Mix Voice Bank (MIXV)

“MIX VOICES” are 16 special locations available in each Song MIXING and each Pattern MIXING program. Each internal PART that contains a Voice has the potential to be fully edited while you remain in the MIXING mode. From the MIXING quick access screen you will see “VCE EDIT” or Voice Edit above the [F6] button. This will drop you into full Voice Edit without having to go back to Voice mode. If you have sampled audio to the sequencer using the Integrated Sampler, you can use the [F6] VCE CONV (Voice Convert) function to convert the User Sample Voice to a MIXING VOICE. And although you can fully edit Drum Kit Voices while in the sequencer, you cannot store a USER DRUM KIT in the MIX VOICE bank. Drum kit Voices contain 73 Elements and must be store in one of the 32 USER DRUM Voice locations in VOICE mode.

Press [F6] VCE EDIT
Make any changes you want to the Voice
Press [STORE]
You will be offered one of 16 MIX VOICE locations local to the current MIXING program.
For example, if you are Voice Editing the Voice in PART 5 of your MIXING program, when you press [STORE] you will be offered MIXV = 005(A05)

This is convenient for when you want to change the INSERTION EFFECT or the controller assigned to a PART or make some other edit beyond the Mix mode offsets. When you drop into this VOICE EDIT area you are not changing the original VOICE. You are editing and creating a new variation of that Voice. You have the opportunity to save it to a new location ‘within’ the current SONG MIX or PATTERN MIX… or you can save it back to the general pool of Voices (USER 1, USER 2, USER 3 (or USER 4)*. *USER 4 exists in the Motif XF.

This newly edited Voice can be stored in the MIXV (or Mixing Voice) bank. Each Song and each Pattern will have 16 such locations available for your edits. However, there is a maximum of 256 Mixing Voices for the entire instrument. This can be like having two additional banks of Voices available and it really allows you to freely customize the normal instrument sounds for the current Song or Pattern you are working with at the time. These Mixing Voices are ‘local’ to the Song or Pattern they are created in and will be saved when you save an ALL SONG (if you are in SONG mode) or an ALL PATTERN (if you are in PATTERN mode). They will also reload when you reload the individual SONG or PATTERN. This means that you do not have to restore the VOICE to a USER location in order to ensure your correctly modified Voice is present - it will be local to the current song or pattern. The Mix Voice bank is identified by Bank MSB/LSB numbers (063/060).

The instrument keeps track of how many MIXING VOICES you have created per Mix and how many you have created out of the total 256 available Mixing Voice locations. Here’s how to find this information.

· Press [MIXING]
· Select the PART containing the Normal VOICE or SAMPLE VOICE you wish to edit (at the Voice level)
· Press [F6] VCE EDIT

This will drop you into the special Voice Edit mode within the current MIX. You can edit the current Voice in the context of the SONG or PATTERN. You can assign different Insert Effects (if the INSERT SWITCH is ON for the Part in question).

· Press TRACK SELECT [1]-[8] to select the Element Edit function
· Press [SF6] INFO > Mix Voice Information (shown below)

If you wish to move a MIXING VOICE out of the ‘local’ SONG or PATTERN it is associated with you simply need to do the following:

_ Go to the [MIXING] screen
_ Select the PART containing the Mixing Voice you wish to move
_ Press [F6] VCE EDIT - to drop into full Voice Edit on this Voice
_ Press [STORE]
Now you can target any USER 1, USER 2, USER 3 (or USER 4 in the case of the XF) location.
If you have been editing a Drum Kit Voice it must be stored to one of the 32 USER KITS in regular VOICE mode. Drum Kits Voices are simply too large to be stored in the MIXING VOICE bank.

The significance of moving the Voice from the MIX VOICE bank to one of the general USER banks is that now the Voice is available for use in VOICE mode, in PERFORMANCE mode, or in any other SONG or PATTERN. The USER banks are considered the “general population”.

Using the Editor and Mixing Voices

The EDITOR will import and backup the MIX VOICE so if you are working on a project it is a good idea to capture the MIX in the VOICE Editor. Even if you are working exclusively in the internal sequencer the EDITOR makes the perfect place to back up the sounds that you used. MIX VOICES, of course, are stored and saved with the ALL SONG, ALL PATTERN or ALL data file types to your USB drive or computer (via Ethernet).

The huge advantage MIX VOICE affords is that even when you have to customize a particular VOICE for a particular SONG or PATTERN, you do not have to tie that SONG or PATTERN to the USER VOICE banks. Say at some point you want to combine this SONG or PATTERN with other data you prepared months ago – and perhaps those earlier compositions used different internal USER VOICES. Because you create a MIX VOICE your specifically edited Voices will always remain with the SONG file or PATTERN file data. It simply means that even if you load a new Voice Library into the USER Banks, your SONG MIXING and PATTERN MIXING setups will always reference the Voice you want to reference.

For example, say you want to use a particular guitar Voice in your composition. But you want to edit the Dual Insertion Effects so that it fits your music. You select a different pair of Insertion effects and tweak them just as you like. Normally, you would save this to a USER bank location and then reference that USER Voice in your MIXING setup.  Now a few weeks later you load in a new string Voice Library that overwrites your User banks and gone is your customized Guitar Voice… bummer! You call up that SONG and instead of your cool distortion and fuzz-wah guitar sound it is a delicate violin sound. The MIX is still pointing to USER 1, 001 (A01) just where you stored your guitar, but now that new Library has loaded in a violin sound.

You can avoid this by storing your customized guitar to the special MIXING VOICE location. Your Voice will remain with the Song or Pattern you created it for. And when you load the individual SONG or individual PATTERN, not only does your sequence data load, but all your custom Mix Voices for the Song or Pattern load as well. Very Cool!

Editing a VOICE while in a MIXING setup is accomplished (as mentioned above) by pressing [F6] VCE EDIT on the main MIXING screen. This same thing can be done in the Motif XS Editor or Motif XF Editor by simply clicking the chevron to overlay the edit functions (shown circled in red below)

Once selected the overlay will move to the left allowing you access to Common and Element Edit parameters of the currently select VOICE PART. Once you finish customizing the VOICE in that PART you can go to the EDIT option on the menu bar and select “STORE VOICE”. You can then select a Folder: USER 1, USER 2, USER 3, or MIXING VOICE – you can re-name, and categorize it, if you wish. (Or USER 1, USER 2, USER 3, USER 4, or MIXING VOICE if you have the Motif XF.)

There are 16 MIXING VOICE locations available per MIXING setup. Remember the MIXING VOICE location is going to be local to the current SONG or PATTERN, while the Normal User bank locations are available for the general pool. Mixing Voices can be copied from the MIXING VOICE bank to the Normal User Bank as required.

Shown below: The Motif XS Editor showing that you can categorize and access up to 16 locations per Song or Pattern file.

Working with Studio Manager and your Motif Editor makes organizing and storing your Voice and Mixing setup data a breeze. You can customize to a great extent exactly how the Editor works. Mixing Voices are truly lifesavers when you need to customize a special Voice or two for a particular composition. Studio Manager automatically will bundle all the sounds you used for your project and all the sounds in your synthesizer (if you’d like) in with your Cubase Project file.

If you are using any other DAW software simply setup and save as a Yamaha Studio Manager file (.YSM). Keep this file in the same folder on your computer as your DAW file.