Just a quick question, whats the best way, say while I am in the middle of playing piano, and I want to change to a guitar voice, to make this happen keeping the notes holding, without taking my fingers off the keys, to ensure a smooth change, and then change back to piano?

Is this referred to as Voice Transitioning (or is that something else)?

I guess I would need an extra FC4 pedal or something, can this be done with the XS8?

Could I use my FC-3 sustain pedal (plug it in to another hole) to test this out before I go and buy an extra pedal?

ATM what I have been doing is set up a Song with the voices I want then I have to press from Track 1 to Track 2 to change the voice and then press Track 1 again to change back, but this means my hands have to leave the keys…

Any help appreciated ! :D

You’re on the right way:

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/442609/

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Yes, the links provided by mya911 will give you a start on how to combine Voices for Voice Transitioning and Assigning Controllers to accomplish your goal. These articles go over using available XA CONTROL parameters and physical controllers to switch between Voices. (I will not repeat their details here)

What will work best for you is going to be determined by you. It seems that if you need to hold a piano chord while switching to guitar that reaching up to press a button should not be an issue (given that you have a sustain pedal to hold the first sound while pressing the Track button). But if this is, musically speaking, too difficult to achieve, then you will have to detemine if stepping on a foot switch to transition is any easier.

Create a Split setup
It will all depend on exactly what you need to achieve. If the solution (old school solution) is that you really need two keyboards, then you might think about a split (but again this will work or not depending on how many octaves you actually need for the piano part versus the guitar part). Place both sounds on the same MIDI channel so they can be played as a split. Surely the guitar never uses the full keyboard so you could setup both sounds so they appear on the keyboard simultaneously with the piano in the lower portion of the keyboard with no extra unused octaves, and the guitar mapped to the top few octaves (again) with no extra unused octaves.

ON/OFF trick combined with FC7
Another opportunity is to program a PERFORMANCE where the piano responds to the Expression pedal, while the guitar does not (or vice versa). This way you can fade one of the sound out with an FC7 pedal. Then program the other sound to respond to an “empty arpeggio”. Doing so will allow this sound to appear and disappear in response to a Foot Switch programmed to cc096 ARP ON/OFF

An “empty arpeggio” is one where the ARP MAIN screen is setup so that the:
Category = --
SubCategory = --
Type = off

When the TYPE = OFF for the selected ARPEGGIO, the ARP ON/OFF switch will turn the VOICE OFF or ON. When the ARPEGGIO ON/OFF LED is lit the assigned sound is OFF. This could work, although like any controller scenario, you will have to be willing to practice to work it out. You would play the piano, sustain the last chord, at any time while that chord sustains you can step on the FC4 or FC5 pedal to bring in the “arpeggio-controlled” guitar. It will not sound until you again trigger notes, by that time you can fade the piano out via the FC7 pedal…

FC3
The FC3, by the way, is a TRS (Tip-Ring-Sleeve) connector and cannot be subtituted for the FC4 or FC5 (TS connector) as a regular assignable Foot Switch. It, the FC3, is a dedicated sustain pedal (although, strangely enough, it can substitute for an FC7 sweep pedal… albeit a spring-loaded sweep that returns to 0 when released).

Anyway, what is comfortable for you, you will have to determine.
I have two FC7s, an FC3 and an FC4 connected to my Motif XS… It is possible to program each sound to an FC7 pedal so that you have independent control via your feet… that of course is another option.

Ok, have finally had time to start to play with this task further and have one question.

your above “Split Setup” seems the best option for me. I had a go at doing this by setting up a performance with 2 voices (is this the best option)? With the rock piano taking up about 80% of the keyboard and the lead guitar taking the top 20% of the keyboard. I ran into a problem though that I could not work out how to set the lead guitar even though I’m playing it on the higher octaves, I want it to sound back down near middle C in pitch. I was thinking like transpose -48 semitones or something, or -4 octaves, but I can’t find where this setting is in performance mode to apply just to that voice ?

In accomplishing the above, am I best doing a split set up in Performance Mode or some other mode?

There are, of course, several ways around this. You can Edit the VOICE itself. When you need to change the pitch range of a sound beyond what is available via the NOTE SHIFT range provided in the PART parameters, the solution is to go to VOICE mode and create a special version of the VOICE that is tuned so that it can be shifted and make sense in your PERFORMANCE>

This USER version of the Voice will probably only make sense for use in your PERFORMANCE but it will allow you to accomplish your goal.

Go to VOICE mode and call up the guitar VOICE you want to work with.
Press [EDIT]
Press TRACK SELECT buttons [1]-[8] to view the different ELEMENTS.
Each ELEMENT can be TUNED individually
Press [F2] PITCH
Press [SF1] TUNE
The Coarse Tune parameter allows you to tune the Element over a 4 octave range by semi-tones (+/-48)

Change all of the Elements 24 semi-tones. This will allow you to bring the Voice within the range of the 2 octaves you have available in the PERFORMANCE’s PART parameters. And will allow you to accomplish your goal of tuning the guitar to match the range you have available on the keyboard.

Of course, you will need to STORE this version of the guitar to a USER bank location, and then use that USER location in your PERFORMANCE.