I have ben recording a fresh set on my Motif XF +Cubase 7.5 For use in our Duo and very happy with the results. However I have been trying to get the sequences I have made on my Motif’s internal sequencer, it seems to do what I want however there are a lot of backing vocal burst’s and guitar parts that are a necessary part of the tracks, and I have ran out of internal memory after only 6 Songs :( I have 2* 1 gig cards installed. I was wondering is there anyway of getting the Sequencer to “refer” to the USB stick for the “Samples” required for each track, instead of the Motif Making a Copy into the internal sample memory?

I hope this can be done.
Thanks in advance

Ian

Well, since it’s been a couple of hours since you posted…
I have found that same issue as a writer of running out of space in the sequencer.
Whenever I do a factory reset or a firmware update, I always make sure to remove the ‘practice’ Patterns (1-3) and the Songs (1-5) right afterward.
One doesn’t have to wait for those reasons of course.
It doesn’t free up a lot of space, and as always, it’s a good idea to get a usb thumb drive from the compatibility list at Yamaha.com and do ‘ALL FILE’s backups routinely.
I do a backup each day’s end.

I also have 2 flash boards.
They’re primarily for adding sample libraries but we use them for original music instruments.
They don’t add any room for a full sequencer.

There may be some others here on these Forums that are exactly similar to your needs as a performer that can add information about this.

Best Regard.
Mvc

You filled up all 2GB of flash or you filled up sequencer memory?

2GB can hold a few hours worth of stereo samples.

The sequencer on the Motif XF has one megabyte of memory (fixed), once you reach that amount, it is full. This can happen in one Song or in any number of Songs and Patterns, when that amount of data is reached the sequencer will report full.

Samples, waveforms, and the memory they occupy has nothing to do with the sequencer memory. MIDI data is the only type of data that is recorded to the Motif XF sequencer, period. So only what you do with the keys and physical controllers is recorded to the sequencer. If you plug a mic or guitar into the A/D Input, it does not get recorded to the sequencer, only MIDI data gets recorded to the sequencer. The INTEGRATED SAMPLING SEQUENCER is called that because of this very thing. When a track is placed into audio record, the XF places a MIDI note-on event at that very measure/beat/clock tick, and it will create a duration (gate) so that the note is held until the exact measure/beat/clock tick that recording stopped. The audio is written to SDRAM as a sample in the XF, but only the MIDI event is recorded to the sequencer track. It is a true statement that the sequencer hold MIDI events that trigger and control audio samples… Whether the audio sample was placed there by the Yamaha factory or you recorded the sample yourself.

Do not assume too much about how many songs you *should* be able to fit in a sequencer. Your mileage will vary. Most people will easily fit 12-15 Songs in the sequencer, others will fill it with just 2 Songs.

The sequencer (there is just one) with two modes, Song and Pattern, is designed so you can use it construct a single composition at a time. You can actually use the entire thing to create a single composition. This is very much the same with any DAW, like Cubase… You are working on one composition at a time. Later, when assembling data for a stage performance you place each song in a playback order.

Once you have completed a composition you can discard some of the sequence data you used in the construction of the composition. Patterns, for example, are designed to help you construct your composition by Sections… Like prefabricating parts of a building, then bringing them all together in the final process, called the Song. You can often STORE-SAVE, then CLEAR the Patterns after you have Chained and converted the Chain into a linear Song. (This action will allow you to retrieve that sequencer memory).

The concept was to provide additional storage spaces because obviously the length of a song is like a length of string… It varies, greatly. There are 64 Song locations - these locations recall both a set of 16 Tracks (for MIDI data) and a set of 16 Parts (tone generator Voices).

We have boat loads of tips for using MIDI controller data efficiently - if your goal is to carry and use the sequencer in a live stage performance, it would pay to streamline your sequence data to be as efficient as possible. You can load individual Songs from an ALL data or ALL SONG file, which if you are going to the stage means this is when you should work on streamlining the data to be efficient.

