is the divide drumtrack tool in the motif XF the same from the motif XS??
let’s say you have a drum arpegio with like 12 different sounds, my understanding is that divide drumtrack only seperates up to 8 individuals sounds into individual tracks, now what happens to the rest of the arpegio drum track sounds??

The Divide Drum Track Job is the same as in all the Motif-series keyboards. It does not divide the arpeggio, per se, it divides data recorded to a track of the sequencer (this data, of course, could have originated as an arpeggio or could be your own recorded drum data). Remember: Data recorded to the Motif sequencer can be moved freely between PATTERNS, even between PATTERNS and SONGS. As the item below discusses you can use a blank PATTERN to work out your drum track data - disassemble and reassemble it as necessary. Divide Drum Track is a specific form of the EXTRACT Job, which can be used for individual items beyond what the Divide Drum function does.

The following is taken from the comprehensive article on Drum Track Construction Tools:

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Divide Drum Track
“Divide Drum Track” - which is found by pressing [JOB] > [F5] TRACK from the main PATTERN screen is a sequencer JOB that basically allows you to use the first 8 tracks of the sequencer to initially construct your drum track. Then once you have worked out the drums you can reassemble them on to one track. So this assumes you are starting your composing from the drums, or that you are working in SONG mode and are using the PATTERN mode as a construction tool to create your drum track, which you will export to the SONG mode.

You will be using the sequencer’s first 8 tracks as a work area and when you have completed your work you can clean up and free those tracks for music data.

Concept: You record your basic drum groove using a single KIT on Track 1. Divide Drum Track will then analyze what you played and automatically EXTRACT the different components and split them (dissolve) to separate tracks 1-8. The idea is so that you now have separate tracks for your Kicks, snares/Handclaps, cymbals, toms, percussion etc.

This will allow you to do things like quantize the different components with different swing values. In general, quantize (timing correction) can be done in the sequencer either as you record or after the fact… moreover, it can be done either permanently or non-destructively. You can now shift just the snare drum behind the beat… you can swing just the high hat parts… basically you can bring the full power of the sequencer editing jobs on each individual drum component.

Divide Drum Track will also allow you, if you wish, to keep the drums (permanently) on separate tracks, choose different kits. Or you can choose different sounds and then assemble those sounds into a custom drum kit… (we will see how that is done a little later). The possibilities are many. However, once you have edited the timing (swing) and velocity of the performance on separate tracks you can reassemble the drums to a single track (using the MIX TRACK Job).

Divide Drum Track will take your kicks and place them on tracks 1 and 2, the snare/handclap or any item that functions on the back beat and place them on 3 and 4, cymbals and other dressing on 5 and 6, toms and percussion to 7 and 8. So you can think of this JOB as a special type of EXTRACT job.

There is also a specific EXTRACT EVENT [JOB] found at [F3] EVENT, that lets you take all of one particular note (or range of notes), for example and move it to a separate phrase – which can then be ‘patched’ to a new track. This is useful for example to pull out one drum and then affect its performance data in some way and then place it back (using the MIX job). The DIVIDE DRUM TRACK Job will overwrite data in the target location. However the EXTRACT EVENT and MIX Jobs will merge the data.

Depending on your final goal, you can either leave your drums divided out on separate tracks or you can reassemble them to a single track. If you are recording to an external DAW software like Cubase via FW/mLAN, for example, you can assign individual drums from within a KIT to individual mLAN outputs for separate audio processing.

If you are not going to need the additional tracks then you can simply skip the MIX TRACK job and use tracks 9-16 for your music. But if you require the tracks for your other music, you can create a custom kit containing just the sounds you like – assembling drums into a kit is easy enough.

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Note: New in the XF is the ability to edit the Drum Kit from the front panel without leaving SONG or PATTERN mode. You can customize the Drum Kit as necessary and STORE it to one of 32 USER Drum Kit locations.

Bad_Mister - 15 September 2010 08:58 AM

Divide Drum Track is a specific form of the EXTRACT Job, which can be used for individual items beyond what the Divide Drum function does.

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There is also a specific EXTRACT EVENT [JOB] found at [F3] EVENT, that lets you take all of one particular note (or range of notes), for example and move it to a separate phrase – which can then be ‘patched’ to a new track.

So basically you can also take a drum arpegio and use the EXTRACT EVENT JOB to manualy seperate ALL the different sounds to individual seperate tracks, and the EXTRACT EVENT JOB does not limit the amount of sounds you can seperate “patch to different individual tracks, except up until like 16 tracks.........So does that mean that the divide drum track is just a redundant type of tool or just sort of like a shortcut with first 8 tracks (1-8) tracks being put as the limit??.......Why is it that the divide drum track job only seperates for like the first 8 tracks, what if there is more sounds to divide into tracks???

You seem to think it is trying to divide individual sounds - it is dividing individual categories of sounds. Not individual sounds. Also if you are starting with an arpeggio, the DIVIDE DRUM TRACK does not work on the arpeggio, again, it works on data that is recorded to a MIDI Track. Yes that could be data that originally started as an arpeggio, but Divide Drum Track - work on data that is actually recorded to a MIDI track.

If you use two different kick drums it will separate them to tracks 1 and 2, if you use two different snare type sounds (could be snare, handclaps, sidestick, etc, it will separate them to tracks 3 and 4, hihats (all hihats) go to track 5, Ride Cymbal to track 6, toms (all toms) to track 7, and percussion (all percussion) to track 8.

These are groupings of data that will be very useful. Having each individual drum on a separate track, if you require that, you can do that yourself using the EXTRACT Job… this job lets you extract just one note and move it to a target track.

Divide Drum Track is very useful for breaking down items that you might want to edit together. For example, say you like the Kick and Snare sounds of the particular kit you have selected but would like to use a different set of Tom sounds...by dividing all the TOMS to a track you can then select a new Drum Kit and try out alternate Tom sounds as a group. You wouldn’t want each tom on separate track… for what purpose? Same with the hihats (Closed, Pedal, and Open) you would want to treat them as a group.

If this is not what you want, then you can use the EXTRACT job and separate them as you like…

great that really answers my question, but I have one more question why did Yamaha discontinue the STEP RECORDING option that was used in the earlier motifs (motif, motif es)...I know you can midi edit stuff but that’s still not as fast if you’re looking to sequence drums on the fly and be on beat, know what I mean??

Real time. On the Motif you can quantize on the way in or after the fact. You have control over tempo. The concentration was on real time functions.

There is probably no answer that will really satisfy you - “how come” questions are really impossible to answer. It is the way it is!

Bad_Mister - 16 September 2010 02:10 AM

There is probably no answer that will really satisfy you - “how come” questions are really impossible to answer. It is the way it is!

LMAO...It is the way it is.......yep it sure is!

All the instruments that are found in the Motif series are actually the same thing and they work the same as well. What I could say here is that if you are working the same way you are doing on your XS, it would be the same as well on the XF. It is just a minor difference between both series of keyboards and you would barely even notice what’s the difference between them.
Regards
Jame
expert in vCloud