Hi, I have a few questions about my Motif ES8.

1. I found some 80’s sound in a file called “80S_XS_X0A” for Motif XS.
Can I load them into my Motif ES8?

2. Do you know somewhere I can find sounds for like famous 80-90’s songs to my Motif ES?

3. I always make sounds and splits in Performance mode, but I have never transfered something to my Motif. How do I transfer it so it appears under Performance mode as a preset?

4. Can I transfer the sounds through USB or do I have to buy a “memory-card”? What’s the model of those cards?

Thank you!
/R

1. I found some 80’s sound in a file called “80S_XS_X0A” for Motif XS.
Can I load them into my Motif ES8?

No. The ES 2003, predates the XS 2007, and has different Effects, different Voice architecture, etc. the XS has 8 ELEMENTS (4 more than the ES, per Voice) and too many features that your ES would not know what to do with.

2. Do you know somewhere I can find sounds for like famous 80-90’s songs to my Motif ES?

Try the SHOP here on Motifator

3. I always make sounds and splits in Performance mode, but I have never transfered something to my Motif. How do I transfer it so it appears under Performance mode as a preset?

There are no “preset” Performances, so it is not clear about what you are asking. All Performances in the Motif line are in USER memory

4. Can I transfer the sounds through USB or do I have to buy a “memory-card”? What’s the model of those cards?

Songs can be played through USB to a computer program like Cubase which can capture the data. You use the word “transfer” which is not clear. You can “play” a song over to transfer it, but if you mean SAVE it as you would to a USB drive, no, you SAVE your Song and other Motif ES data to a USB stick or SmartMedia card

http://shop.motifator.com/index.php/motif-es-accessories/2-gb-flash-drive.html

1. I found some 80’s sound in a file called “80S_XS_X0A” for Motif XS.
Can I load them into my Motif ES8?

No. The ES 2003, predates the XS 2007, and has different Effects, different Voice architecture, etc. the XS has 8 ELEMENTS (4 more than the ES, per Voice) and too many features that your ES would not know what to do with.

Okay, so it’s possible to layer 8 sounds in Performance mode, but not split more than 4 points? I could see that the XS and XF has 8 faders for different elements, but I also heard that the XS and XF can’t split more than 4 points.

2. Do you know somewhere I can find sounds for like famous 80-90’s songs to my Motif ES?

Try the SHOP here on Motifator

Maybe it’s not allowed to ask these kind of questions, but is there also somewhere I can find users sharing their own performance-setup’s/sounds?

3. I always make sounds and splits in Performance mode, but I have never transfered something to my Motif. How do I transfer it so it appears under Performance mode as a preset?

There are no “preset” Performances, so it is not clear about what you are asking. All Performances in the Motif line are in USER memory

Maybe I was not clear about what I mean - I am always working in Performance mode while playing f.e cover songs, because I need the splits for different sounds. What I meant was if I find someone that’s made a Performance “song”, let’s say Final Countdown with splits and I want to transfer it so it appears under my Performance-menu, could I do that by save this specific song from another Motif ES8 to the computer as a file, and then load it into my Motif using USB ?

4. Can I transfer the sounds through USB or do I have to buy a “memory-card”? What’s the model of those cards?

Songs can be played through USB to a computer program like Cubase which can capture the data. You use the word “transfer” which is not clear. You can “play” a song over to transfer it, but if you mean SAVE it as you would to a USB drive, no, you SAVE your Song and other Motif ES data to a USB stick or SmartMedia card

http://shop.motifator.com/index.php/motif-es-accessories/2-gb-flash-drive.html

Okay, so it’s possible to layer 8 sounds in Performance mode, but not split more than 4 points? I could see that the XS and XF has 8 faders for different elements, but I also heard that the XS and XF can’t split more than 4 points.

No. You have to get the terminology correct if you are to understand this.
Read carefully:

You can layer 4 VOICES in a PERFORMANCE. there are four Parts just like in your Motif ES. Each PART contains one Voice.
What I said was there are 8 oscillators (ELEMENTS) per Voice. Your ES has just four of these per Voice.

Each Element is a complete Multi-sample. So in your ES you might have a Voice where Element 1 and 2 make up an acoustic piano, and Elements 3 and 4 might be string pad. Asin the Voice PianoBack. In an XS/XF I might have that plus Element 5 and 6 make up a brass synth pad, and Element 7 be a flute and Element 8 be a sound FX. The individual Voices in the XS/XF are twice as complex.

