Bad_Mister - 05 August 2010 08:54 AM

Just some food for thought. And there are technical reasons why cheap off-the-shelf memory cannot be used for the purpose of this type of Flash Memory (any other thoughts are just, well, uninformed).

You make some valid comments Phil, but I remain sceptical with specific regards to the XF and I don’t think the iPod analogy is particularly apt here. If this was a debate, as opposed to a forum, then we could go back and forth a while yet. But, I’ve said my piece so I’ll just leave it for people to decide for themselves.

I’m not of the opinion that people shouldn’t buy an XF, despite what it may appear. I am of the opinion that whoever does buy it should be well informed as possible however, rather than jump for the ‘shiny new’ aspect. And the potential frustrations down the line are there, if you look ahead. They won’t apply to everyone, but I would imagine that they will (or maybe they won’t!) appear in months to come on this very forum.

I’ll also admit that the way its been marketed irritates me somewhat. I should know better, I have many years behind me of working as an engineer for a company with a sales department. Actually, it’s because I kinda care; I truly value the amazing flexibility and potential of the XS architecture (which is also inside the XF of course) and I’m genuinely disappointed about what the XF could have been but isn’t, as opposed to what it actually is. In Bert’s demo of the XF I grimaced when he mentioned about how Yamaha had been listening to the end users, partly because you yourself have said many times that the percentage of people who install sample RAM is very small, and partly because there are so many other things mentioned time and time again on this forum that the XF does not address at all.

SSD drives (I’ve mentioned them in the past, I was reminded in another recent post by someone else) would have surely been a far better avenue to explore than proprietary low-capacity flash.

On a brighter note, that little demo piece he did with the indian sampled instrument over the string backing is just exquisite.

Df.

DF- we actually did look at SSD drives , but they were not technically feasible.

It’s true that not everyone installed Ram in their XS.  There are a couple reasons.

First, in the US , many of the major chains not only did not demo the units with RAM, they did not even carry the RAM to upgrade the XS.

One of product specialists has a great story. He was in a store and demoing sampling and loop remix. Someone in the audience interrupted him and asked- Will my XS do that ?  When the answer was yes, the guy ran out saying - I have to go to buy some RAM and try that out. he couldn’t even wait until the clinic was finished.

Second, if you search the forums for “where did my samples go” , you will see lots of posts by people who simply don’t understand why their samples go away when they turn off their XS.

KeyFax who sells a lot of RAM gets these type of calls literally every day.

The point is that a lot Motif customers are not as technically sophisticated as you are. 

We did listen to customers, but not just the ones who are advanced power users, but also those people who are struggling with absorbing all the capabilities the Motifs have.

For those people, the convience of having both onboard SRAM and Flash expansion will be a major upgrade.

Yamaha_US - 05 August 2010 10:47 AM

DF- we actually did look at SSD drives , but they were not technically feasible.

Noted. Hopefully this will be something that will prove more viable in a future generation of instrument as the technology progresses.

Yamaha_US - 05 August 2010 10:47 AM

if you search the forums for “where did my samples go” , you will see lots of posts by people who simply don’t understand why their samples go away when they turn off their XS.

Yep - I’ve participated enough in those threads :)

Yamaha_US - 05 August 2010 10:47 AM

We did listen to customers, but not just the ones who are advanced power users, but also those people who are struggling with absorbing all the capabilities the Motifs have.

For those people, the convience of having both onboard SRAM and Flash expansion will be a major upgrade.

I don’t see the logic in this, other than samples now don’t go away on power-down. Apart from that one major point, If I understand correctly, from a usability point of view the rest of the system will be pretty much the same as it has been to date - ie: neither easier, nor more difficult to use than the XS is. If someone was confused as to why their samples disappeared on power-down, I just don’t see those same users being any less confused by the process of creating mixes, recording ARPs etc. There are plenty of other issues that people have raised time and time again on the forums that the XF does not address in any form whatsoever.

But, I seem to be repeating myself. Thank you for taking the time to reply, it is appreciated.

Df.

We didn’t do anything to make the fact that the Key of Bb Major has two flats easier for musicians (lol). Some things can be made easier, other things are really up to the user… The tools are there.

Making arps - on a good day one of the more difficult tasks on the planet - or should I say making good musical arps. Creating mixes - as a long time recording engineer and having taught audio engineering at the college level, creating good mixes is an art and falls under the category of talent, much like the pressing of keys in a specific order to make an effective musical result - takes talent.

