Hello,

I created a patch with the AN editor and sent it to the Motif (which was in pattern mode) via midi. Then I went to the file mode and saved an AUTOLD1.W2B file in the AUTOLOAD directory (the card is in slot 1).

However, when I went back to the pattern mode, my new voice was gone and I had the old patch in its place. Things did not change after I powered up the keyboard again.

What did I do wrong?

sewa

The PLG150-AN board has it own RAM. This is what the AN Expert Editor addresses. When you create a Voice in the Editor you can save it as a .ANS file - this data is bulked to the PLG150-AN board into Bank 036/002 (this is the PLG150-AN’s on RAM bank).

You can back this data up to a SmartMedia card according to the slot that the AN board is located (which you did). AUTOLD1.W2B would be a PLG150AN board bank file.

This data will be loaded back to PLG150-AN Bank 036/002

Now lets deal with your host product, the MOTIF. The Motif has Voices. Voices are parameters that dress up a particular ELEMENT. For example, Voice parameters include things like the Effects you apply or the Controller you assign, the overall volume, the pan position, the Note Shift, etc. The parameter get stored to a kind of re-writable ROM that remains in memory. But the key item is the oscillator or the thing that generates the tone. Yamaha calls this the Element because it can be a sample, or it can be (as is the case here) a different technology like Analog modeling, or FM synthesis or Acoustic Modeling.

The Element can be ROM based (permanent) or RAM based (volatile).

An Element in the Motif can be a ROM Sample (there are 1309 of them burned in at the factory) or it can be a RAM Sample (one of 8,192 you can load in to User Sample RAM if you add SIMMs) or it can be a PLG150 sound from one of the PLG150-series boards.

Press [VOICE]
Press [EDIT]
Press Track Select [1]
Press [F1] OSC
Press [SF1] WAVE
Here you are looking at the exact point at which the Motif “points” the Voice parameters to the sound source.

If you do this on a PLG Voice, it will be a bank on the PLG150-AN board which has several preset banks (036/000 and 036/001) and one programmable user bank (036/002).

The Motif treats the sound you created in the AN Expert Editor as a single ELEMENT and it points to that data. So in a similar manner to how Sample data works, if the sample is in RAM you must reload that sample each time you power up. The Voice data that dresses up that sample remains in memory between power cycles. But the sample data is volatile and disappears.

The same is true of the 036/002 bank on the PLG150, which is why you must load the .W2B (bulk) file each time.

So restoring PLUG-IN VOICES (those that contain Motif parameters assigned to Board Voice parameters) is a two step process.

Here is a post from the archives that may help:
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/archive/viewthread/426917/

And here is a PDF article on the Motif and The PLG150-AN:

PLG150AN_Motif.pdf  (File Size: 68KB - Downloads: 700)

Thanks for the explanations. I can clearly see the principle now. I’m still unable to save the sound though.

Once its transmitted from the editor into the Motif ES (in voice mode) I can play it all right. But whenever I LEAVE the voice mode, the sound gets lost i.e. if I push the ‘store’ button, it gets lost, if I go to ‘file’ and save it as Bulk1 type of file, it gets lost too…

I would appreciate some further guidance

sewa

..its even worse. Within pattern mode, going into “chain” resets the AN into some default nonsense.

I haven|t used the AN board for some two years because of that awkward interface and it seems that this will not change.

sewa - 09 May 2009 03:16 PM

..its even worse. Within pattern mode, going into “chain” resets the AN into some default nonsense.

I haven|t used the AN board for some two years because of that awkward interface and it seems that this will not change.

I could not realize what is your problem. Bad Mister (as usual) gave all needed info, including PDF. I’m using AN board and have saved voices to Autoload file and Autoload bulk. After power up, I’m using analog voices both in pattern and song mode without any problem.

Alex

there might be a step that I’m missing. Could you tell me, step by step, how do you save an AN voice once it is transferred from the editor into motif?

I understand the theory but I just might be missing one press of a button or something because it all just doesn’t work…

The step by setp is in the PDF article I referenced in my first reply.

Each sound goes to a bank - once you understand the banks system it is fairly easy to find your sound when you have stored it. The bank numbers are admittedly a more advance region of the MIDI specfication but once you grok that it is fairly straight ahead.