Did you know: you might have a Song that is extremely busy from a MIDI data standpoint, (a very busy MIDI song might average around 90kb in size) with an XF you can resample the entire composition as a stereo waveform - it takes only one note-on event to trigger the entire composition when its an audio sample! Once you complete work on a composition, rendering it as a Waveform and placing it on Flash means you can have your entire song library accessible and stored on your Boards (as audio Waveforms). Stream the audio from Flash. 2GB of Flash could be used to hold a couple of hours of stereo audio…

Did you know: the Motif XF can stream audio from a USB drive. Using the “To Device” ports ability to Record/Play direct from a connected drive… Up to 74 minutes continuous.

Can you actually get 64 Songs in the XF sequencer?
Of course you can, it will depend on its length and number of instruments per composition. Spoke with a school teacher had the entire children’s song book recorded. Obviously just piano with songs like “Mary had a little lamb” and “Happy Birthday” is a use case, but if you are doing progressive rock where the arrangements are thick and the note police are no where in the vicinity, well you’ll chew up memory at an astronomical pace.

You just have to recognize that the definition of what’s a song, will differ per user, and can differ greatly. You only get in trouble when you start to think everybody is doing what you are doing.

Recommendation: take a look at the Event list of one of your sequences. See if you can can find any unnecessary or inefficient controller use - you can selectively erase or extract specific type of data. Big offenders are
1) AFTERTOUCH which often is recorded yet not assigned to do anything
2) SUSTAIN PEDAL sending the ‘continuous’ half-damper messages to Voices that are not set to respond to them or do not benefit from this very specific function.
3) VOLUME change messages that were recorded using a CS when inserting an event would have done fine.... say you need to change the volume from 70-100, you wind up with 30 cc007 events, when you could have simply inserted cc007 = 100 at the appropriate spot
Etc, etc., etc.

Good-Morning

Bad_Mister
Recommendation: take a look at the Event list of one of your sequences. See if you can can find any unnecessary or inefficient controller use - you can selectively erase or extract specific type of data. Big offenders are
1) AFTERTOUCH which often is recorded yet not assigned to do anything
2) SUSTAIN PEDAL sending the ‘continuous’ half-damper messages to Voices that are not set to respond to them or do not benefit from this very specific function.
3) VOLUME change messages that were recorded using a CS when inserting an event would have done fine.... say you need to change the volume from 70-100, you wind up with 30 cc007 events, when you could have simply inserted cc007 = 100 at the appropriate spot
Etc, etc., etc.

I personally appreciate your knowledge of these instruments.
All may laugh at my next wording, if you must… :) ...
( I need not, a reply to this post.
As a self-discipline punishment, I will research what I’m about to admit not knowing, on my own… with the manuals and cd’s that came with the XF )
1-Event List ?  of one of the sequenced songs.
2-Controller use ? how would anything be there when asking these questions, not knowing how to put it there?
(please keep in mind these are notes to myself and not arrogance… I write comedy as well as music, and it’s 7am eastern with Starbucks! )
3- ... Well, there is no three!
THE REST IS ALL A CONFUSING MESS-UNKOWN FOR ME!
But in a few days, I’ll have all the answers I need.
I have done well so far.
But I am blessed with 30+ years of listening, coupled with not being fearful of a ,’what this will do’,
approach, of course after backing up things first.  :-)

Have a Great Day to All.
Mvc

Good Luck!

EVENTS LIST!
Oh… page 150 of the larger manual :)
... the one that’s 255 ! pages. :)

And some nice person had issued this press release…
(please see screenshot below)
titled;
“Motif XF properly cleared sequencer” copy 2 ??
Maybe I titled that, but it’s close.  :)
Everyone here knows this, I’m thinking,
BE SURE TO DO AN ALLFILE BACKUP FIRST
And be prepared for only 2kb of usage on the sequencer.

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

Is there a way of telling the Motif to use the samples off the USB stick instead on storing them in the internal memory, as I’ve ran out of internal storage space after only 6 songs.

If you have samples in SDRAM, which maxes out at 128MB and 128 Waveforms
Press [INTEGRATED SAMPLING]
Press [JOB]
Press [F3] OTHER
Select the Job: Copy to Flash Memory
Check the box to DELETE ORIGINAL
This action will copy your audio and install/burn it to your FLASH BOARD, it will reassign and update (automatically) all Voices to point to the location it places it.
This will also free your SDRAM for more sample creation.

