I currently own a Motif Rack (Classic) and can’t get Cubase (4 or 5) to recall the settings on my PLG-150AN board. Studio Connections will allow me to add the AN Expert Editor to my work space and I can do some editing… However it will never “save” and recall any of the edit or voices I load.

What I was doing when I was back on SX2 (with no studio connections support), was using patch scripts to save and load voice programs (couldn’t do any editing, but at least I could save projects and recall all the voices). However since I’ve built a new PC (based on XP pro 32-Bit, same as my old one) and done some patch names editing and organizing I somehow have ended up corrupting my patch script for my Motif-rack and the PLG-150AN. Cubase will not “remember” any patches selected on any midi track associated with the Motif or the PLG-150AN…

I’m at a loss for what to do at this point. I don’t have time or want to spend the week I would need to rebuilt and organize my patch list for the PLG-150AN. That is assuming that rebuilding the Patch list will work and it’s not some other problem going on (although all my other external hardware works fine).

Sorry for the long post but here is my question. Is there a chance that the lack of integration for the PLG-150AN is because I’m using the Motif-Rack Classic? Is there a chance if I upgrade to a Motif-Rack ES that I’ll finally have full support of my yahmaha hardware inside Cubase?

I don’t really care to get the XS version as it doesn’t support the PLG series of plug-in boards and I can get a ES for a little over $500.

Any help here will be greatly appreciated. I’ve spent hours trying to find an answer to my problems and have nearly run out of ideas. Please Help!

Thank you,

Gabriel

Well after some further digging I’ve discovered that any device editor for studio manager that does not have a nice little blue light in the top right corner is not fully support for recall…

So the problem lies not with my motif classic, but rather the lack of support for recall on any of the PLG series boards. Makes this feature a little bit useless.

Yes, unfortunately, the PLG150-AN (and all its siblings) pre-date the Studio Connections protocol. And not only that, when you are creating custom AN sounds (bank 036/002) in the RAM bank of the PLG150-AN board, those sounds are volatile.

The situation is analogous to digital samples… (in those products that have sampling capability) Samples are also stored in volatile RAM. You must restore the data separately.

Although you cannot have the Studio Manager automate the loading of your AN data, you can certainly do the same thing that you would do if you were restoring sample data. Yes, it is a separate operation… but here are some options:

_ You can backup the data in the Motif Rack itself.
This will allow you to restore all your custom PLG150-AN sounds when you power up your Motif Rack.

Once you have placed your AN Expert Editor sounds into place in the Motif-Rack:

Press [UTILITY]
Press PAGE [>] to the last page [JobSel]
Cursor down and select the JOB: Plug-in Save
Press [SHIFT] + [ENTER]
Mark the PLG slot for you PLG150-AN
Press [SHIFT] + [ENTER] twice to execute.

This will back up your custom AN Voices in the Motif Rack in recallable Flash memory
When you want to restore them:

Press [UTILITY]
Press PAGE [>] to the last page [JobSel]
Cursor down and select the JOB: Plug-in Load
Press [SHIFT] + [ENTER]
Mark the PLG slot for you PLG150-AN
Press [SHIFT] + [ENTER] twice to execute.

In the Motif-Rack ES (2004) this function can be automated - so that when you power up, it automatically loads your data (...progress)… Auto Load for PLG 150-series was introduced in 2004.

If you have different libraries you need to load for different projects, what you can do is use the FILE function in the AN EXPERT EDITOR to save your data as an (*.ANS) file type.

Keep this file in the same folder with your Project and simply restore it manually. I found this works fairly well… I store the STUDIO MANAGER file with the Project - the Workspace has the PLG150 Editor’s icons that I used visible - this always reminds me to look in the Project folder for the associated files for each of my PLG150 series boards. If I used both the AN and DX boards I’ll find the *.ANS and *.DXC files which I can quickly restore. It’s not automatic, but not much was on my old MiniMoog, Arp Odyssey or DX7…

The PLG150-AN board is from 1999 so it may not able to participate fully in the Studio Connection RECALL protocol, but it can still perform some pretty advanced tricks for an old dog, doing analog emulations.

:)

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the input!

I have all my voices stored in my motif rack and also in the librarian for the expert editor. Manually recalling them into the motif has never been much of an issue.*

My problem (which I believe is related to Cubase and corrupted patch scripts for my Motif-Rack and the AN board) started ever since I built a new PC (based on XP pro and originally running SX2) and did a bunch of organizing/renaming of patches for both devices. Cubase keeps “forgetting” any patch selections I make in projects and will not load them after I quit a project and reopen it. It continually just loads a “temp aus” or “aus” patch (which is just a blank patch with no MSB or LSB information). This occurrence makes using patch scripts pretty useless, and that is what led me to upgrade to C4 (luckily I fell within the grace period and got to upgrade to C5 for free). Now because studio connections takes care of the patch selecting and recall I now no longer require a patch script for the Motif (at least for SX3 and beyond). So now you see why I was hoping that there would be deeper support for the PLG series of editors.

*I am having one small issue with the way that the motif is loading AN voices, maybe it’s a setting I’ve changed somewhere but not sure. Every time I load a voice from the AN (either directly from the motifs front panel or via cubase) the Motif overrides the Mono/Poly/Legato setting of the voice and defaults to Poly. Any idea why?

Thanks again,

Gabriel

Not sure why that is not storing. However, here’s what it could be, a GM (or XG) Reset message if sent from the sequencer will always restore all PARTS to POLY. One of the things that gets reset along with pitch bend, mod wheel, and controllers, is that all PARTS of the system are reset to POLY mode.

Certainly, the Poly/Mono mode of a Voice is a storable function - so make sure it is not being reset by some MIDI message.

If you are using a GM file then you may want to insert a MONO mode ON command on the Track feeding the AN PART.

cc126 with a value of 0 will set the PART to MONO mode.

Hope that helps.