159f 100644
--- a/sed/binning/binning.py
+++ b/sed/binning/binning.py
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ def bin_dataframe(
             Defaults to None.
         pbar (bool, optional): Option to show the tqdm progress bar. Defaults to True.
         n_cores (int, optional): Number of CPU cores to use for parallelization.
-            Defaults to all but one of the available cores. Defaults to N_CPU-1.
+            Defaults to all but one of the available cores.
         threads_per_worker (int, optional): Limit the number of threads that
             multiprocessing can spawn. Defaults to 4.
         threadpool_api (str, optional): The API to use for multiprocessing.
diff --git a/sed/calibrator/delay.py b/sed/calibrator/delay.py
index 78dd1e3b..666acbb7 100644
--- a/sed/calibrator/delay.py
+++ b/sed/calibrator/delay.py
@@ -144,9 +144,10 @@ def append_delay_axis(
             t0_key = self._config["delay"].get("t0_key", "")
 
         if "adc_range" not in calibration.keys():
-            calibration["adc_range"] = np.asarray(
-                self._config["delay"]["adc_range"],
-            ) / 2 ** (self._config["dataframe"]["adc_binning"] - 1)
+            calibration["adc_range"] = (
+                np.asarray(self._config["delay"]["adc_range"])
+                / self._config["dataframe"]["adc_binning"]
+            )
 
         if "delay_range" not in calibration.keys():
             if "delay_range_mm" not in calibration.keys() or "time0" not in calibration.keys():
diff --git a/sed/calibrator/energy.py b/sed/calibrator/energy.py
index b3cbefc8..3eefef60 100644
--- a/sed/calibrator/energy.py
+++ b/sed/calibrator/energy.py
@@ -105,10 +105,8 @@ def __init__(
         self.binning: int = self._config["dataframe"]["tof_binning"]
         self.x_width = self._config["energy"]["x_width"]
         self.y_width = self._config["energy"]["y_width"]
-        self.tof_width = np.asarray(
-            self._config["energy"]["tof_width"],
-        ) / 2 ** (self.binning - 1)
-        self.tof_fermi = self._config["energy"]["tof_fermi"] / 2 ** (self.binning - 1)
+        self.tof_width = np.asarray(self._config["energy"]["tof_width"]) / self.binning
+        self.tof_fermi = self._config["energy"]["tof_fermi"] / self.binning
         self.color_clip = self._config["energy"]["color_clip"]
         self.sector_delays = self._config["dataframe"].get("sector_delays", None)
         self.sector_id_column = self._config["dataframe"].get("sector_id_column", None)
@@ -204,26 +202,21 @@ def bin_data(
         if bins is None:
             bins = [self._config["energy"]["bins"]]
         if ranges is None:
-            ranges_ = [
-                np.array(self._config["energy"]["ranges"]) / 2 ** (self.binning - 1),
-            ]
+            ranges_ = [np.array(self._config["energy"]["ranges"]) / self.binning]
             ranges = [cast(tuple[float, float], tuple(v)) for v in ranges_]
         # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
         hist_mode = kwds.pop("hist_mode", self._config["binning"]["hist_mode"])
         mode = kwds.pop("mode", self._config["binning"]["mode"])
         pbar = kwds.pop("pbar", self._config["binning"]["pbar"])
         try:
-            num_cores = kwds.pop("num_cores", self._config["binning"]["num_cores"])
+            num_cores = kwds.pop("num_cores", self._config["core"]["num_cores"])
         except KeyError:
             num_cores = psutil.cpu_count() - 1
         threads_per_worker = kwds.pop(
             "threads_per_worker",
             self._config["binning"]["threads_per_worker"],
         )
-        threadpool_api = kwds.pop(
-            "threadpool_API",
-            self._config["binning"]["threadpool_API"],
-        )
+        threadpool_api = kwds.pop("threadpool_API", self._config["binning"]["threadpool_API"])
 
         read_biases = False
         if biases is None:
@@ -2171,10 +2164,7 @@ def residual(pars, time, data, binwidth, binning, energy_scale):
         name="t0",
         value=t0_pars.get("value", 1e-6),
         min=t0_pars.get("min", -np.inf),
-        max=t0_pars.get(
-            "max",
-            (min(pos) - 1) * binwidth * 2**binning,
-        ),
+        max=t0_pars.get("max", (min(pos) - 1) * binwidth * binning),
         vary=t0_pars.get("vary", True),
     )
     E0_pars = kwds.pop("E0", {})  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
@@ -2364,7 +2354,7 @@ def tof2ev(
 