The process is easy enough - I think having 8 faders helps a bunch, I think having an EQ per PART helps even more, having top shelf effect processing helps as well… using the tools provided - we are here virtually everyday helping those who want it (when we are not answering “how come” question) :)

Funny you chose those two things (making arps and mixing)… funny :)

I would like just to add few words, agreeing with Jan and mmusic.
Since 2nd August there are so many posts in XF section that I should spent half a day just to read them. And all people (honestly me, too) ask about some technical possibilities.
None of them speak about music :(.
I have ES more than three years and I’m very very satisfied.
As Bad Mister said in one answer most people didn’t hear every sound from their synth since they just don’t need it.
Recently I received a free sound library from Peter Krishner (Easy Sounds) and find some nice sounding performances that (what a suprise!) uses preset sounds with few modifications using insert effects. So, we should just play not bother ourselfs with so many informations that we probably never use.
I’ve heard a guy playing Motif 8 (classic) along with a drummer.
He use background strings, nice piano sound and some VL synth played using BC3. Impressive!!! And it was played on the synth from 2001!!!! Nothing to add....

Alex

I’m wondering why the SDRAM max is 128MG. Will that be a limitation?

Mike T.

I’m wondering why the SDRAM max is 128MG. Will that be a limitation?

I had the same exact question. Once getting the unit, I weighed the positives and the negatives and came up with this:

Is it a limitation versus the Motif XS and Motif ES which came with none?
No, it is 128MB more RAM than came resident in the Motif XS and Motif ES. And as far as I’m concerned that is ALL GOOD!

This means that right out of the box you can sample (positive). The last Motif-series that did that was the original Motif(Classic) which had 4MB of on-board RAM. The concept was - just enough to check out sampling… if you found it of interest you could expand it to 64MB using 2 x 32MB SIMMs by going to a computer store and purchasing them (yikes, seems like a long time ago).

It is now going to be possible to demonstrate all the different ways the sampler can be used when the unit is sitting in a store.

It is now going to be possible to audition Sample Library sets - you can load them into the unit without having to expand it. (if you’re thinking: what if the Library is bigger than 128MB... well, you are trying out sounds… You can load individual Voices.

Perhaps the biggest positive:
As far as getting the unit - right-out-of-the-box
128MB is more than enough to do work on a music composition… There is a large (large) segment of the customer base that simply wants to create a song, and share it with friends or online. With the direct record to USB drive, (or to networked computer via Ethernet), this is now very simple and is a compelling feature.

But of course, this record function is stereo record - direct, no overdubbing. Yes, you can even play and sing but you must be “live” to the USB drive. With 128MB on board, you can now get creative, and use the Integrated Sampling Sequencer, record your vocals, add an acoustic guitar, build it around a sample loop, whatever. Then when you setup to direct Record to USB/Ethernet you have a more “produced” composition!!!!

and the BONUS: All without booting up a computer, installing Cubase, fiddling with drivers, or purchasing anything extra. For the large segment who admit they are technically challenged - this has to be really good news!

I cannot tell you how many Motif XS owners and Motif ES owners have absolutely no idea what the INTEGRATED SAMPLING SEQUENCER is all about and what it is capable of… they don’t know because they never added DIMMs… Many will now discover just how cool it is and will not believe what they have been missing.

And if you are really into sampling (remember there are still folks discovering how it can be used, not just for loading new sample libraries, but for sound effects, for background vocals, for real guitars/basses, brass sections, acoustic drums, percussion, loops, audio clips, etc., etc.,) you can expand the unit with FLASH. If you don’t like flash, you are really not into sampling.

While every post I see talks about the 2GB maximum of expansion, please recognize that 512MB (that’s half a gig) is possible with a single FL512, two FL512s give you a gigabyte. One FL512 + one FL1024 give you a gig-and a half…

When I would go on a presentation tour with the Motif XS I never took more than two 256MB DIMM sticks… And I was taking more information than I would use. I was prepared for all types of questions about how to use the sampler, so I had vocals, guitar solos, Sample Voice libraries, Audio Loops, etc. etc.

How much data you take is really up to you… You do not have to buy the maximum memory… what a waste it would be to not fill it.

Another positive: Many folks (and I have my own statistics on this) never have purchased DIMMs for the XS and simply do not know about a major powerful feature of the XS - one that answers the cry for new sounds.

Another positive: Had someone post the other day, has a Motif classic, who’s just now is getting into the sampler. It is difficult in 2010 to find SIMMs at your local computer geek shop. Thank goodness some Servers still use PC100/133 DIMMs because who knows how long they will be around (given the fact that musicians tend to keep their keyboards around 8-10 years, if not more) who’s to say DIMMs will not go the way of SIMMs, and SCSI drives and SmartMedia cards and Floppy Disks, remember ZIP drives and SYQUEST drives… the computer industry is filled with discarded, yet fairly recent, media formats.

Just food for thought… my conclusion… too many POSITIVES about having 128MB versus any possible negatives.