Old Motifator threads are available in the Archive.
StefanBP
Total Posts: 5
Joined 05-22-2011 status: Newcomer |
Hello!
Why are there only 4 user banks?
For the 4 user banks today are filled with “insperation in flash” There should be an easy match for Yamaha to fix this Now that you can increase by 2 GB of samples, it should please many with more user-banks, both users and those who do voice libraries! |
DavePolich
Total Posts: 6820
Joined 07-27-2002 status: Guru |
The original Motif had 1 user bank. The Motif ES had 2. The Motif XS had three. The XF now has four. It doesn’t matter if Yamaha added another four user banks. There would be people who would complain that there should be “16” user banks.
It isn’t possible for Yamaha to add user banks to the XF because that
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GospelMusicians
Total Posts: 336
Joined 08-26-2010 status: Enthusiast |
Wow man, you must be an amazing programmer with tons of patches to need more than 4 user banks. |
StefanBP
Total Posts: 5
Joined 05-22-2011 status: Newcomer |
Well, of course you always want more. :) But it seems to be pretty good voices in “insperation in Flasch, “ I would gladly had they left, though I might have bought other commercial libraries. And even had some room for my own voices. Want to point out that I am not a Motif owner yet, choose right now between the Motif and Kronos, but it leans to Motif. First, a slightly lower price, and I think that most synthesis engine on the Kronos only is poor “VSTi”.:) And I know that all hardware synths, unfortunately, have limited user voices Too bad it is in the hardware and not firmware |
bytexion
Total Posts: 128
Joined 05-12-2011 status: Pro |
Remember that you have network capability so you can switch out banks as you like, sort of using the computer as a patch librarian. Or use a USB stick for the same thing.
I also have the feeling Kronos will be like a VST package with a keyboard attached.
And the synthesis lends well to analog programming style too, with the usual “tone generator, filters, envelopes, amplifiers” structure at the bottom. Only that the oscillator has 4000 waveforms instead of 4-5. And you can have a huge amount of oscillators in a sound and detune them in octaves or fine tune to your heart’s content, and still not run out of polyphony like the VA synths do.
Plus the Motif XF effects are absolutely great and very useful, several chorus, reverbs, distortions, delays, compressors that actually make a difference, phasers, flangers that contain their own presets so you don’t need to study every unit to get something out of them. The VCM stereo phaser is the best I’ve heard since the hardware EHX Smallstone Phaser, which is the one Jean-Michel Jarre popularised with the “swirly strings sound” in the 70’s. Don’t get too hung up on how many sounds you COULD have loaded, that would be limitless. Think how you are going to play with all those sounds without going insane looking for them instead. You can select a certain bank from a library and only install that though. So if you know just Bank 2 has cool analog samples and sounds, the rest are mallet hits and more pianos, you’ll just pick bank 2 and install that to the user bank of choice instead of the whole thing. If they’d added 10 more user banks, people would ask “why are there only 14 user banks? I want to load all the sound libraries that ever existed at once!!!” |
synthfr33k
Total Posts: 15
Joined 05-07-2011 status: Regular |
You made a great point here no doubt. 8 presets each with 8 banks and each of those with 16 sub-banks if you will. That makes no sense to me at all. The user banks should at least match the preset banks. I am starting to see more and more on the lack of engineering faults on the Motif. Yamaha obviously does not care about user inputs because if they did this would not be a limitation. WHo wants to wait to load presets after presets from flash or USB or network come on. Its way more practical to at least load user banks matched equal to the preset banks. There must be a way in the firmware to unlock the presets to allow them to be preset/user banks both. That is not hardware that is firmware and that should be able to be done easily unless it points to internal memory areas that are permanent? Maybe they could program the firmware to use a portion of the flash rom to expand user banks? |
FunkDat
Total Posts: 28
Joined 01-27-2011 status: Regular |
I wouldnt say the XF has “limited” user voices. You do have a limit of four user banks at one time, yes. But when you can swap voices in and out from a USB stick in a matter of seconds, thats not really that limited. |
FunkDat
Total Posts: 28
Joined 01-27-2011 status: Regular |
Voices load extremely quick from a USB stick. Its samples that take more time to load and you can have up to 2gb of samples loaded at once if you decide to purchase the flash memory. If the samples that a voice uses are already stored into flash memory then the voices load rather quick. So it would make more sense if you were to argue that you need more than 2gb of sample memory than more user voices. And even these can be swapped but yes the load times for samples do take longer. |
pianokim
Total Posts: 810
Joined 02-09-2003 status: Guru |