You still can combine just 4 Voices in a Performance. (At max you realize that’s 32 Elements!!!) 8 Elements per Voice; 4 Voices per Performance.

But that is Performance mode… Did you know: you can layer and split as many as 16 Voices in a MIXING. Because in MIXING mode you can freely set the MIDI Channel of each of the 16 Parts and you can freely set the NOTE LIMITS, etc., etc., you can easily create your mega layer/splits. Every parameter you find in a Performance is found in Mixing mode!!!

There are 64 MIXING programs in Song mode, another 64 in Pattern mode and another 32 Mix Templates you can keep in memory for instant recall. These programs remain in memory same as Voices and Performances.

And while you have this same capability in your Motif ES, But you must back them up to a USB STICK and load the 64 Song Mixing and 64 Pattern Mixing programs each time you power up… The 32 Mix Templates remain in the ES Flash ROM between power cycles.

Understanding what each mode does what is going to help you get more out of your ES. If you’ve been living under the false impression you can only have 4 sounds layered, hopefully this will help you discover something new about your ten year old Motif ES.

A file with the .X0A is an ALL data Library file for a Motif XS, no, it is not compatible with your ES - your ES does not have the same number of oscillators. Make sense.

You can load your old ES data into a newer XS or XF because your Voices will use a maximum of four oscillators… And four will remain empty. Obviously you cannot go the other way… The ES simple does not have the engine, or the effects, etc., etc., etc.

Thank you for your great reply!

I understand it much better now! But there is still one thing I’m not quite familiar to, regarding the #3 in my post above. Maybe I’m stupid but I don’t think you answered that question, or maybe I wasn’t clear enough about what I mean? (Since my english isn’t perfect...;))

Can I create a Performance on my Motif and save it to the computer as a file and then transfer it to another Motif without have to erase and rewrite the whole Performance-section of the Motif I’m transfering it to? That’s what I wanna know about sharing sounds (Performances) between other Motif owners :)

Thank you again for taking your time!

Can I create a Performance on my Motif and save it to the computer as a file and then transfer it to another Motif without have to erase and rewrite the whole Performance-section of the Motif I’m transfering it to? That’s what I wanna know about sharing sounds (Performances) between other Motif owners :)

Yes, you can create a PERFORMANCE on your Motif ES and STORE it to one of the USER PERFORMANCE locations.

Then you can create an ALL data file (.W7A/.W8A) and save that to a USB stick. You will then be able to load that PERFORMANCE into any other Motif ES, using the FILE LOAD Type = PERFORMANCE
This file TYPE, allows you to open an ALL data file, then select a single PERFORMANCE from that file and you can load that into any other Motif ES.

The PERFORMANCE, as you know, references, as many as four VOICES. When you load an individual PERFORMANCE it does NOT load the four Voices - this is problematical if your Performance contains anything but PRESET Voices.

Say you create a PERFORMANCE that contains the following four VOICES:

PRESET 1: 001(A01)
PRESET 2: 026(B10)
PRESET 2: 116(H04)
USER 1: 005(A05)

What gets memorized is the locations - any other Motif ES will have the “Full Grand” in Preset1:001(A01), and will have “ChorusDyno” in Preset2:026(B10), and it will have “FretlsSolo” in Preset2:116(H04) but, and this is important, you don’t know what VOICE that other Motif ES will have in USER 1:005(A05)

And since the PERFORMANCE data does not include the Voice parameters - (just the location) - it is not always ensured that that you can transfer an entire PERFORMANCE to someone without including the VOICES (if they are USER Voices) as well.

Hope that is clear.

You mention a computer - yes you can BULK DUMP a single PERFORMANCE to a computer set to record (receive) System Exclusive messages. But the same thing applies. What gets bulked is the “pointer” to the locations of the Voices, not the VOICE data itself.

Very good answer, now I understand it totally!!

The thing is - I don’t think I’ve been using more than 10% of the Motif until now. I’ve just been creating the Performances for each song we play and left it there. Now I realize there is so much more to explore! :)

Don’t feel badly about it… the reason we decided to support a website such as this is exactly so people are able to get MORE out of their musical purchase.

That is why we’re hear and on Facebook (Yamaha Music Production) trying to help folks get to the FUN part in what we know are very deep instruments.

This might be a stupid question, maybe I should know but -

Are you guys supported by Yamaha/ supporters from Yamaha or did you create this forum on your own?