I had a ES7 and gave it away.
I really love that all single sounds had a lot of arpeggators on the factory presets.
They was funny and usefull, someone did a great job, choosing cool arps and stich them to the sounds.

Now I have the XF7 and I am not so happy.
I also already did firmware upgrade to 1.40.1.
Only a few sounds have complete arpeggios.
Most of them have only one arp, and most time its usless.
To me this expensive instrument looks like a do it yourself stuff.
Thats very poor for me.
Every Factory Preset has 5 buttons to choose an arp, but there is nothing there and its not possible to edit.
Always to make a Userpreset, for me thats waste of time.

I like to jump around on the presets and its arps.

Are your XF’s same way or is my instrument defective ?
Is there a way to download something to get full arp assignment ?

Thank you very much for help
cheers

Welcome to the Forums!

Please don’t look in Performance mode!!!!
:-)
The old ES had but one arpeggiator… The XF has four… So Performance mode, where you can have 4 Voices assigned to the 4 PARTS is where you will find arpeggios assigned. And instead of the 1787 arps you had in the ES, you now have thousands and thousands… and thousands… Literally!!!  7881 to be exact.

And please don’t discover Direct Performance Record.... It’s an even bigger “waste of time”

:-) take your time before becoming unhappy… Is all I’m trying to say. Give it some time. Start with the Chapter starting on page 28 of the Owner’s Manual

Thank you very much for that fast respond.

Hello to the Forum :-)
Best wishes to all Motif-fans !

Probably we have different interests of Motif use.
I use it only as a sound source for short recordings into cubase projects.
To make ideas of new songs or parts of songs for our band, audible.
Sometimes I only like to have a small arpeggio to show the band members how my idea is looking like.
So I am probably only a Motif-Voice-Surfer.

What I never do:
Creating user preset, saving, giving name, store into a folder, etc.
After editing a voice, I instantly make the recording and after that I am for sure no more into that edited preset.

Now I found out, there are many Voice Presets with full arpeggio assignment.
Before, I just landed in a area of a couple voices with only one arp instead of 5.
Well, ok, it’s about ok, some of them are very cool, some are not.
One Voice I found, had five times the same arp assigned.
Another voice had 5 arps that do not work at all, but these arps work fine when use in other voices.
It looks like a bit buggy.

The perform mode is nothing for me.
There is no sound other than the “full concert grand” piano at all, only space for do it yourself storing stuff.
That kind of work I already do inside Cubase, theres enough of programming work anyway.
Would be nice if Yamaha put there a couple of performance presets to make a cool show…
As I remember, I think the older Motif had a lot of performance presets...?

What also is a even more blame of Yamaha, that is the optional Firewire board.
I want that to connect digital In/Out to the computer (I thought a professional electronic music instrument of our days offer digital connection without question, specially for a expensive piece like ours).
But the informations on the internet are confusing and in the end I found out, it is not possible the normal way in a typical studio environment.

The FW board is only useful together with Yamaha Computer Interfaces.
I remember, someone wrote to me, please check out the tools on the web, they are very professional…
I use a RME piece.
So Yamaha wants a big amount of extra money for digital In/Out, but after that you must buy a extra audio-interface, a crappy toy IMO…

Or am I complete wrong ?
Anyone can connect the Motif XF to digital In /Out of a standard computer audio interface ?

Sorry for making so much bad noise here ;-)
The Motif is for sure a very hot Keyboard with a huge (very very huge) amount of sounds, I will keep the Synth and use it as it is.

best regards

Or am I complete wrong ?

Yep, well not completely, just mostly, completely wrong. But on things you can have opinions about, you are, of course, welcome to them.

Performance maybe “nothing for you” I don’t really care, I was only pointing out that if you want to hear Voices assigned with Arpeggios (you did say something about that) go to Performance mode. In your world they should probably be associated with the Voice only in Voice mode - in Yamaha design concept you get to hear them in context of an ensemble.

Voices are categorized by instrument
Performances are categorized by genre

If you want, for example, to hear an acoustic guitar playing strumming chords, in your head this should only happen solo, the guitar by itself. Yamaha choose to place them in a musical context, with other instruments. What should the individual Voice play… In a Performance it can be surrounded by an ensemble that addresses an genre of music.

Now I found out, there are many Voice Presets with full arpeggio assignment.

Hopefully, as you explore your instrument a bit more you will see that many of your first impressions were mostly wrong, if not completely…

If you only like the guitar and its currently assigned five arpeggios, just use that. The idea was to make the instrument useful for a wide audience. An Arp can be assigned pretty much to any Voice. A musician who is called on to write ‘music for hire’ for example, can make extensive use of the 7891 Arpeggios. Maybe they need and authentic sounding Bossa Nova guitars strumming, or a Nile Rodgers-type funk strumming riff, or they need something outside their comfort zone completely. This is where context can help.

