I prefer the faster ‘key press-to-sound’ from Motif XF’s flash ram, rather than an ever so slightly slower ‘key press-to-sound’ that I experienced in a Kronos SSD-streamed Berlin piano. To me, a comparison of isolated SSD speed to flash ram is immaterial in light of ‘key press-to-sound’ speeds.

lordbachus - 06 April 2015 04:16 PM

But Kronos is so much more then just a sample engine ... it has 9 synth engines, from which only 2 are sample based.. .

lordbachus - 06 April 2015 04:16 PM

… On top of that, Karma is deeply embedded in the sound engines…

5pinDIN - 06 April 2015 07:31 PM

Flash memory is based on EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) technology. In read mode, NOR flash acts as a ROM.

5pinDIN - 06 April 2015 07:31 PM

abdol -

I agree with the last part but you should consider the randomness of the read as well
http://www.custompcreview.com/reviews/samsung-845dc-pro-400gb-sata-ssd-review/21632/6/
Anyway, no matter how you analyze and look at MOTIF XF, it’s out dated.

Q. How fast does the XF memory have to be?
A. Fast enough to not cause a humanly-detectable lag when it’s read.

The flash modules for the XF meet that requirement. It might not be the latest technology, but it gets the job done. If we were to reject musical instruments based on time of development, how many of them would still be used in an orchestra? I’ll consider my Motifs “out dated” when they stop being capable of making music.

...
I appreciate that it’s out-dated to some. We look for different attributes in our musical tools. Luckily, there are lots of musical tools that some won’t consider “out-dated”. To me, the Motif XF is the only board that does what it does, how it does. And therefore, to me, it’s not out-dated. And, it will continue to do what it does, how it does, until it can no longer be maintained. And, based on its track record & pedigree, this can be a good while.

5pinDIN - 07 April 2015 12:31 PM

You’re right.

Man that thing cracks me up! It brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. And so appropriate.

abdol - 07 April 2015 10:33 AM

5pinDIN - 06 April 2015 07:31 PM

Q. How fast does the XF memory have to be?
A. Fast enough to not cause a humanly-detectable lag when it’s read.

As for your Q/A, your answer is valid if it was 15 years ago.

abdol - 07 April 2015 10:33 AM

You can’t load Giga Bytes of data and talk about Kilo Byte transfer rate. If the technology for doing it is cheap and feasible it’s just absurd.

5pinDIN - 07 April 2015 12:31 PM

stoneb3 - 07 April 2015 12:19 PM

5pinDIN - 07 April 2015 11:49 AM

abdol - 07 April 2015 10:33 AM

When I took my first course in computer hardware flash memories didn’t exist (at least commercially). And later we used different terms for each of them to avoid confusion and they operate DIFFERENTLY and are not identical. If they operate the same in the read mode wont make them identical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEPROM

Whether you accept it or not, flash memory is a type of EEPROM, as stated in the Wikipedia article you linked to - thanks for making my point. I mentioned the read mode because speed in that mode is what matters when playing samples.

 

abdol -

As for your Q/A, your answer is valid if it was 15 years ago. You can’t load Giga Bytes of data and talk about Kilo Byte transfer rate. If the technology for doing it is cheap and feasible it’s just absurd.

Just because you think Yamaha should have already released a synth with different memory technology doesn’t mean the current model doesn’t work. My “answer” is valid today, since it concerns the way the XF functions today.

Time for the dying horse.

You’re right.

Well you can think of many things today.
Cat and Lion belong to the same family of mammals but one of them is called cat the other lion. Addressing in eeprom works at the register level which cant be done in flash memories. You can call it flash ram but not eeprom.
Revisiting my post, you may want to read it twice or even more to make sure you’re not mixing up what I said. I never categorized the subsets and supersets never said flash ram is eeprom and never said the reverse. These are just two different hardware. You can’t go to a store and expect the seller to give you a flash memory when you asked for an EEPROM

If your biggest achievement on this forum is drawing false conclusions and celebrating it based on your own schizophrenic logic I can only recommend you a good psychologist (although if it’s a genetic disorder no one can really prescribe any drugs for you).

Your life should suck really bad man that you think arguing over minor things like this would give you any credit. Hope you get over it :)

dsetto - 07 April 2015 02:25 PM

abdol - 07 April 2015 10:33 AM

5pinDIN - 06 April 2015 07:31 PM

Q. How fast does the XF memory have to be?
A. Fast enough to not cause a humanly-detectable lag when it’s read.

As for your Q/A, your answer is valid if it was 15 years ago.

I do not understand this response. To me, for a real-time musical instrument, the answer to this kind of question is always 5pin’s answer.

abdol - 07 April 2015 10:33 AM

You can’t load Giga Bytes of data and talk about Kilo Byte transfer rate. If the technology for doing it is cheap and feasible it’s just absurd.

I don’t understand this comment.
...
The differences in ‘key press-to-sound’ latency I raise can be assessed by any interested party at a music store. It is subjective, but does not have to remain as theoretical.

