Hello,

I started to think about using loadable samples for the piano sound. Of course Motif XS loads waveforms to SDRAM, so I thought I will use the Autoload function to load only waveforms. This way I don’t have to do “save all” after each voice/performance change.

When I try to autoload S700 samples from Loyalty2, everything is OK, Motif is “playable” - I mean the boottime extends only for 16 seconds, so it is 56 seconds instead of 40. But when I try to autoload bigger library, like for example K-Sounds Signature Piano which is 330 MB (the whole library is 495 MB, but I saved only waveforms for the first piano voice), Motif starttime extends to 2 minutes and 42 seconds. This is too much, I can’t wait for so long everytime (TV music festivals with only 3-7 minutes for a band change, etc.). It’s also strange as flashdrives use to be much faster nowadays.

So I’ve made some tests (you can skip next 3 paragraphs).

I checked other USB flashdrives and get to the point that the speed of flashdrive doesn’t make a difference.

I wondered maybe Motif uses old USB 1.1 standard, but no - there is USB 2.0 in specification. The USB 2.0 specification says the maximum speed is 30-42 MB/s. The flashdrive connected to the computer (through hub with other devices) is 19-21 MB/second. But when connected to Motif it makes only 2 MB/second. It’s a similar when it comes to load waveforms from the network (using good quality 100Mbps switch) - the speed is ~1,9 MB/second.

I assume that if Motif utilized the whole USB specification (and load waveforms with the maximum speed of the flashdrive), 330 MB file would load in 16 seconds.

Is there a way to improve loading speed?

Is it a limitation of hardware or software? Is there a way to improve it in OS update? (Yes, I know XS isn’t the current model and such improvement in speed could lead to decrease profits from selling XF ;) . Still, I believe the company cares for long-term users :) .)

Does it change in Motif XF? (I know there’s Flash RAM in Motif XF and no reason to load waveforms often. Also I know you may suggest me changing to XF.)

What other piano libraries are interesting?

Thanks for all answers and suggestions, greetings, peace :)

It’s a limitation of the XS itself, it’s not loading into RAM as fast as the USB can source the data. Be glad it’s not an ES, that load would be about a half hour!

That’s why some of us bought the XF, to avoid sample loads. When you load to RAM, the XF is no faster than the XS. If you need shorter sample loads, you must trim down the amount of sample data.

Too bad the old XS forum disappeared, there were numerous in detail discussions and analyses of this. But still no magic bullets :(