     #         m_e/2 [eV]                      bin width [s]
     energy = (
-        2.84281e-12 * sign * (tof_distance / (t * binwidth * 2**binning - time_offset)) ** 2
+        2.84281e-12 * sign * (tof_distance / (t * binwidth * binning - time_offset)) ** 2
         + energy_offset
     )
 
@@ -2414,5 +2404,5 @@ def tof2ns(
     Returns:
         float: Converted time in nanoseconds.
     """
-    val = t * 1e9 * binwidth * 2.0**binning
+    val = t * 1e9 * binwidth * binning
     return val
diff --git a/sed/config/default.yaml b/sed/config/default.yaml
index d0f779be..b047d8a8 100644
--- a/sed/config/default.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/default.yaml
@@ -31,9 +31,9 @@ dataframe:
   delay_column: "delay"
   # time length of a base time-of-flight bin in s
   tof_binwidth: 4.125e-12
-  # Binning factor of the tof_column-data compared to tof_binwidth (2^(tof_binning-1))
+  # Binning factor of the tof_column-data compared to tof_binwidth
   tof_binning: 1
-  # binning factor used for the adc coordinate (2^(adc_binning-1))
+  # binning factor used for the adc coordinate
   adc_binning: 1
   # list of columns to apply jitter to.
   jitter_cols: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column"]
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ dataframe:
 energy:
   # Number of bins to use for energy calibration traces
   bins: 1000
-  # Bin ranges to use for energy calibration curves (for tof_binning=0)
+  # Bin ranges to use for energy calibration curves (for tof_binning=1)
   ranges: [100000, 150000]
   # Option to normalize energy calibration traces
   normalize: True
diff --git a/sed/config/flash_example_config.yaml b/sed/config/flash_example_config.yaml
index 7f4cf51b..d9ce9184 100644
--- a/sed/config/flash_example_config.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/flash_example_config.yaml
@@ -3,6 +3,8 @@
 core:
   # defines the loader
   loader: flash
+  # Since this will run on maxwell most probably, we have a lot of cores at our disposal
+  num_cores: 100
   # the beamline where experiment took place
   beamline: pg2
   # the ID number of the beamtime
@@ -21,8 +23,16 @@ core:
     data_parquet_dir: "tests/data/loader/flash/parquet"
 
 binning:
-  # Since this will run on maxwell most probably, we have a lot of cores at our disposal
-  num_cores: 100
+  # Histogram computation mode to use.
+  hist_mode: "numba"
+  # Mode for histogram recombination to use
+  mode: fast
+  # Whether to display a progress bar
+  pbar: True
+  # Number of multithreading threads per worker thread
+  threads_per_worker: 4
+  # API for numpy multithreading
+  threadpool_API: "blas"
 
 dataframe:
   # The name of the DAQ system to use. Necessary to resolve the filenames/paths.
@@ -58,8 +68,8 @@ dataframe:
   time_stamp_alias: timeStamp
   # time length of a base time-of-flight bin in seconds
   tof_binwidth: 2.0576131995767355E-11
-  # binning parameter for time-of-flight data. 2**tof_binning bins per base bin
-  tof_binning: 3  # power of 2, 3 means 8 bins per step
+  # binning parameter for time-of-flight data.
+  tof_binning: 8
   # dataframe column containing sector ID. obtained from dldTimeSteps column
   sector_id_column: dldSectorID
   sector_delays: [0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.]
diff --git a/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml b/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
index 37a2b5ae..5aa99157 100644
--- a/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 core:
   # The loader to use. The mpes loader allows for loading hdf5 files from the METIS momentum microscope.
   loader: mpes
+  # Number of parallel threads to use for parallelized jobs (e.g. binning, data conversion, copy, ...)
+  num_cores: 20
   # Option to use the copy tool to mirror data to a local storage location before processing.
   use_copy_tool: False
   # path to the root of the source data directory
@@ -9,8 +11,6 @@ core:
   copy_tool_dest: "/path/to/localDataStore/"
   # optional keywords for the copy tool:
   copy_tool_kwds:
-    # number of parallel copy jobs
-    ntasks: 20
     # group id to set for copied files and folders
     gid: 1001
 