“And I know that all hardware synths, unfortunately, have limited user voices” Not true - all KORG’s top of the line synths have always had all program/combi banks be completely user re-writeable. This is true as well on the Kronos. Same goes for Kurzweil. -Kim |
synthlogic
Total Posts: 481
Joined 11-13-2008 status: Enthusiast |
I agree that all program/combi (voice/performance) banks should be user re-writeable. There are times I’ve created several variations of the same KARMA combination on my Korg M3 for different applications. Maybe I spend too much time tweaking sounds, but I like having plenty of extra user banks. |
DavePolich
Total Posts: 6820
Joined 07-27-2002 status: Guru |
Yeah maybe...but umm..not. This isn’t going to happen. Man went to the moon and built the pyramids - surely you can figure out how to deal with the “limitation” of four user banks. I just create sets for what I need. For my live shows, I maybe use 32 voices, organized into maybe 20 performances (one for each song). I pre-load the set’s samples onto my flashboard. If there is another gig with another band the next night, I just clear my flashboard, restore the factory set, and load the set for the next band. I have sets created for tracks I’m producing as well. I can’t remember ever needing 512 sounds for any live gig OR song I’m recording. I’ll throw down - complaining about “only four user banks” strikes me as funny. You don’t seem to know how far we’ve come, with the Motif XF, since the days of the Fairlight, which cost $40,000 and had a whopping 28 megabytes of sample memory: http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.php Four user banks is no limitation for me. |
meatballfulton
Total Posts: 3022
Joined 01-25-2005 status: Guru |
If four banks isn’t enough, then buy a Korg workstation. Both the M3 and Kronos allow all memory locations to be overwritten. |
DavePolich
Total Posts: 6820
Joined 07-27-2002 status: Guru |
Yup - it’s called a multi-keyboard setup. Rick Wakeman had it right all along: |
StefanBP
Total Posts: 5
Joined 05-22-2011 status: Newcomer |
“You don’t seem to know how far we’ve come, with the Motif XF, since the days of the Fairlight, which cost $40,000 and had a whopping 28 megabytes of sample memory: http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/fairlight_cmi.php” How far have we really come? The synth that you refer to were both touchscreen and a sequencer that is easy to edit. ;) Today’s synthesizers are competing not only against other synths, but also the soft synths. Both PC And Mac’s, and indeed also the future iPads. Really fun to see that Yamaha is well ahead in the development and integrates iPads. Maybe you do not need more banks, but it would have been easier for me. But the info from FunkDat helps a lot. Thought you had to reload all waveforms each time, thanks FunkDat! :) |
lekanout
Total Posts: 82
Joined 07-19-2007 status: Experienced |
i agree with stephan.. Each time we speak about the need of more than 4 users banks,these are the same argument about live needs...etc… I’m performing live and i don’t need more live sets than you in my organisation dave...no problem. No,the problem is the workflow when you’re playing with diverse banks in studio...when you want to organise your banks(i bought the john melas editor for that...) I made a big big work to organise all the user banks(with waveform) i’ve made(and all the great banks i’ve bought..) with the editor.. Dave(and yamaha fans)you just have to accept these point of view about user banks and file organisation in the motif..
You know,i ve bought all the motifs since the beginning,i’ve bought the best i can have with the XF,i have no problem and i love all i have with it..except this baddest file and save organisation…
So even if 512 user presets are great for so many needs,that’s not a the problem..just try to understand this point of view: more users banks means less file organisation with the xf(because all the numerus banks were available directly)....so less problem with the 80’s motif file organisation… (i’ve got a tyros 4 from yamaha for exemple:you can acces the internal hard drive and mount it on your computer,and reorganise all you want in some clicks...what a big difference in concept!!!) |
kbrkr
Total Posts: 138
Joined 07-29-2003 status: Pro |
I agree with Stephan: I would like to setup my USER banks OVER the preset banks; so instead of FAVORITES, it would be USER data. Hold down PIANOS + FAVORITE would bring up MY User data which could be customized internal waves or new Waves in Flash and would be categorized by PRESET bank. This way I can use PERFORMANCE for custom setlists like Dave suggested -AND- I can store my favorite / custom patches in categories by instrument. I could then press KEYBOARDS + FAVORITES and see all my USER (which are my favorites anyway) Rhodes, Wurly’s, Dx7, Tines, etc. During a live performance I could memorize the location of my favorite patches by pressing KEYBOARDS + FAVORITES + DOWN 3. To be honest, the Favorites button does nothing for me during a live performance. Makes perfect sense to me..... And DAVE, regarding your Fairlight analogy, why would MAN want to regress backwards in time and technology???? That doesn’t make sense. My new card has a BACK UP CAMERA and a NAVIGATION system. Why would I want to revert back to driving a 76 Comet as an everyday driver after driving a 2011 Automobile???? |