Hello all,
I recently got a MO8 and am going through the quick guide in the manual.
I have 2 questions:

1) Regarding pg-60; I understand that if I store an edited voice internally to User1:001 (The Hunter) for example, it will overwrite the existing voice, which I believe means that voice is gone for good. Where is a good place to store edited or created voices internally where you will not be erasing one of the factory pre-sets? I’d hate to erase some good voices in my attempts to learn the functions of the instrument.
2) Due to question (1) I decided to save an edited voice to USB. I formatted the thumb drive (2 GB ativa), and saved the edited voice to it following the instructions on pg 61. The process seemed to go fine. When I go back to “load” the voice following the instructions on pg 62, I can’t seem to get it to play. I can locate the file, I see it in there, I follow the load process, I see it working, it gives me a “complete” sign, but I just can’t get it to play. When I hit a key, all I get is the preset that was called up prior or “The Hunter” again.
I know I must be overlooking something. Can anyone out there point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Freslanta

Re: Recalling a voice saved to USB

Let’s get a few things straightened out.

There are two types of Voice data PRESETS and USER.
Presets are never, ever lost; There are 4 PRESET banks of 128 plus 64 Preset Drum kits… they are permanent, and cannot be overwritten. You can Edit a Preset but you must store your edited variation in the USER bank.

Now out of the box, the MO comes with two USER banks each with 128 locations and a Drum USER bank with 32 locations.

USER 1 are unique Voices (free sounds - so to speak) to get you started with what can be done.
USER 2 and the USER DRUM banks are simply “placeholder” Voices that you will find elsewhere in the permanent PRESET banks. So if you start to create new Voice it would be wise to start storing them to “USER 2”

You can save data to a USB drive - that is long term storage. Like a back up file. You cannot access data from the USB drive directly… You must load that data back into the MO.

Each time you save an ALL data file or an ALL VOICE file to a USB drive it will save all the USER Voices, that is: [USER 1], [USER 2] and [USER DRUM].

Make a backup of the Factory Set:
Go to FILE
Set the TYPE = ALL
Press [SF1] SAVE
Move the cursor down between the brackets and name the file something like “FACTORY”
When you press [SF1] EXEC it will create an ALL data file on your USB drive “FACTORY.M7A”

If you were to overwrite a USER 1 bank Voice you could either load it back in from your FACTORY.M7A file… (it is even possible to load a single Voice from within an ALL data file). 
_ or Yamaha provides you with a method to always restore your unit back to factory condition:

Press [UTILITY]
Press [JOB]
Press [ENTER]
Press [YES]

This Factory reset… would not only restore “Hunter” but would all the other Voices that were in your MO the day you took it out of the box. So you cannot every say a Voice is “gone for good”.

It is highly recommended that anytime you create any unique data, that you make sure you STORE (the process of writing the data to the MO’s memory) and then make sure you SAVE (the process of backing up your data to USB drive) it. An ALL data file is the safest place because as the name indicates it saves ALL the stored DATA in your MO at the time you execute the SAVE.

For example, the data you create in the sequencer (which is both MIDI data and MIXING data) must be first Stored (press [STORE] to memorize your MIXING setup)… and then before you power down, you must go to FILE and [SAVE] your data to USB drive. Again an ALL data file is the safest method - as it save everything.

If you create a new USER VOICE, it will remain in memory until you either:
1) write over it, or
2) load new data over it, or
3) execute a Factory Reset.

Hope that helps.

Re: Recalling a voice saved to USB

Thank you very much for your thorough explanation.
That does help. Now I understand.