I know that the idea that someone might want such a thing might offend some of the diehard voice builders on the forum, but I think that it would be very useful if one or more of the commercial voice designers would assemble a voice set that is meant to fill out the XF’s sample and user voice memories in a way that is intended to complement the internal voices. This would be a general purpose set of 384 of the top voices from their libraries that complement the voices in the XF.

I make voices, but most of the time, I’m fine with tweaking an existing voice. I rarely make voices from total scratch unless they’re synth voices (which I’m very particular about the sound), or drum kits (which I’ll use my own samples). I love presets. Sometimes, a small tweak will help it meet my particular need perfectly, or, if not, they’re a great jumping off point, with many of the deep parameters already set to reasonable values.

My point is that, when I create with Motif, I like to have a diverse sound pallet on call. True, I might try some projects where I want a special type of sound, but, when I use Motif to write, the idea is to have lots of different sounds available immediately, without lots of distracting file loading and preset management. When I’m writing, I don’t necessarily want a fleet of electronic sounds, or a massive set of every potential brass articulation. I don’t think that I’m alone. People have many uses for Motifs, but, when writing, I think that many people would prefer to have variety, rather than an overload in one area.

I know that people are free to buy their own libraries, load just the sounds that they’d like, and build their own set of user voices in flash. However, it would be good if one of the larger designers, like DCP, would make a combination set that was ready to be directly loaded.

I know that Yamaha plans a small set of free voices for flash. That’s great to give people a taste of what’s possible. However, I have no problem paying for commercial voices.

For you designers, offering a mega set gets you a sale from people, potentially new to the Motif, that don’t know exactly what they want in the way of expansion. They might not be ready to build a custom voice library, but they can know that they can buy the flash expansions, buy your set, load it in, and greatly expand the on-board voices. It is an easy advantage to point to for purchasing the flash upgrades. It also advertises your other libraries. If people like your electronic or orchestral voices in the mega set, then they might later decide to purchase the sets that are devoted to just those voice types, for example.

However, if a set like this were offered, and I purchased it, I’d expect that it wouldn’t be a tease. Excluding the 128 user voices that are reserved for the new XF voices, there are only 384 left for such a mega set. Space restrictions mean that, if several voice styles/libraries are to be represented, that only a small set in each style/library can be included. These should be some of the best voices from that style/library, though. Naturally, such a comprehensive set, featuring premium voices from the other sets, would feature a slightly premium price.

Oh, and I’d really hope that such a general purpose set would include additional drum kits, particularly ones including new samples, not just entirely tweaked ROM samples.

Hope to hear comments from some of the commercial designers regarding if they think that a product like this will be possible soon.