@@ -57,10 +57,10 @@ dataframe:
   delay_column: "delay"
   # time length of a base time-of-flight bin in ns
   tof_binwidth: 4.125e-12
-  # Binning factor of the tof_column-data compared to tof_binwidth (2^(tof_binning-1))
-  tof_binning: 2
-  # binning factor used for the adc coordinate (2^(adc_binning-1))
-  adc_binning: 3
+  # Binning factor of the tof_column-data compared to tof_binwidth
+  tof_binning: 4
+  # binning factor used for the adc coordinate
+  adc_binning: 4
   # Default units for dataframe entries
   units:
     X: 'step'
@@ -82,8 +82,8 @@ dataframe:
 energy:
   # Number of bins to use for energy calibration traces
   bins: 1000
-  # Bin ranges to use for energy calibration curves (for tof_binning=0)
-  ranges: [128000, 138000]
+  # Bin ranges to use for energy calibration curves (for tof_binning=1)
+  ranges: [256000, 276000]
   # hdf5 path to attribute storing bias information for a given file
   bias_key: "@KTOF:Lens:Sample:V"
   # Option to normalize energy calibration traces
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ energy:
   energy_scale: "kinetic"
   # Approximate position of the high-energy-cutoff in tof_column bins,
   # used for displaying a graph to choose the energy correction function parameters.
-  tof_fermi: 132250
+  tof_fermi: 264500
   # TOF range to visualize for the correction tool around tof_fermi
   tof_width: [-600, 1000]
   # x-integration range for the correction tool around the center pixel
@@ -142,7 +142,7 @@ momentum:
   # Bin numbers used for the respective axes
   bins: [512, 512, 300]
   # bin ranges to use (in unbinned detector coordinates)
-  ranges: [[-256, 1792], [-256, 1792], [132000, 136000]]
+  ranges: [[-256, 1792], [-256, 1792], [264000, 272000]]
   # The x/y pixel ranges of the detector
   detector_ranges: [[0, 2048], [0, 2048]]
   # The center pixel of the detector in the binned x/y coordinates
@@ -199,8 +199,6 @@ binning:
   mode: "fast"
   # Whether to display a progress bar
   pbar: True
-  # Number of parallel binning threads to use
-  num_cores: 20
   # Number of multithreading threads per worker thread
   threads_per_worker: 4
   # API for numpy multithreading
@@ -213,7 +211,7 @@ histogram:
   # Axes names starting with "@" refer to keys in the "dataframe" section
   axes: ["@x_column", "@y_column", "@tof_column", "@adc_column"]
   # default ranges to use for histogram visualization (in unbinned detector coordinates)
-  ranges: [[0, 1800], [0, 1800], [128000, 138000], [0, 32000]]
+  ranges: [[0, 1800], [0, 1800], [256000, 276000], [0, 32000]]
 
 metadata:
   # URL of the epics archiver request engine
diff --git a/tutorial/sxp_config.yaml b/sed/config/sxp_example_config.yaml
similarity index 85%
rename from tutorial/sxp_config.yaml
rename to sed/config/sxp_example_config.yaml
index 70e7d163..c0757fa5 100644
--- a/tutorial/sxp_config.yaml
+++ b/sed/config/sxp_example_config.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 core:
   loader: sxp
+  # Since this will run on maxwell most probably, we have a lot of cores at our disposal
+  num_cores: 100
   beamtime_id: p005639
   year: 202302
   beamline: sxp
@@ -10,7 +12,16 @@ core:
     data_parquet_dir: "/path/to/parquet"
 
 binning:
-  num_cores: 10
+  # Histogram computation mode to use.
+  hist_mode: "numba"
+  # Mode for histogram recombination to use
+  mode: fast
+  # Whether to display a progress bar
+  pbar: True
+  # Number of multithreading threads per worker thread
+  threads_per_worker: 4
+  # API for numpy multithreading
+  threadpool_API: "blas"
 
 dataframe:
   ubid_offset: 0
@@ -28,7 +39,7 @@ dataframe:
   corrected_tof_column: "tm"
   bias_column: "sampleBias"
   tof_binwidth: 6.875E-12 # in seconds
-  tof_binning: 0
+  tof_binning: 1
   jitter_cols: ["dldPosX", "dldPosY", "dldTimeSteps"]
 