It simply means if you want to have 100GBs of samples you cant have it on MOTIF XF which technology-wise belongs to 15 years ago (at least) and will take half a day to load the samples and costs you a leg and an arm.
I personally didn’t notice any lags in 1st gen Kronos piano that I played with handful of times.

abdol - 07 April 2015 03:20 PM

Well you can think of many things today.
Cat and Lion belong to the same family of mammals but one of them is called cat the other lion. Addressing in eeprom works at the register level which cant be done in flash memories. You can call it flash ram but not eeprom.
Revisiting my post, you may want to read it twice or even more to make sure you’re not mixing up what I said. I never categorized the subsets and supersets never said flash ram is eeprom and never said the reverse. These are just two different hardware. You can’t go to a store and expect the seller to give you a flash memory when you asked for an EEPROM

You should reread what I wrote, since you’re attributing things to me that I never said. By the way, there’s no such thing as “flash RAM”. You might be confused by the fact that NOR flash (although not NAND flash) can be randomly accessed.

 

abdol -

If your biggest achievement on this forum is drawing false conclusions and celebrating it based on your own schizophrenic logic I can only recommend you a good psychologist (although if it’s a genetic disorder no one can really prescribe any drugs for you).

Your life should suck really bad man that you think arguing over minor things like this would give you any credit. Hope you get over it :)

An ad hominem attack is the last refuge of someone who has no valid point to make.

We’re gonna need a bigger horse.

stoneb3 - 07 April 2015 06:41 PM

We’re gonna need a bigger horse.

Who needs a horse when we have an ass like you stoneb3?

5pinDIN - 07 April 2015 05:37 PM

abdol - 07 April 2015 03:20 PM

Well you can think of many things today.
Cat and Lion belong to the same family of mammals but one of them is called cat the other lion. Addressing in eeprom works at the register level which cant be done in flash memories. You can call it flash ram but not eeprom.
Revisiting my post, you may want to read it twice or even more to make sure you’re not mixing up what I said. I never categorized the subsets and supersets never said flash ram is eeprom and never said the reverse. These are just two different hardware. You can’t go to a store and expect the seller to give you a flash memory when you asked for an EEPROM

You should reread what I wrote, since you’re attributing things to me that I never said. By the way, there’s no such thing as “flash RAM”. You might be confused by the fact that NOR flash (although not NAND flash) can be randomly accessed.

 

abdol -

If your biggest achievement on this forum is drawing false conclusions and celebrating it based on your own schizophrenic logic I can only recommend you a good psychologist (although if it’s a genetic disorder no one can really prescribe any drugs for you).

Your life should suck really bad man that you think arguing over minor things like this would give you any credit. Hope you get over it :)

An ad hominem attack is the last refuge of someone who has no valid point to make.

I guess your points are the most valid ones on this website buddy.
Do I have to prove now that random read/write is possible in EEPROM and NAND as well?

This is my original post:

And that’s ROM not RUM and MOTIF XF’s extra memory board is nor RAM nor ROM. It’s NOR flash memory.

Please find me the points you mentioned in all your posts in the above paragraph. That’s a simple example of schizophrenic way of thinking.

An ad hominem attack is the last refuge of someone who has no valid point to make.

A schizophrenic says…

Interesting…

Although I started off asking about musical justifications, some 5 pages ago, I am pretty amazed at just how little music has been mentioned in this thread myself.

It all sounds a little too much like IT operators for my tastes, speccing up a new PC or something ...with some conspicuous consumption in mind.

@ kb420, have you still got that Motif ES jones going on? ;-)

5pindin is an invaluable resource for the Yamaha Motif. His track record supports this. I have a lot to learn about the Motif XF. In an attempt to protect my interests, I will state that it is my opinion that 5pin, the person, has been needlessly attacked. And stress that 5pin endures when contributing to Motifator works against my interest. I like Motifator to be a healthful and active support of the Yamaha Motif family.

I appreciate 5pin’s support about the details of flash memory. I believe I have misused the term “flash ram”. I am not knowledgeable about the deeper details of memory. And, I appreciate learning about them.

I believe the topic we have been discussing is an important one regarding the state-of-the-art keyboard samplers. Or, even, performance multi-samplers. In this game, currently, there is Yamaha, Korg, and Kurzweil.

Also, different people have different priorities. The intention of this forum is to support the Yamaha Motif family.

“5pindin is an invaluable resource for the Yamaha Motif.”

I agree 100%.

5pinDIN helps everybody. super generous. excellent teacher.
music and Motifs should be a force for bringing people together.
in harmony and peace.

abdol - 07 April 2015 06:55 PM

I guess your points are the most valid ones on this website buddy.
Do I have to prove now that random read/write is possible in EEPROM and NAND as well?

There’s a good reason why NAND flash is used for bulk storage, and NOR flash is used for applications such as in the XF. Unlike NOR flash, NAND flash has no dedicated address lines. NOR flash has fully memory-mapped random access, with dedicated address and data lines.

By the way, I said nothing about random access in EEPROMs.

 

abdol -

This is my original post:

And that’s ROM not RUM and MOTIF XF’s extra memory board is nor RAM nor ROM. It’s NOR flash memory.

Please find me the points you mentioned in all your posts in the above paragraph. That’s a simple example of schizophrenic way of thinking.

An ad hominem attack is the last refuge of someone who has no valid point to make.

A schizophrenic says…

Have you looked in the mirror lately, “buddy”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

I appreciate the historical perspective, with the intention of helping me know what to pursue or let be. I’ve been very vocal on this thread for reasons I have stated. I feel somewhat accountable, but, again for reasons already stated, I wanted to communicate my perspective. I do prefer that everybody get treated with respect.

And truly, I wish everybody peace & contentment. (Easy for me to say as I haven’t been ticked off.)

I know many get this … Many people have different priorities they’re meeting with musical instruments. The focus of this forum is to support the Yamaha Motif family.