I want to play three voices from the Motif XF with the XF keyboard and the forth voice with and external midi keyboard. My scenario is piano with strings and pad in my left hand and a leadsound in my right hand, but on a external midi keybard. How to do this?

VOICE and PERFORMANCE modes are single timbral modes on the Motif XF. They are designed so that you are addressing the programs in these modes on a single MIDI channel. The Multiple MIDI channel, multiple PART modes are in the SEQUENCER (SONG/PATTERN) and are setup so that each PART can be addressed individually on any of 16 separate MIDI channels… conveniently there are 16 PARTS. You can freely set the PARTS to RECEIVE on any MIDI channel that you desire, combining as many as you wish on any particular channel. You can store 64 MIXING setups in SONG mode and another 64 in PATTERN mode.

Use a SONG MIXING or PATTERN MIXING program
Place your VOICE in PARTS of a MIXING program
Set the MIDI channels as you require to accomplish your goal

Press [SONG]
Press [MIXING]
Press [EDIT]
Press numbered button [1] to select PART 1
Press [F1] VOICE
Press [SF1] VOICE
Select the VOICE you want for PART 1
Repeat for the PARTS 2, 3 and 4

Set the MIDI Receive channel for PARTS 1, 2 and 3 to Channel 1
Set the MIDI Receive channel for PART 4 to MIDI Channel 2

Use the NOTE LIMIT parameters for each PART to define the region on the keyboard you want each PART to sound.
Name the SONG something that will remind you of this seting.
Press [STORE] to store you SONG MIXING setup to Flash ROM.

Set you external keyboard to transmit on MIDI channel 2.

Make sure you Motif XF is set to MIDI IN/OUT = MIDI
Press [UTILITY] > [F5] CONTROL > [SF2] MIDI
Set MIDI IN/OUT = MIDI

Thank you, it worked. But is there a way to prevent the volume to adjust on track 2 and 3 when I use the volum slider 1. I know that I have made them all use the same midi channel, but I still want to use the volum sliders individually. Is that possible?

If you understand that they are all playing simultaneously because they are on the same MIDI channel, then you also understand that they will all Pitch Bend together, all go into Modulation together, and they will all respond to volume changes together… they are, after all, on the same MIDI channel.

You can tell a PART to follow or ignore a controller. For example say you only need to control the volume of PART 1, not 2 and 3. You can tell PARTs 2 and 3 to ignore changes in VOLUME

Press [MIXING]
Press [EDIT]
Press numbered buttons to select the PART you want to edit
Press [F6] RCV SWITCH (Receive Switch)
Press [SF2] CONTROL
Uncheck the controller that you do not want to affect a PART

So for PARTS 2 and 3 uncheck the VOLUME/EXPRESSION box
Press [STORE]

By the way, an FC7 pedal plugged into the FOOT CONTROLLER 1 jack will send EXP cc011 which will keep all PARTS on the same MIDI channel proportional. That is, if you set a MAIN Channel Volume for each PART such that you set a specific balance between the instrument sounds, cc011 will maintain that relationship as you change position of the pedal.

cc007 (sent by the Control Slider) forces all devices on the MIDI channel to the SAME volume.

I see. The case is that I want to easy adjust let’s say the strings or pad volume during playing. And at the same time have the possibility to have a forth sound on midi channel 2 on my external midi keyboard.

The first thing is of course easy with performance, but to have the the forth sound on midi channel 2 I need to use mixing. But then I loose the volume slider flexibility. This was so easy with the old Motif Rack, but of course when you gain something, you loose something else.

Tell me if you find a way. The easiest thing would of course be to just use the motif rack for the forth sound..hehe!

Thanks for all your help.

I would try with PERFORMANCE mode, where you don’t lose the individual sliders for controlling volume for each individual PART. After that, I would modify NOTE LIMITs and NOTE SHIFTs for each PART so the PART you’re playing from an external controller (configure it accordingly) has no overlap with the rest of the PARTS.

This way, both the Motif XF and the external controller will be sharing the same MIDI channel, but different keyboard zones (NOTE LIMIT), transposition (NOTE SHIFT) and you’ll still have the ability to individually control de relative levels of each PART, just as you can with PERFORMANCE mode.

BTW, read this thread: Knobs/Sliders in Song/Pattern

This was so easy with the old Motif Rack, but of course when you gain something, you loose something else

Not sure what you mean, it was so easy with the old Motif Rack. How so?

I have the first Motif Rack module and I used a Kurzweil PC88 to control it. When I used a performance there I could control the volume with sliders and also have a different sound on the external keyboard. But I think that the Kurzweil was configured to play on different midichannels at the same time and the voices on the Motif Rack was configured with one midi channel each. So I understand that you’re wondering how that could have been done...my mistake.

If you place the sounds (VOICES) you want to control on separate MIDI channels of a [MIXING] program (SONG or PATTERN mode) then address that SONG or PATTERN from MASTER mode you can control as many as 8 sounds simultaneously - each with its own CS (Control Slider). The XF can transmit on as many as 8 channels simultaneously.

If you understood how that worked with your other controller, I think the XF is even more flexible (all by itself!)

Finally! This is probably what you have been trying to tell me, but I didn’t got it. But now I opened up my stored pattern inside the MASTER mode. In Pattern all the voices had their own midi channel 1-4. Now in MASTER I can control three voices on midi channel 1 and the forth voice on channel 2 with my external keyboard. And the volum sliders work fine.

Thankx!