   units:
diff --git a/sed/core/processor.py b/sed/core/processor.py
index b334c1a8..1c1398e2 100644
--- a/sed/core/processor.py
+++ b/sed/core/processor.py
@@ -102,10 +102,10 @@ def __init__(
         for key in config_kwds.keys():
             del kwds[key]
         self._config = parse_config(config, **config_kwds)
-        num_cores = self._config.get("binning", {}).get("num_cores", N_CPU - 1)
+        num_cores = self._config["core"].get("num_cores", N_CPU - 1)
         if num_cores >= N_CPU:
             num_cores = N_CPU - 1
-        self._config["binning"]["num_cores"] = num_cores
+        self._config["core"]["num_cores"] = num_cores
 
         if verbose is None:
             self.verbose = self._config["core"].get("verbose", False)
@@ -154,6 +154,7 @@ def __init__(
                 self.ct = CopyTool(
                     source=self._config["core"]["copy_tool_source"],
                     dest=self._config["core"]["copy_tool_dest"],
+                    num_cores=self._config["core"]["num_cores"],
                     **self._config["core"].get("copy_tool_kwds", {}),
                 )
             except KeyError:
@@ -2105,9 +2106,7 @@ def pre_binning(
             bins = self._config["momentum"]["bins"]
         if ranges is None:
             ranges_ = list(self._config["momentum"]["ranges"])
-            ranges_[2] = np.asarray(ranges_[2]) / 2 ** (
-                self._config["dataframe"]["tof_binning"] - 1
-            )
+            ranges_[2] = np.asarray(ranges_[2]) / self._config["dataframe"]["tof_binning"]
             ranges = [cast(tuple[float, float], tuple(v)) for v in ranges_]
 
         assert self._dataframe is not None, "dataframe needs to be loaded first!"
@@ -2162,7 +2161,7 @@ def compute(
                 - **pbar**: Option to show the tqdm progress bar. Defaults to
                   config["binning"]["pbar"].
                 - **n_cores**: Number of CPU cores to use for parallelization.
-                  Defaults to config["binning"]["num_cores"] or N_CPU-1.
+                  Defaults to config["core"]["num_cores"] or N_CPU-1.
                 - **threads_per_worker**: Limit the number of threads that
                   multiprocessing can spawn per binning thread. Defaults to
                   config["binning"]["threads_per_worker"].
@@ -2189,7 +2188,7 @@ def compute(
         hist_mode = kwds.pop("hist_mode", self._config["binning"]["hist_mode"])
         mode = kwds.pop("mode", self._config["binning"]["mode"])
         pbar = kwds.pop("pbar", self._config["binning"]["pbar"])
-        num_cores = kwds.pop("num_cores", self._config["binning"]["num_cores"])
+        num_cores = kwds.pop("num_cores", self._config["core"]["num_cores"])
         threads_per_worker = kwds.pop(
             "threads_per_worker",
             self._config["binning"]["threads_per_worker"],
@@ -2407,13 +2406,9 @@ def view_event_histogram(
             ranges = list(self._config["histogram"]["ranges"])
             for loc, axis in enumerate(axes):
                 if axis == self._config["dataframe"]["tof_column"]:
-                    ranges[loc] = np.asarray(ranges[loc]) / 2 ** (
-                        self._config["dataframe"]["tof_binning"] - 1
-                    )
+                    ranges[loc] = np.asarray(ranges[loc]) / self._config["dataframe"]["tof_binning"]
                 elif axis == self._config["dataframe"]["adc_column"]:
-                    ranges[loc] = np.asarray(ranges[loc]) / 2 ** (
-                        self._config["dataframe"]["adc_binning"] - 1
-                    )
+                    ranges[loc] = np.asarray(ranges[loc]) / self._config["dataframe"]["adc_binning"]
 
         input_types = map(type, [axes, bins, ranges])
         allowed_types = [list, tuple]
diff --git a/sed/loader/mirrorutil.py b/sed/loader/mirrorutil.py
index d6db66e3..03d4a44b 100644
--- a/sed/loader/mirrorutil.py
+++ b/sed/loader/mirrorutil.py
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
 from datetime import datetime
 
 import dask as d
+import psutil
 from dask.diagnostics import ProgressBar
 
 
@@ -36,11 +37,13 @@ def __init__(
             "safetyMargin",
             1 * 2**30,
         )  # Default 500 GB safety margin
-        self.gid = kwds.pop("gid", 5050)
+        self.gid = kwds.pop("gid", 1001)
         self.scheduler = kwds.pop("scheduler", "threads")
 
