I recently picked up an XF8 (upgrading from ES8 after 8 years) and reconfiguring my live rig.  I am planning to also use an ES6 I have a second keyboard.  I am using the XF8 as the master and connecting the XF Midi out to the ES6 Midi In.  I have song programs that are now going to require both keyboards.  Basically I am triggering different samples from both keyboards.  For example: XF - Song 1 contains samples sounds, and sequence data. ES - Song 1 contains different samples and sounds being triggered from the ES.  Ideally I would like to have zones set up on both keyboards with splits etc to play live.  I have figured out that when the XF is set in Master mode and I call up “Song 1” it will only call up “Song 1” on the ES when the ES is in Song mode.  This would be fine if I didn’t need zones set up on the ES to play live, but I do.  When both boards are in Master mode the ES does not change to Song 1.  Am I missing something?  Is there a way to achieve this? I could set the zones up in Song mode on the ES by assigning all of the splits to a single midi channel.  This isn’t ideal though because then you do not have individual control of the volume with the sliders, etc.  I would love it if I could set up each Song 1 with the data needed, then set them up as Masters in each board and have the XF call up the corresponding Master program on the ES.  But I don’t think it works that way.  Someone please help.

Thanks!

You’re assessment of the situation is spot on… It does not work like that. We fully understand what you want to accomplish.

The quickest and easiest solution would be to invest in two FC5 momentary FOOT SWITCHES.
Plug one into each keyboard you can even mark them to identify them.

Position them under you keyboards so that you can step on both together - each synth could be programmed to advance (PC INC= Program Change Increment)

Each board can advance through its own Master programs. In UTILITY set FtSw = PC INC

An alternate solution would be to use a single Foot Switch split with a “Y"-cable (this is actually a good use for Y-cable)

Thanks for the clarification.  Am I also right in my assessment that setting the ES6 to receive Midi sync from the XF8 doesn’t really work very well and the ES6 actually starts drifting from the click generated by the XF8?

Am I also right in my assessment that setting the ES6 to receive Midi sync from the XF8 doesn’t really work very well and the ES6 actually starts drifting from the click generated by the XF8?

No. On that point you are absolutely wrong. The thing about SYNC is - it is absolute. If you are getting “drifting” you have not properly set up the MIDI clocks.