Today I’ve received the “phrase limit exceeded” while recording a performance to a pattern. In pattern mode you can see the phrases (and phrase number) recorded inside a specific pattern via the PATCH botton (SF4).
Every time you record a new phrase on a pattern the old one (if present) it is not completely deleted but instead the new phrase takes the next available higher number while the old one is in some way retained. When the highest number is reached you have the message above.

This undeleted phrases still occupy the sequencer MEMORY.

The only way I’ve found to get rid of this “zombie” phrases is to go inside every pattern recorded verify the number of all the phrases in use and then proceed to delete the old phrases: in PATTERN MODE: JOB>PATTERN>CLEAR PHRASE (every pattern (01, 02 etc.) has its own set of phrases).

You can verify this behavior by checking the sequencer MEMORY before and after clearing some orphan phrases.

This means three things:

-You can receive the “phrase limit excedeed” message while recording to a pattern in performance mode but actually you do not have reached the theoretical phrase number limit (in my case I had just 25 phrases actually used inside my pattern).

-You can end up with your sequencer memory exhausted but you probably don’t know what part of this memory is silently engaged by this phrases.

-If you want to clean up all the garbage, you need to go inside each PATTERN and the various Sections to permanently free the sequencer memory.

Any help or comment is appreciated.

Thanks.

Here is one method to CLEAR out the Sequencer:

First, make sure the SONGS and PATTERNS you wish to keep are STORED to internal FLASH SONG/PATTER locations, and then SAVE your SONGS and PATTERNS to an ALL, ALL SONG, or ALL PATTERN file to USB Drive.

You can now CLEAR your sequencer memory using the CLEAR SONG or CLEAR PATTERN Jobs, and then re-LOAD your SONGS and PATTERNS from the USB Drive.  Note that this will only CLEAR the Sequencer, and not actually Edit your SONG/PATTERN.

See Bad_Mister’s post in This Thread for step-by-step.

Thank you very much cmayhle.

Lately I was just wondering why I’ve got an almost full memory when there are indeed few songs and patterns recorded on the MOX.

Regards.

Hi,

I’ve just tried the procedure.

I made sure that before loading back the data the memory was completely freed.
It seems however that the “hidden” phrases were saved on the USB because when I’ve loaded back the patterns I’ve still found “zombie phrases” to be deleted (I mean when a phrase is empty should give “no data” when you try to delete it).

After deleting almost 10 of these phrases the memory freed about 20/25KB of data.

Futhermore when loading back the data the active phrases (the ones that you actually use in the pattern) still retain their number (that is obvious). As such you have the same chance to receive the “phrase limit excedeed” message again.

Regards.

Yes, that makes sense.  If the unused PHRASES are part of the STORED and SAVED SONG, they’ll still be there when the SONG gets LOADED.

Sorry that didn’t really solve your problem.  I guess you will need to CLEAR PHRASES individually as you have been.

However, I think the capacity of the Sequencer is not reliant on the number the PHRASE has been assigned.  That is, if your have PHRASES numbered 10, 21, 54, 130, and 256, you will have (5) PHRASES...irrespective of their numbers.

Hello and thanks,

what you says about the phrase number is correct.

What I’m observing is that when you have inside your PATTERN those gaps between the phrases numbers it is likely that the numbers among them are “zombie” phrases.
Those phrases indeed occupy sequencer memory.

I’ve just tried it again.

In my PATTERN I have 25/30 phrases actually used that are not sequencially numbered but with gaps among them.
I took one of these “unused” phrase gap (a number range) and I started deleting the phrases with CLEAR PHRASE (you can see that these phrases contain data because you do not receive the “no data” message).

RESULT
Deleting phrases from number 120 to number 180 has freed 70K (sequencer memory decreased from 767K to 697K).

It is almost the 10% of the used memory before the deletion (767k)!

This is the memory freed considering that I’ve just deleted just a subset of the “zombie” phrases inside one PATTERN only.

I think that if I were so willing to do a CLEAR PHRASE for all the “zombie” phrases inside all the PATTERNS (01, 02 etc.) recorded in my MOX I would end up with a quite consistent sequencer memory release.

So, the more you use the MOX, the more your sequencer memory will contain “garbage” data. This will give you “fake” “phrase limit exceeded” messages and “fake” “sequencer memory full” messages.

Regards.

Yes, it would be nice if there were an elegant way to eliminate all unused phrases, but as AFAIK there is not.

It would seem that as it pertains to good Sequencer management, the best offense is a good defense...meaning to CLEAR unused phrases as you go, thereby not letting them pile up.

Well,

it’s an “hard task”. As for me I think that I’m going to receive several times in the future those excedeed/full messages :-)

However I don’t think that this is a secondary issue and the developers should evaluate to address it with a firmware update (altough I don’t think this can be called a BUG but instead a “by design” anomaly). I think that the new MOXF could have the same issue.

Regards.

SDAMusicO - 07 March 2016 08:44 PM

...I think that the new MOXF could have the same issue.

If it is any consolation...and I am guessing it isn’t!...the MOXF and Motif XF operate in exactly the same fashion.

Don’t know how you are using your PATTERNS, but here is what I do to eliminate that issue in the following scenario…

SCENARIO:  Develop PATTERN, CHAIN PATTERN to SONG, Finish arrangement, mix and master in DAW

1. I have created a Standard ALL file with blank SONGs, blank PATTERNs, favorite PERFORMANCES, favorite VOICES.
2. Load and work on PATTERN/SONG
3. Save as All File with unique name.

Basically, work with a fresh setup for each PATTERN / SONG.  Haven’t run out of sequencer memory; don’t worry about unused phrases.

When I want to reuse an existing PATTERN’s PHRASE(s) in a new composition, I load that PATTERN into an empty PATTERN slot, then COPY the PHRASES (page 102, Reference Manual) I want into my “work-in-progress” PATTERN SECTION tracks, then CLEAR the reference PATTERN.  Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Hi jazz.preest,

you’re right. I was thinking to use a similar approach by just having one PATTERN/SONG active on the MOX; or use the COPY PHRASE function to pass the interesting phrases from the “corrupt” pattern to a fresh one instead of searching and cleaning the orphan phrases one by one.

Thanks

You’re quite welcome.

I wonder if any of the available software editors have the ability to “prune” the unused phrases out of a pattern when you edit them on the computer?  Then you could clear the MOX and restore the patterns without the “zombie” phrases.  But maybe it’s not possible, since I don’t have any of those software editors.

tritone - 10 March 2016 02:48 PM

I wonder if any of the available software editors have the ability to “prune” the unused phrases out of a pattern when you edit them on the computer?  Then you could clear the MOX and restore the patterns without the “zombie” phrases.  But maybe it’s not possible, since I don’t have any of those software editors.

I have the Melas Mix Editor (which is John’s SONG/PATTERN Editor), and had gone through it earlier to see if there was any ability to do what you have suggested.

I did not find anything that suggested this is possible within the Editor, but it would be worth asking John Melas directly if you would like to pursue that further:  info@jmelas.gr