Context is the only reason to have the arpeggios in Performance. Some people look (or hear) Performances and miss this point entirely (IMHO, this is what you’ve done thus far) and don’t realize everything about the Performances is customizable… They are suggestions in context. To dismiss them offhand is common… Doesn’t make it right, and certainly doesn’t make smart.

The “in context” concept is found throughout the instrument. Of course, you are free to use it any way you desire, but we are only suggesting that such strong opinions can cause you to miss some things that might actually be useful for you.

I have no comment on your assessment of the FW interface, from your comments (which speak for themselves on this), you don’t even know what it is about. And obviously have never used it. Which makes the whole “crappy toy” thing frankly disturbing ... You really think so?

Please don’t look on the back of your XF, you might find an included digital output…
:-)
I’m just saying…

Enjoy!

Thank you very much for the big support works.

You say, Performances are categorized…
Do you mean if I work in Performance mode, the Motif will categorize things automatically ?
Or should there be something already categorized, ready to listen ?
Here is nothing else there as the grand piano, solo, 4 times, the first is active, the others not,
and all the user places are prepared this way, with the grand as default, or as a placeholder.
That looks silly and still a bit poor-programmed.

Yes I know there is this SPDIF Out.
But not possible to sync to the AudioInterface.
If I want use it, I have to sync the whole studio to the Motif, and thats not usefull.
We checked out the FW-Bord at the shops demo unit with my notebook.
The seller was really surprised about the function.
I told him about my research and he thought I were wrong, but he was.
Anyway, thats no more important as I use analog cables now.

I will work around in Perform mode as you mentioned, lets give a try :-)
kind regards

Here two pics of performance mode

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

You say, Performances are categorized…
Do you mean if I work in Performance mode, the Motif will categorize things automatically ?

No. I mean, the Performances are categorized. There are 512 Performances each one is set in a Category, mostly by genre or its use (like splits/layers)

Press [PERFORM]
Press [CATEGORY SEARCH]
You can now search the Performances by genre…

Press [VOICE]
Press [CATEGORY SEARCH]
You can now see that Voices are listed by instrument (not genre)… Piano is an instrument category, piano is not listed as “Classical” or “Hip Hop” it’s not listed by the genre that use it… But by the instrument

Again, the Performances in memory are all in the USER area of the instrument - and are only there to show off the thousands of arpeggio Phrases in some kind if context. This is what we have been trying to tell you. A list if 7891 Arpeggios can be very daunting. When looking for some inspiration the arp phrases can be recalled within the “context” of some music ensemble.

You do not have to use the ensemble, you simply use it to audition the type of phrase you are looking for… They are totally customizable. Say you’re called on to write a country song and need a particular guitar picking or strumming part.

Rather than starting your search for a guitar Voice in Voice mode that has the arp already assigned… You could opt to search for a Performance in the country subcategory that might have a basic ensemble that would help find (picture in your mind’s ear) the appropriate guitar picking phrase… The basic context can simply help you “hear” what you need.

The arps are extremely flexible via two pages of parameters that will control how they behave and when the phrases play. No one is suggesting you use the rest of the ensemble for any thing you may do, it is simply available as context. Plugging in new arp Phrases and auditioning them voicing the chords of your composition is all apart of this “selection” process.

Each musician explores and finds a different way to use the plethora of content provided in the instrument.

When you finish programming your own custom Performance, you can select a CATEGORY and SUB CATEGORY so it can be organized and found quickly. The idea is build your own custom library of Performances… Name, categorize and store them to the internal Performance locations.

here pic nr 2.
there are categories.
But it is not possible to choose it…
Its not possible to move the cursor to a other position as the foto shows.
Under “main” there is this “ - - - “ , that is active and the only one possible to reach wich the cursor.
Under “Performance List” I can scroll trough these user presets but its always the same with these grand pianos.
What am I doing wrong ?
Hey I use many Synths and also modular analog stuff and also Hardware effects units and normaly I do not use any manual. When I play araound for an hour or two, I know the unit complete.
But here, its a bit different, Yamaha has something hardly catchable in their kind of philosophy...?

thank you :-)

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

No ideas ?
Any help ?
A download link with instructions to get missing things ?
Thank you :-)

You have initialized your user banks. Perform a factory reset, or reload the data from a previously saved All File, if you made one.

I’d update the OS as well.

Stone