Using Mix Voices for managing Voices and Samples

“MIX VOICES” are 16 special locations available in each Song MIXING and each Pattern MIXING program. Each internal PART that contains a ‘normal’ (non-drum, non-seq sampled) Voice has the potential to be fully edited while you remain in the MIXING mode. From the MIXING quick access screen you will see “VCE EDIT” or Voice Edit above the [F6] button. This will drop you into full Voice Edit without having to go back to Voice mode.

Press [F6] VCE EDIT
Make any changes you want to the Voice
Press [STORE]
You will be offered one of 16 MIX VOICE locations local to the current MIXING program. For example, if you are Voice Editing the Voice in PART 5 of your MIXING program, when you press [STORE] you will be offered MIXV = 005(A05)

This is convenient for when you want to change the INSERTION EFFECT or the controller assigned to a PART or make some other edit beyond the Mix mode offsets. When you drop into this VOICE EDIT area you are not changing the original VOICE. You are editing and creating a new variation of that Voice. You have the opportunity to save it to a new location ‘within’ the current SONG MIX or PATTERN MIX… or you can save it back to the general pool of Voices (USER 1, USER 2 or USER 3).

This newly edited Voice can be stored in the MIXV (or Mixing Voice) bank. Each Song and each Pattern will have 16 such locations available for your edits. However, there is a maximum of 256 Mixing Voices for the entire instrument. This can be like having two additional banks of Voices available and it really allows you to freely customize the normal instrument sounds for the current Song or Pattern you are working with at the time. These Mixing Voices are ‘local’ to the Song or Pattern they are created in and will be saved when you save an ALL SONG (if you are in SONG mode) or an ALL PATTERN (if you are in PATTERN mode). They will also reload when you reload the individual SONG or PATTERN. This means that you do not have to restore the VOICE to a USER location in order to ensure your correctly modified Voice is present - it will be local to the current song or pattern.

If you wish to move a MIXING VOICE out of the ‘local’ SONG or PATTERN it is associated with you simply need to do the following:

_ Go to the [MIXING] screen
_ Select the PART containing the Mixing Voice you wish to move
_ Press [F6] VCE EDIT - to drop into full Voice Edit on this Voice
_ Press [STORE]
Now you can target any USER 1, USER 2 or USER 3 location.

The significance of moving the Voice from the MIX VOICE bank to one of the general USER banks is that now the Voice is available for use in VOICE mode, in PERFORMANCE mode, or in any other SONG or PATTERN. The USER 1, 2 and 3 banks are considered the “general population”.

Tip: Assembling your own favorite Voices from various Sample Voice Libraries
When assembling your own favorite sounds from Sample Voice Libraries, you can move your favorites to a MIXING VOICE location. Each MIXING program can hold 16 MixVoices. So for example, if you wanted to save a particular group of Voices from a large Sample Library. Assign each of your favorite Voices into a SONG MIXING program. Create a MIX VOICE as outlined above… Press [F6] VCE EDIT > Press [STORE].

Continue in this fashion, populating SONG MIXING programs with your favorite sounds from the Sample Library. When you have completed storing your favorites to SONG MIXES, save an ALL SONG file (.X0S). This will contain the Voices and the Samples that were used to create them. Using the SONG and PATTERN MIXING locations to organize your favorite sample Voice Libraries will allow you to load the Voices without duplicating WAVEFORMS as this method does not reload a wave that is used in several different Voices. A maximum of 256 MIXING VOICES can be created.

Later, load your basic sound set back into the XS, and then you can load your ALL SONG data to the sequencer. The VOICES associated with the ALL SONG file will be local to the SONGs you used - and will not overwrite your internal banks. You can then repopulate the general pool of Voices (USER 1, USER 2 and USER 3) with your favorites from your various Sample Libraries by simply pressing [F6] VCE EDIT > [STORE] and targeting a general bank location… Doing so does not duplicate any waveforms.

Extra Bonus Download S700 Piano All Song File

Here is a Motif XS All Song file called S700 Piano.  The first Song ( also called S700 Piano) has a Mix with the first 7 Voices Bank 1 from the XSpand Your World file.  These all use the S700 piano sample.  You can use this file to load all 7 voices into the Motif XS without duplicating any waveforms.  If you want to store the Mix Voices to User Voices, you can use the step by step method above.

Click here to download the file. S700_Piano.zip

Again one cool thing about Mix Voices is that Song files can be used as small, portable packages to move Sample Voice libraries around easily without duplicating any waveforms.