My Motif rack has problems with my 150-DX board. I play in multi mode, and when I am swiching between programs the dx part suddenly says “silense” as a part name? And there’s no sound from the DX.

I go back to my old part wich I know is working and with the DX chicago sound and it displays “silense” on the dx part. I have to restart the machine angain.

It is on part P1.
Voice No 34
Bank MSB 35
Bank LSb 0

What is wrong here?

Regards

Reidar Wiik
Norway

There are many “Silence” Voices in the PLG150-DX.

The PLG150-DX is a board that can work in many different products… the type of product that you own (Motif-Rack) is part of what Yamaha refers to as Modular Synthesis Plug-in System (MSPS). The other type of products are referred to as XG (Xtended General MIDI) products.

The MSPS products (Motif, Motif-Rack, Motif ES, Motif-Rack ES, S80, S90, S90 ES, S30, CS6X, and CS6R) all feature Plug-in slots for PLG boards and utilize the data as apart of the tone engine system, integrating the boards with internal parameters, effects and controllers.

When you place the PLG150-DX in the Motif-Rack you have banks that are specifically made for that product. PLG_PRE1, and PLG_USR. The other banks are available for individual sounds from which you can build VOICES.

There are some 912 DX Voices many of them are sorted in XG/GM format. I’m not sure if you are familiar with General MIDI data but there are basically 128 normal VOICES in a GM sound set.

16 Categories of instruments, 8 instruments in each Category.

Piano Category has 8 different pianos: Acoustic Grand, Bright Grand, Electric Grand (CP80), HonkyTonk, Electric Piano (Rhodes), Electric Piano 2 (DX), Harpsichord, and Clavinet

Chromatic Percussion has 8 sounds
Organ has 8 sounds
Guitar has 8 sounds
Bass has 8 sounds
and so on....

These are listed in a specific order so that when a GM file is made and Program Change 34 is required, every GM compatible tone engine will select a Fingered Bass (happens to be Program #34).

XG or Xtended GM, has alternate sounds so that instead of just one Fingered Bass sound, it can give you a variety of different Fingered bass sounds… all at Program #34 but in different banks (determined by the MSB/LSB bank select numbers).

So if MSB 0, LSB 0 calls up a Fingered Bass that is a Fender Precision, a different MSB and LSB at Program 34 might recall a Music Man bass, or a Rickenbacher bass, or a Hofner bass, or an Alembic bass, etc., etc., etc

Also the parallel banks may have different uses - you may have a parallel bank that is specifically for apurpose, like “Double trigger” attacks.

So these alternate banks follow the Program Change numbers of the GM outline but in parallel banks you have different options.

Now enter the specialty board like the PLG150-DX - it is FM synthesis. While FM could do many, many sounds it did not do all 128 sounds listed on the GM list.

The FM 912 Voices are spread out among the parallel banks and will only make sense when referenced by the GM Program number.

Not all categories have alternate Voice… for example, Double Attacks - while harpsichords and perhaps certain mallet instruments may have sounds in that parallel bank you may find lots of “Silence” Voices.

When looking for an alternate XG sound it is best to think the GM list. So for example, if you are looking for alternate DX type Electric Pianos you would call up Program #6 and then scroll through the parallel MSB/LSB banks to find alternate DX type pianos.

If you are looking for an alternate XG sound for Synth Bass, you would call up Program #39 and then scroll through the parallel bankx for different sounds residing in position #39.

So it is precisely because not every program will have an alternate sound you may find many (many) Silence Voices.

See the VOICE LIST for PLG150-DX

See also the following PDF articles for helpful details:
http://files.keyfax.com/download/PLG150DX_Motif.pdf
and
http://files.keyfax.com/download/MotifPLG.pdf