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Old Motifator threads are available in the Archive.
zikerstu
 Total Posts: 326
Joined 08-06-2008 status: Enthusiast |
I happened to find the new XF sittin’ against the wall in the pro audio dept at Guit-fiddle Center, Detroit on Tuesday. (8-31) They had just set it up and sold the other XF8 right off the delivery truck! I only had 20 minutes to spare but this is what I determined from my test drive. It does have a vaguely noticable improvement in sound quality. It has the extra User 4 bank for voice/perf. It also has the S6 piano, located in a user bank of course and not in the presets along with some other additional voices in the user banks that I already have on my XS from free downloads, and a few new cheesy vox like organs as well. I looked for this killer organ that ”Bert Smorenburg” rocked out on in one of his demos on You Tube but couldn’t find it or the performance he played it on, so I’m guessing that was part of his own personal upload or I simply overlooked it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utbO6Dw1dlM Other than that, the voice & performance presets (1-8) are identical to the XS, except for the new ones in the User 4 bank which are pretty cool. The screen is “improved” the color is of course black, and for only $600, you can install 2 gigs of flash memory. Flash is kinda huge if you’re a performer, especially when the fuse box trips out! But IDK if I’m gonna bother spending the $ and put all the time into loading all my voices, performances, and samples into the new board, then having to save up for the Flash on top of all that! Nice board though, if I had the ES or Classic I’d go for it in a sec! |
| worknman
Total Posts: 128
Joined 08-19-2010 status: Pro |
$600? Really? :( |
| zikerstu
Total Posts: 326
Joined 08-06-2008 status: Enthusiast |
1 gig of flash memory is $299!! Unless you can find a package deal somewhere?! |
| worknman
Total Posts: 128
Joined 08-19-2010 status: Pro |
Wow, that’s crazy. I was ready to pull the trigger on the XF, but 3k for the XF7 plus $600 will definitely make me reconsider. Are there two memory slots so you can buy 1gb now and 1gb later? |
Bad_Mister
 Total Posts: 36620
Joined 07-30-2002 status: Moderator |
There are two slots - you can purchase a FL512, and get second one later. Or you can mix sizes. To assume you need 2GB is really something that you may find is not really necessary. It depends. You have to ask yourself:
If not, do some more homework. It would be silly to spend $600 on 2Gb and then only really need 512MB for your purposes. Of course, there are people that 50GB would not be enough… You have to really find out if you are one of those people… And it is an individual thing. Try not to let others sway you.
Just for perspective the entire Motif Classic Wave ROM could fit 6 times on a single 512MB board.
The concept is to not just put any waveforms on there - but ONLY the Waveforms that you HAVE TO HAVE!!! Those that you are actually going to be using! It would be silly to buy a board based simply on the total size of a sample library, particularly where you only use a half dozen sounds from that library. Before you purchase do your homework. Get a perspective about what you might actually need. Until you actually work with samples and samplers, I know, it can be difficult to know. 2GB is a huge library of WAVEFORMS from which to build Voices. Just because a Library is BIG does not mean it is better. But I’ll let you be the judge of that… I’ve heard pianos that were Gigabytes big that just didn’t do it - and I’ve heard piano many, many times smaller that were awesome! Some one asked me today how many snare drums can fit in 2GBs… I could only laugh at the thought. (More than enough!) |
radurobert
 Total Posts: 794
Joined 03-05-2009 status: Guru |
You’re theories sounds kool )) but in reality ... )) |
Jive Talking Robot
 Total Posts: 201
Joined 08-23-2010 status: Enthusiast |
You can mix and match (512 or 1GB) however you want from what I understand, and you do NOT need to fill both slots at the same time… so you could simply get the 512, which should hold the DL library Yamaha is making just fine (that’s assuming you would want to keep EVERY sound… I myself am going to chop those libraries down to just what I need). I sample a TON and roll a lot of my own sounds… and even I am not going to buy 2GB out of the gate… I am going for a single 1GB right now as that should hold me over for a long, long time. If I find my sample library growing, I will look for a second 1GB. If you are not big in to sampling or sample libraries, a single 512 may do the trick. |
| worknman
Total Posts: 128
Joined 08-19-2010 status: Pro |
Can you do that? As I understand it, if you load samples (like from sound libraries sold in the MOtifator store), the waveforms will go into the flash ram while the voices go to the user bank(s). So, for example, if a library came with 20 voices and you only need 15 of them, what happens when you delete/overwrite the other 5? Does it delete just the user presets, or will it delete the corresponding waveforms so you can use that space for other samples? Sorry if I’m not explaining my question in the proper terms… I’ve never owned a Motif before :) |
| Jive Talking Robot
Total Posts: 201
Joined 08-23-2010 status: Enthusiast |
I am new to Motif as well so this is probably best addressed by some XS vets. I actually started a thread addressing a similar question here:
From what Dave P wrote, you can pick and choose your favorite voices and create your own user banks from several commercial/download sets. This can be achieved in the Motif software editor it seems. But this is new to me as well, so Motif gurus please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. That said, I will likely be dumping most of the orchestra/brass/wind voices (and their corresponding waveforms) from the free Flash download, narrowing it down to the keys, synths and guitars… I imagine this will give me back lots of space. 1GB really is a lot to work with if you don’t plan to be using massive Piano/Orchestra libraries. |
| GospelMusicians
Total Posts: 336
Joined 08-26-2010 status: Enthusiast |
Just got out from Guitar center and played the XF. For $3k, I wasn’t impressed. Other than the piano, it pretty much has the same sounds as the XS. You add another $600 for Flash and now your looking at almost a $4k unit. I’d rather get the high end MacBook Pro and a nice 88-Controller.