In this manner you can store as much data as you require. We should mention the longest single audio sample in RAM can be 6 minutes and 20 seconds at 44.1kHz, stereo. And while a maximum of 128Mb is the RAM area, you can store 2GB on Flash, 4096 Waveforms total… 2048 per Board.

thanks for the posts guys, would it be better for me to master the work in Cubase 7.5 then somehow transfer the finished backing tracks onto the internal 2 *( 1 gig Wav RAM cards) which is a present empty, as I’ve heard there is a few hours of stereo sample time in there? I’m thinking that it may be possible to trigger the samples (Complete backing tracks) from the sequencer using one note event?

cheers Ian

Sorry To be a pest

What I would find very useful at the moment would be how to copy Full Mixes in *.aif Audio format from UBS Flash drive to Flash ROM directly?

Thanks again

Data cannot be stored to Flash in .aif, nor .wav format, the only format (and you will understand this soon enough) is in Yamaha Motif XF format. A .aif file format is no different from a .wav file format, in that it is musically dumb.

When the audio contained in your .AIF file is converted to a Motif XF Waveform, the parameters that the XF adds make it musically useful for play from a synthesizer. Your .AIF has no ability to be mapped to a key (essential information for the XF to have - as it determines start of play, duration of play, volume of play via the assigned MIDI parameters: a Note Number, a Note-on Event with velocity and gate time.

Any handheld audio device can playback a .AIF file, what your XF does is apply its own parameters so that you can use it musically. (It can even tune each KEY so that as you ascend or descend through a scale each half step is 1/12 of an octave different in pitch - you will not be using that particular function - as your audio clips will probably be set so each plays at original pitch - but the XF can do that when necessary, as well - that’s what I mean by musically intelligent).

Therefore all audio data that you want to playback from the Motif XF sequencer must be converted to a Motif XF Waveform. A Waveform is a collection of one or more audio samples mapped to keys of the MIDI keyboard C-2 through G8, assigned to trigger at a particular loudness, via velocity information 1-127.

Therefore all audio must be converted to a Motif XF Waveform (and that waveform must be contained in a Motif XF Voice) before it is played back by the internal tone generator. A USB stick is a cute small type of storage device that can stream a single stereo file of audio (maimum) - but it cannot do anything other than start playback and play through to the end.

The type of memory that is your XF’s SDRAM and FLASH BOARD can handled 128 audio streams simultaneously at varying velocities, with independent gate times etc. and access time is extremely fast!!!! That is what I mean by “musical”

You can opt to simply stream a stereo audio playback direct from your USB drive but it will not have any control beyond volume (musically dumb, like your computer, or any handheld playback device).. That function is reading a FILE directly from the USB drive in FILE mode, not very flexible for performing - you are turning your XF into a very expensive “musically dumb” playback device (like a computer :-) that has no software, or a simple handheld playback device).

Therefore each .AIF file that you want to trigger via the XF sequencer will need to be placed in an entity that Yamaha calls a VOICE. A Voice can contain one or more Elements - each Element can access a mono or stereo Waveform. There are 128 KEYS on the MIDI keyboard to which you can map your samples. Each Key can trigger a maximum of 2 samples (this accommodates STEREO _ stereo being a separate left and right channel; mono being the same information in both channels).

The KEYs act as musically relevant ON/OFF switches for your audio clip. each can be turned ON and OFF independently - thing about a piano Voice - each key triggers an independently controllable bit of audio… your use case will have a different audio sample on each KEY, for example. You can trigger that key at a specific velocity (which will control the initial audio volume), at a specific musically relevant time in Measures, Beats and Clock ticks referencing the XF’s Clock.

Basically I’m describing what a sampler is - a musically intelligent way to handle precise playback of musical content.

I have to agree with others here, for such a complicated and expensive keyboard… 1 megabyte of sequencer memory is ridiculous!!! Come on, 5 mg of memory would have no one complaining!!