I’m sure this has been covered many times from a few angles so apologies but I am a relative newbie, only having had my MOXF for just under a year - this synth is so deep that I reckon it will keep me busy for years as a hobby musician.

So only recently have I finally downloaded and installed all of the free voice libraries that are available. The libraries that I consider “keepers” I have committed to my flashboard (starting from scratch, so as to avoid any duplicate waveforms), and I have loaded them into Cubase as VST presets. With those free libraries alone I now have access to over 3000 voices on my MOXF.

For the factory presets I have gone through them all and marked my favourites as, well, favourites on the MOXF itself.

But for the others, I have no idea where to start or how to do it and manage it. Remember I’ve already had a massive cull by trying out and discarding libraries that were of no interest to me (e.g., the Chick Corea one - there are others) but still have 3000 voices to somehow go through, mark as favourites, and somehow curate them down to an easily accessible set of voices that become my workhorses.

Marking them as favourites in Cubase was one thought that I had but that’s not ideal as my workflow is based around the MOXF sequencer itself, at least to begin with (I bring everything into Cubase at the end for a final touching up of the music, mixing and polish and a little voice editing with the VST editor). By then, really, the voices are pretty much set in stone as the piece is almost complete and I rarely change voices at this stage - the editing I do is light and mostly messing with insertion effects.

I do have the John Melas tools but haven’t really used them in anger yet. Perhaps they are the best way of curating?

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble but I am curious how other people manage this? Before I embark on the task of going through >3000 voices I want to make sure that I have a workflow that is sound and future proof as it’s certainly not something I’d want to do again!

Many thanks

David.

Davelet - 29 May 2018 04:48 PM

...I do have the John Melas tools but haven’t really used them in anger yet. Perhaps they are the best way of curating?....

In my opinion, absolutely YES.  There is really no comparison between assembling libraries with Melas vs. internally.

You have the tools...are you familiar with how to effectively use them?

Davelet - 29 May 2018 04:48 PM

[...] Marking them as favourites in Cubase was one thought that I had but that’s not ideal as my workflow is based around the MOXF sequencer itself, at least to begin with (I bring everything into Cubase at the end for a final touching up of the music, mixing and polish and a little voice editing with the VST editor). By then, really, the voices are pretty much set in stone as the piece is almost complete and I rarely change voices at this stage - the editing I do is light and mostly messing with insertion effects. [...]

If you don’t mind, I’m going to give some advice on a somewhat related topic…

One problem users sometimes encounter is that they create a Song or Pattern based on certain User Voices, then edit or replace one or more of those Voices for another purpose. Later, when going back to the previous Song/Pattern, things don’t sound right because a User Voice has been changed.

That problem can be avoided by storing User Voices used in a Song/Pattern Mix as Mixing Voices. Mixing Voices remain as stored with the Song/Pattern, unaffected by changes in the User banks.

Although discussing the XS, most of this support article applies to the MOXF as well:
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/support/view/mix_voice_bank_mixv

Pages 122-123 of the MOXF Reference Manual (http://download.yamaha.com/file/60478) cover Mixing Voices.

Many thanks for both your replies.

About John Melas’ tools, no I don’t know how to effectively use them but I haven’t even really tried yet. I bought them on a whim a while back but only opened them a couple of times to see how they worked. Now having had the MOXF for nearly a year (and having done a lot with it!) I now really need to knuckle down and sort out all the voices I have downloaded and it sounds from your advice his software is the best way to do it. Any particular pointers or tips on how to do it most efficiently? Otherwise I guess it’s a case of going through the voices one by one and making a note of the “keepers”.

Thanks for the tip on using mixing voices rather than user voices 5pinDIN - that makes a lot of sense. I haven’t used user voices in my tracks so far as I was aware that if I went back to them at a later date it might be a mess for the reasons you state. It hadn’t occurred to me to use mixing voices instead so that’s a good tip.

What I really want to do is to have my “go-to” user voices sitting more-or-less permanently in USR1+2+3, but with easy access to other voices that I have downloaded (which is why I went through the faff of saving them all as VST presets in cubase).

So, I’ll give John Melas’ tools a shot and let you know how I get on!

Thanks again

David.