Hello everybody,

here`s a message from a dutch musician, very much content with his Motif XS8 for playing live. Last night we had a gig and (as usual) I loaded up the .X0A file from the usb flashdrive, no problems so far. This file contains all the patterns and songs I use (most of the time multi-channel midi (Motif+masterkeyboard and separate synth module). We were playing a song in which I use the extended synth module as well (just for a ‘click’, sent out on channel 10) and a pre-recorded background organ on midi channel 2 (the Motif has channel 1 L+R stereo out, and the masterkeys are on channel 9 L+R assignable out).

Suddenly, half way the song, the piano sounds on my Motif (L+R) weren’t there anymore, just nothing. The assignable output (masterkeys on midi-channel 9) kept on working, as well the pre-recorded organ on channel 2 (ass. L+R as well).
It happened another time with an other pattern with no sequencer-data in it. So while the rest of the band kept playing, I switched to another master and back and all the sounds worked again.

Last night it happened twice, but it’s two times too much! I’m not that kind of a technician, so I will definitely have it fixed by a decent technician but in the meantime I wondered if anyone of you is familiar with this problem? Maybe there’s someone with a similar problem and know what I may do myself to fix this issue. I think I did a factory reset (not sure...), by ticking the box ‘load factory settings on restart’, and that’s what happened when restarting the synthesizer. Maybe this is not the ‘hard-reset’ required? Help needed! Thanks in advance :-)

Greetings from the Netherlands

Welcome to the forum.

Before trying to determine a cause of what you’re describing…
Do I understand correctly that the XS stops responding to its own keys being played, but sequenced notes and those played via an external keyboard continue?

You’re right, I didn’t think of it that way. All the sequenced data and the notes played on the external keyboard kept on working. I haven’t tested yet to try sending the sequenced data throughout the L+R instead of the L+R assignable. It makes it hard to eliminate the problem because I can’t seem to trigger the error, it just happens randomly.

I just end up a call with a technician from a well known Yamaha dealer in the Netherlands, he literally said: this is looking for a needle in a haystack.

I’m starting to worry that an error with the print board occurred…

Let’s see if we can determine which part of the haystack the needle might be in. I realize that the very intermittent nature of what’s happening might make this a tedious process - I’d suggest trying the following when you’re not at a gig.

When in Song mode and the problem occurs…
1) Press [F3](Track), [SF1](Out), and see if “Int” is unchecked for the Voice that stops responding to the XS keys.

2) Press [MIXING], [F1](Part 1-16), and see if there is an “m” (Mute) directly under the Part number of the affected Voice.

Also, has this ever occurred when playing the XS in Song mode, but with no external MIDI connections?

I’ve tried indeed to exclude that we`re talking about some sort of a software problem and as it appears, none of the suggestions you’ve just made are on going; I’ve tested these options when it just happened this afternoon. This makes the answer to your last question a “yes” because there were no other midi devices attached.
Another argument for I think it’s not a software problem is the fact that it happens while playing live in a song or after having used a pattern for a while already.

I now remember that in the past (I think it was a month ago) the Motif had a total freeze-down. I was just copying one track to another song and suddenly nothing responded to none of the buttons or controllers and the screen you see when you push [JOB] in the song mode just wouldn’t go away. I had to power-off the keyboard and restart the whole system, I think this has happened twice.

mathijszuidema - 29 September 2014 01:28 PM

I’ve tried indeed to exclude that we`re talking about some sort of a software problem and as it appears, none of the suggestions you’ve just made are on going; I’ve tested these options when it just happened this afternoon. This makes the answer to your last question a “yes” because there were no other midi devices attached.
Another argument for I think it’s not a software problem is the fact that it happens while playing live in a song or after having used a pattern for a while already.

OK then, apparently neither of the things I mentioned are randomly changing state, if you saw no indication of it on the display.

The next time it happens, could you see if the MIDI out is still functional (can the XS keyboard play an external module) at the time? 

 

mathijszuidema -

I now remember that in the past (I think it was a month ago) the Motif had a total freeze-down. I was just copying one track to another song and suddenly nothing responded to none of the buttons or controllers and the screen you see when you push [JOB] in the song mode just wouldn’t go away. I had to power-off the keyboard and restart the whole system, I think this has happened twice.

If you have DIMMs installed, even if you aren’t loading samples, I would suggest removing them and see if that changes what’s happening.

Sometimes internal connectors develop a bit of corrosion on their pins, and that can cause erratic behavior. Removing and reseating them a few times will often help if that’s the problem, but it should be done by someone familiar with disassembling the XS8.