I know this may not be a straightforward yes or no answer, but I’m interested to know people’s opinions on - generally speaking - the quality of voices that use new waveforms and samples vs the factory ones in the sound libraries that are out there?

I’ve accumulated a few sound libraries for my MOXF8, including some of the Yamaha promotional ones that require flash expansion (such as CP1 Piano, Inspiration In A Flash - both of which appear to be highly regarded on here), but also some which include a combination of voices that make use of the factory waveforms/samples and new waveforms/samples.

Examples of these are the Easy Sounds Live Instruments and Live Organ sound libraries. Although the voices aren’t bad by any stretch I have to say I was feeling a little underwhelmed with the voices that use the factory waveforms/samples. 

I haven’t tried any voices from any library yet that rely on non-factory waveforms/samples for the simple reason that I haven’t got a flash board. However, I have ordered a Mutec 2GB flash board today and look forward to installing it in the MOXF8 so I can try out some of the voices that do use waveforms/samples not found onboard the MOXF8.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: are the voices in these sound libraries that use new waveforms/samples usually better sounding than similar or equivalent factory ROM voices?

I’d love to hear opinions on Live Sounds and Live Organ as well ... if anyone has those in particular.

moxfman - 26 July 2016 03:52 PM

...I guess what I’m getting at is this: are the voices in these sound libraries that use new waveforms/samples usually better sounding than similar or equivalent factory ROM voices?

I don’t believe a general characterization of sample quality Native vs New is legitimate...whether better, equal, or worse.

I think the most valid generalization would simply be different, in many cases.

motidave - 26 July 2016 03:59 PM

I’d love to hear opinions on Live Sounds and Live Organ as well ... if anyone has those in particular.

I tried Live Instruments and Live Organ out over the weekend, but ONLY the voices in those sets that do not require flash. There’s some good stuff in there for sure, although I can’t help but think the factory voices in these sets that are based on internal waveform/samples are going to be outshone by the non-factory voices that use new and higher quality waveforms/samples.

I would imagine that if Yamaha was to increase the number and quality of on-board waveforms/samples it would mean paying more for the product. At its price point, to my humble ears (and hands) the MOXF8 is a tough act to follow.

It won hands down for me when I auditioned a few other instruments in the same price range. It’s factory sounds are good, very good, and IMHO far superior to the Roland synths in this price range. Giving the consumer the choice to add new waveforms/samples, and higher quality ones than those included in the instrument, via the flash board is great and kudos to Yamaha for that.

I am returning to this after a very long hiatus, the last Yamaha synth I bought before the MOXF8 was a TG500 (rackmount SY85) back in 1992 and I loved that thing! It was my favourite and main sound source for live keyboard work - which is what I’m returning to now.

I’m hoping that once I get the flash board installed and can try it out with higher quality samples from libraries like CP1 Piano, Live Instruments and Live Organ, the MOXF8 will REALLY shine!

cmayhle - 26 July 2016 04:40 PM

I don’t believe a general characterization of sample quality Native vs New is legitimate...whether better, equal, or worse.

I think the most valid generalization would simply be different, in many cases.

We must have been typing at the same time cmayhle!

Fair point about generalisation, although I’ve noticed a lot of the libraries out there have higher quality samples so I guess not unreasonable to assume (horrible word I know) that the voices will sound better.

The Keyboard Waves CP70 is a good example. It requires 500MB of flash memory. That is equivalent to nearly 70% of the MOXF’s onboard ROM of 741MB, which itself is cramming in over 3,900 waveforms. Yet the CP70 library only has 6 waveforms in the entire sound set!

The proof will be in the pudding, as the old saying goes. I was just looking for some opinions before I get to load up some new higher quality samples.

I own a number of libraries that contain new samples.

I bought some when I had an ES. The sample loads were so slow that I used the library version that used the factory samples often.

I do not have Live Organ but do have the earlier Organ Session and the difference between the version that used the samples and the one that does not is huge. The same with the Phat Analog sets.

