Hi All,

I picked up a CS6R off ebay and had a pleasent surprise when I opened the plugin panel to find a PLG150-AN. This forum has been a huge help to me so far learning both bits of gear, thanks to everyone who has contributed.

I’ve spent the last couple of days reading up on the PLG150-AN and I think I have a fair grasp on the way it handles it’s memory. I know it has 2 preset board voice banks and a user RAM board voice bank and that the user RAM is wiped when the power is turned off and replaced with patches from the 2 preset banks. The CS6R also has internal PLG bank memory (64 locations).

I have loaded AN Expert Editor and for the most part it is working fine in Windows 7 (under XP compatibility mode). When I adjust any of the settings, they change the sound as they should etc. I can load a custom bank into the Editor and then load individual patches on the 150AN (via the CS6R), the name of the patch doesnt change however.

My problem is with storing the sounds from AN Expert Editor to the user RAM board voice bank. I can’t get them to store. They load and the sound changes to the new patch. I click ‘Store’ in the editor, the voice light on the CS6R flashes as though it is accepting data but nothing else seems to happen. If I change to the next patch and then change back, the patch has reset itself to the factory patch as if I had turned the power off.

I have tried bulk dumping the entire custom bank to the unit as well with no luck.

It’s almost as if it’s treating the user bank as the preset bank, ie. it doesnt save any changes to RAM. I have double checked that it’s using 036/002.

I want to be able to load this custom bank and then save the plugin file to the smartmedia card and then have it autoload when the machine is turned on.

Has anyone come across this or can offer assistance?

Many thanks in advance!

Welcome back! You have a very good grasp of the PLG situation up until this:

I have loaded AN Expert Editor and for the most part it is working fine in Windows 7 (under XP compatibility mode). When I adjust any of the settings, they change the sound as they should etc. I can load a custom bank into the Editor and then load individual patches on the 150AN (via the CS6R), the name of the patch doesnt change however.

THe name of the CS6R VOICE will not change. Here is the important step you might be missing.

The CS6R has its own VOICE architecture, usually made up of sample-based Elements from its internal Wave ROM. Instead of using a Sample Wave as the oscillator, a CS6R Voice could use a wave generated on a PLG board. So the CS6R Voice sees your PLG150-AN’s 036/002 RAM VOICES as an ELEMENT.

So whatever the name of the PLG-150AN Voice was is not the name of the CS6R VOICE’s Element.

The PLG150 Board is used to create an Element.

Perhaps you can see why at Yamaha we abandoned (and so should you) the old synth term “patch”. If you are getting lost it is because you are not using the words and terms you are seeing. WHen you are using the PLG150-AN Expert Editor. You are creating a sound that can stand on its own and be played as is.

When you place the PLG150-AN Plug-in Board in a host product CS6x, CS6R, S80, S30, S90, etc. etc., ) each of these could use the PLG150 AN Voices as an oscillator. the host product has its own VOICE architecture that has VOICES which can be made from AWM sample-based waveforms, or from AN virtual analog waveforms, or from DX/FM waveforms, or VL Viritual Acoustic physical models, depending on PLG board you have installed. These hybrid technology synthesizers were called by Yamaha, the “Modular Synthesis Plug-in System” and to keep the terminology of synthesis clear:

Oscillator > Filter > Amplifier

as the basic flow. Yamaha integrated other forms of synthesis into the instrument by allowing the user to use the PLG150 series boards as alternate OSCILLATOR SOURCES. Your AN VOICE becomes just an oscillator to the Host Products Voice (in which you can add the CS6R’s Effect processors, and controller setup, etc.). This enhancement changed with whatever HOST product you placed the PLG150-AN Board into…

So the name of the CS6 R Voice will and can be different from what you called it in the AN Expert Editor. If you go the CS6R’s Oscillator Wave screen you will find that it point to your 036/002 bank and the name of that data will be the name you named the AN Voice in the Expert Editor - it is now only an ELEMENT of the CS6R’s Voice. you could use it as a source in several different CS6R Voices. in the first you might add a multi-tapped delay and pitch it up an octave and use it as a Lead. And in the next CS6R Voice you might access that same AN Voice pitch it down and put a short Chorus effect on it and play it as a bass; and yet in a third set it up polyphonic and use it as pad with a Flanger.

Hope that helps. Let us know.

Thanks for the reply BM, I think I have a better understanding now of how the PLG150-AN integrates with the CS6R and how the AN board can be used as an Element in a Voice. It is these voices that are saved in the PLG1 INT bank on the CS6R right?

My problem still persists however, I haven’t even got as far as creating CS6R voices with the AN Board voice as an element.

Perhaps my use of the word ‘patch’ and also mentioned names is confusing things.

I am trying to store custom AN board voices on the AN board RAM at 036/002 using the AN Expert Editor. I can load a single voice into a location, P1-B:001 for example and the factory voice that was in that location changes to the voice I’ve just loaded. This part is fine. From my understanding, this new voice should now remain at that location until I turn the power off.

My problem is that if I press the INC/YES button to change to the next board voice (P1-B:002) and then press DEC/NO to return to the voice at P1-B:001, this voice has now changed back to its default setting and my custom voice is completely gone.

I think there might be a problem with the RAM on my PLG150-AN.

Forgetting all the stuff in my previous posts, if i simply change the name of the first board voice at P1-B:001 - 036/002, which the factory default is ‘Metallic’, if I change this to ‘Test’ then this voice should keep that name until I turn off the power right?

However if I change to the next board voice at P1-B:002 and then return back to 001, the voice has reverted back to factory as ‘Metallic’.

If anyone knows or has a spare moment to test this out on their PLG150-AN I would appreciate it.

This has been driving me crazy!

You have to BULK the data from the AN EXPERT EDITOR to the 036/002 Bank in a specific operation.

In the AN EXPERT EDITOR click on SETUP find the “AN EXPERT EDITOR SETUP”

The first tab is MIDI
The second tab is “INSERT & TRANSMIT”
here you can set to transmit USER VOICES “1 to 128”

These are your Voices you create in the AN Editor’s User bank and will go to the PLG150-AN. These will be written into the 036/002 bank of your PLG150-AN.
If you have not been doing this, then only your current Voice goes temporarily into the EDIT BUFFER - where you can do everything BUT keep it.

If you want it to remain, you must use the INSERT & TRANSMIT page to bulk the data to your PLG150-AN. You can select to transmit any number of VOICES by setting the range. Obviously 001 to 128 will transmit all 128 voices to the 128 locations in the 036/002 bank.

Sorry, we thought you knew this about the EDITOR and the PLG150-AN (but this is why your Voices does not remain, you are only bulking it to the current edit buffer - the routine I describe above will write the data into the bank 036/002.

Final thought: Once you have your AN Expert Editor bank installed on the PLG150-AN’s 036/002 bank, you can make a backup file that will save them to your SmartMedia card (this way you can reload them even when you are not near a computer).

The FILE TYPE is a .S2B extension and is a bulk storage file. See your Owner’s Manual for details - you can even create a file AUTOLD1.S2B for slot 1 or AUTOLD2.S2B for slot 2 so that your custom Voices will automatically be restored when you power on your CS6R

Can I download AUTOLD2.S2B from my motif-rack es?