-        # Default to 25 concurrent copy tasks
-        self.ntasks = int(kwds.pop("ntasks", 25))
+        # Default to 20 concurrent copy tasks
+        self.num_cores = kwds.pop("num_cores", 20)
+        if self.num_cores >= psutil.cpu_count():
+            self.num_cores = psutil.cpu_count() - 1
 
     def copy(
         self,
@@ -162,7 +165,7 @@ def copy(
                 d.compute(
                     *copy_tasks,
                     scheduler=self.scheduler,
-                    num_workers=self.ntasks,
+                    num_workers=self.num_cores,
                     **compute_kwds,
                 )
             print("Copy finished!")
diff --git a/tests/calibrator/test_energy.py b/tests/calibrator/test_energy.py
index 80c7cbef..378ce095 100644
--- a/tests/calibrator/test_energy.py
+++ b/tests/calibrator/test_energy.py
@@ -181,7 +181,7 @@ def test_calibrate_append(energy_scale: str, calibration_method: str) -> None:
         calibration_method (str): method used for calibration
     """
     config = parse_config(
-        config={"dataframe": {"tof_binning": 2}},
+        config={"dataframe": {"tof_binning": 4}},
         folder_config={},
         user_config={},
         system_config={},
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ def test_append_tof_ns_axis() -> None:
         "dataframe": {
             "tof_column": "t",
             "tof_ns_column": "t_ns",
-            "tof_binning": 1,
+            "tof_binning": 2,
             "tof_binwidth": 1e-9,
         },
     }
@@ -291,7 +291,7 @@ def test_append_tof_ns_axis() -> None:
     # from kwds
     df, _, _ = loader.read_dataframe(folders=df_folder, collect_metadata=False)
     ec = EnergyCalibrator(config=config, loader=loader)
-    df, _ = ec.append_tof_ns_axis(df, binwidth=2e-9, binning=1)
+    df, _ = ec.append_tof_ns_axis(df, binwidth=2e-9, binning=2)
     assert config["dataframe"]["tof_ns_column"] in df.columns
     np.testing.assert_allclose(df[ec.tof_column], df[ec.tof_ns_column] / 4)
 
@@ -303,7 +303,7 @@ def test_append_tof_ns_axis() -> None:
     np.testing.assert_allclose(df[ec.tof_column], df[ec.tof_ns_column] / 2)
 
 
-amplitude = 2.5  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+amplitude = 2.5
 center = (730, 730)
 sample = np.array(
     [
diff --git a/tutorial/5_sxp_workflow.ipynb b/tutorial/5_sxp_workflow.ipynb
index f7a89220..bb7c6a7b 100644
--- a/tutorial/5_sxp_workflow.ipynb
+++ b/tutorial/5_sxp_workflow.ipynb
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@
    },
    "outputs": [],
    "source": [
-    "local_path = Path(sed.__file__).parent.parent / \"tutorial/\"\n",
-    "config_file = local_path / \"sxp_config.yaml\"\n",
+    "# pick the default configuration file for the SXP experiment\n",
+    "config_file = Path('../sed/config/sxp_example_config.yaml')\n",
     "assert config_file.exists()"
    ]
   },
diff --git a/tutorial/6_binning_with_time-stamped_data.ipynb b/tutorial/6_binning_with_time-stamped_data.ipynb
index 230386eb..4a103808 100644
--- a/tutorial/6_binning_with_time-stamped_data.ipynb
+++ b/tutorial/6_binning_with_time-stamped_data.ipynb
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@
    "outputs": [],
    "source": [
     "# create sed processor using the config file with time-stamps:\n",
-    "sp = sed.SedProcessor(folder=scandir, user_config=\"../sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml\", time_stamps=True)"
+    "sp = sed.SedProcessor(folder=scandir, user_config=\"../sed/config/mpes_example_config.yaml\", time_stamps=True, verbose=True)"
    ]
   },
   {