Very disappointed at the features vs. Price. I’m going with Laptop/Apogee Duet and Controller! Welcome to new era of Laptop workstations! |
| sustudio
Total Posts: 159
Joined 05-28-2007 status: Pro |
“Improved”? Please elaborate. |
| zikerstu
Total Posts: 326
Joined 08-06-2008 status: Enthusiast |
The background style has changed to a lighter, easier way to read image. You can also choose your color scheme. Do you wanna read stuff in red, blue, orange? Neat stuff like that. I never even messed with that when I was tinkering with it but I recall it looking a bit different from the XS, and it looked pretty good! |
| Lemonjam
Total Posts: 38
Joined 08-02-2010 status: Regular |
)))
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| worknman
Total Posts: 128
Joined 08-19-2010 status: Pro |
LOL, do you know of a nice 88 key controller? I haven’t found one yet. At least, not one with enough knobs/sliders to make working with softsynths tolerable. |
coinstar
 Total Posts: 74
Joined 05-13-2009 status: Experienced |
i want to ask you i am on my way to get motif i never have any motif keyboard before and i dont need sampler i have notation slmkii and iam using cubase daw and vst after you try the xf do you think its have any new stuff or sound quality worth that i get it and not get the xs rack , what i need from motif is the drum kits and the brass sounds and bass guitars sounds and strings dose there is any new worth to get it instead of getting motif xs rack? |
| Bad_Mister
Total Posts: 36620
Joined 07-30-2002 status: Moderator |
You overwrite the VOICEs with 5 you are hopefully going to use. No negative consequences.
Waveforms are never replaced… you can delete them if you wish, but you cannot write over them, like you can the VOICE data.
_ WAVEFORMS are not VOICES, Waveforms are dressed up by the Voice parameters.
To really understand all of this you have to really get a grasp of how a sample-based synthesizer creates sound. VOICE parameters are small bits of information that are instructions like VOLUME (how loud), FILTER (how bright), PITCH (what frequency), EFFECTS, Portamento, EQ, Envelopes, arpeggios that are applied, LFOs, etc., etc., etc. Although there are many of these parameters they only use a very small amount of memory (thus Voice parameters load very quickly). All these VOICE parameters “point” to a sound source - the sound source is what is actually responsible for the audio you hear - it is the oscillator - the object that is the source of the vibration. In a sample-based synthesizer this is a digital recording of a sound. When you call up a VOICE all the VOICE parameters “point” to a specific OSCILLATOR WAVE. To make a Motif XF VOICE you need to have as few as 1 OSCILLATOR WAVEFORM and you can have as many as 8 OSCILLATOR WAVEFORMS. A set of Voice parameters plus an oscillator wave in the XF is called an ELEMENT. An Element is the basic building block of the XF VOICE. The XF has 3977 such WAVEFORMS in PRESET Memory. These are permanent. They are burned into the WAVE ROM in the factory in Hamamatsu Japan. There are piano waveforms, organ waveforms electric piano waveforms, guitar waveforms, string waveforms, etc., etc., Many Voices can be made from the same Wavform - because it is the VOICE parameters that “dress it up”.
All the parameters you see when you press EDIT are VOICE parameters… the key location where they all are applied to a specific Waveform takes place on the following screen:
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