I also have a third party Mellotron sample set.. the tron voices (Tape Flute, Tape Strings, etc.) in the Motif series are good but do not use actual Mellotron smaples, and the difference is stunning.

So if your question is whether or not the sounds can be better using new samples instead of the factory set, the answer is yes it can be much, much better.

Of course, some libraries include samples for which there is no factory equivalent, like the Bolder Sounds Granular Voices set or the free Yamaha sets with CS80 and VL-1 samples. This is where user sample storage is so powerful...you can keep extending what the synth can do in the future.

meatballfulton - 27 July 2016 07:16 AM

I own a number of libraries that contain new samples.

I bought some when I had an ES. The sample loads were so slow that I used the library version that used the factory samples often.

I do not have Live Organ but do have the earlier Organ Session and the difference between the version that used the samples and the one that does not is huge. The same with the Phat Analog sets.

I also have a third party Mellotron sample set.. the tron voices (Tape Flute, Tape Strings, etc.) in the Motif series are good but do not use actual Mellotron smaples, and the difference is stunning.

So if your question is whether or not the sounds can be better using new samples instead of the factory set, the answer is yes it can be much, much better.

Of course, some libraries include samples for which there is no factory equivalent, like the Bolder Sounds Granular Voices set or the free Yamaha sets with CS80 and VL-1 samples. This is where user sample storage is so powerful...you can keep extending what the synth can do in the future.

VERY useful post, thank you. It will be interesting to see how the Live Organ patches sound that use new samples sounds, I’ve not been able to get a rock organ sound (for ‘90s British indie rock covers) using the factory voices that I’m very happy with. Also recently acquired the Digital Sound Factory Motif Performer set, that also uses new samples. There’s a very favourable review of that library on this site and some great audio too.

Well I didn’t get to spend as much time with the MOXF8 last weekend as I was hoping to but next weekend I will.

I did get the Mutec 2GB flash board installed and loaded 384 new voices, 415 new waveforms and over 7000 keybanks on there!

Took quite a while to get it all on, over 3.5 hours to load the samples onto the Mutec but then it was almost the limit of the board - nearly 2GB of data!

I spent what little time I did have on some of the Keyboard Waves CP70 and Easy Sounds Live Organ libraries. 

The CP70 sounds are outstanding. Far superior to the factory voices. This sound library is around 500MB just on its own!

The Easy Sounds Live Organ voices also sounded stunning, those that I had time to play with (which wasn’t long).

I’ll get more time this coming weekend to do come comparisons with the factory voices (where similar/equivalent voices exist).

So yesterday I spent some time going through 384 new voices I loaded into the user voice banks, most of which were using new new waveforms/keybanks.

I spent a lot of time, most of my time at the studio yesterday in fact, with the Easy Sounds Live Organ sounds. All I can say is wow! To my ears, a big and noticeable improvement over the factory preset voices which use the internal waveforms/keybanks.

There’s some really, really nice rock organs in there, some mono sampled ones and some voices that are duplicated but offer different control options, e.g. mod wheel for leslie and AF buttons for tone/drawbar, and then the same patch with the roles of the mod wheel and AF buttons reversed. Nice to have those options.

But how the set sounds is what counts and I have to say it VERY impressive. I’d like to keep ALL the voices on the MOXF8 but space dictates so I will need do decide which ones to keep. It will probably end up being most of them though!

The CP1 piano sounds actually disappointed me a little, but admittedly I didn’t spend much time on those.

...and just to add to my last post…

The CP70 sounds from Keyboard Waves also disappointed me somewhat although I didn’t spend as much time on those as the Easy Sounds Live Organ set.

The Keyboard Waves CP70 sounds came across as totally awesome on the YouTube demos but I was a little underwhelmed, especially given that they take up nearly 25% of the space on my flash board (only 6 waveforms/16 voices).

It could just be down to my bad piano playing of course…