I know the XF has the flash board does any one know
if it loads sounds faster than the XS.

CHO

The purpose of the FLASH board is eliminate ‘load times’ once you understand what Flash is the question answers itself. If you are asking is the XF faster at loading a sample library of equal size to its internal SDRAM than the SX is at loading the same sample library to its DIMMs. Yes. But when you bring in Flash, it is a different story.

It takes longer to burn a sample to flash than it does to load the sample to RAM. But the difference is felt from then on. For example, say you have a Sample Library that you were loading to your Motif XS and it was 1GB of data. It would take the same amount of time, every time you load that data… and you would have to load that data every time you wanted to use it. So that if you used it every day for a week, you would cumulatively waited quite a bit of time. At the end of a month, you might have written a song with the total amount of time it takes to load up your 1GB of data.

Fast forward to the Motif XF. Once you burn the Waveforms and samples from that same Sample Library to XF’s Flash boards, the samples will remain there on the board. And while it initially took longer to burn them to flash, every time you want to use those sounds, you only need to power on your Motif XF. The Waveform and Sample data will remain in place, so that you do no waiting every time you power up. So you do not have to wait each and everytime you want to use this Library.

Even if you have loaded in other Voices, you simply need to restore the VOICES, to the USER banks, you do not have to wait for the samples to load in. So worse case you wait a few seconds for the VOICE parameters to load, not scores of minutes for the samples to load.

You custom Waveforms and samples are always there - just like the 3,977 preset Waveforms and all the preset samples that make them up are there when you power on the Motif XF.

Hope that helps.

It would be great to see some side by side comparisons between loading sample data to RAM vs. Flash. Any volunteers who want to share the information?

It’s no contest… it takes about 5 or 6 times longer to “burn” WAVEFORMS to Flash versus loading them to RAM. But the point is you only have to do it once.

Due to technical reasons the loading of User Waveforms and Samples into the Flash Memory takes significantly more time than loading into the SDRAM. A file of 128 MB is loaded in about 45 seconds into the SDRAM. Loading the same file into the Flash Memory will take about 5 minutes. So you should better use the SDRAM for such purposes as pre-listening to new sample sets instead of transferring them to the Flash Memory. Loading audio data into the Flash Memory takes about 2.4 seconds for one MB. 512 MB of samples will be loaded in about 20 minutes. Single Waveforms can be auditioned with the AUDITION function.

At the end of a year, you will have spent 4 and 1/2 hours loading your 128MB file into RAM… while the person with Flash would have spent 5 minutes.

The best way to look at it is, you can customize your own WAVE ROM, you can keep the WAVEFORMS that you really like with you at all times… The difference between the 3,977 WAVEFORMS that Yamaha gives you when you purchase the Motif XF and the ones you choose to transfer to your FLASH boards are that YOU chose to transfer them to your FLASH boards. Choose them wisely, use the Flash wisely.

We know that not everyone will, but used with some common sense, it is as powerful a concept as “freedom of choice”. :)

Thanks Bad_Mister

you answered my question I have a Xs Sy99 Ex5 and other
toys the XF sounds interesting

Cho