Dear Community,

I’m seeking your help on a question I have. I’ve been using two workstations for my live gigs for the last 10 years: A Roland Fantom (yes, the VERY OLD one) and the Motif XS 7. This setup developed historically, actually there’s no real reason why I kept the Fantom, just the fact that I had created tons of great sounds and patterns on it that I didn’t want to miss.

Now the Fantom is dead and gone to Workstation heaven and I’m thinking of my future setup. Actually the Motif XS 7 has everything that I need and my plan is to just continue my journey with it. Now here’s my question.

The Motif is 400 km away from where I live and I don’t have the opportunity to take it back home after each gig, as I usually travel by train (all our gigs are in Germany and I moved to Switzerland a couple of years ago). However for every new song we do, I can’t create the sounds / effects in advance as I have no access to the Motif. This results in me having to travel 1 day earlier to prepare the motif for the next songs, which is quite a hassle.

I’m now thinking of buying a second identical Motif XS 7 (or 6) and have it home and my idea would be to program the sounds at home, store them on a USB stick, travel to my band studio in Germany, insert the USB to the other Motif and have an identical and synchronized version of my home motif.

Is that possible? Is that a recommended setup or would you have another idea how I can solve the issue? Would that also be possible with the Rack version of the XS, so that at home I don’t by the workstation but just the rack and connect it to a midi keyboard?

Let me know in case I was not clear and I do hope you’d be willing to help me understand if I have wrong thoughts here…

All the best and belated merry Christmas,
Trikri

Yes, just save an “all” file on usb stick (formatted first in xs) from your performing xs and bring the usb your home setup.  Load the all file into your home xs.  Everything should be there.  Tweak and design your new stuff.  Save new all file from home setup and take usb to performing xs.  Load there.  If you have added any extra ram in the performing xs and have saved wave files there, you will need to add ram to your home xs.

Thanks BeeRad, that’s helpful. Would that also work with the Rack Version of the Motif XS? And if that wouldn’t work does it matter if it’s the XS7 or XS6? I’d probably consider having the XS6 at home and XS7 in Germany - any constraints?

Best regards

Hi,

I have two Motif XS7 workstations (which I dearly love), one of which I keep at my practice space and the other for gigs. I use the following system.

A. DISASTER PREVENTION

1. I have a USB drive which always travels with me.  I also maintain a duplicate which I keep at home for emergency.

2. As you’ve no doubt been advised by others, I periodically save everything onboard to a file which I name according to date (e.g. “2022-12-02.X0A")

B. VOICES

In addition to that, to keep Voices in sync:

1. I configure both keyboards to automatically load a specific file on this drive (which I named “VOICES.X0V").  Whenever I make a change to any VOICE (on either keyboard) that I wish to keep, I save all voices to this file. 

2. I insert this USB drive into the keyboard prior to startup and it automatically loads the latest voices.

C.  PATTERNS (OR SONGS)

Also, I have many more Patterns than I can store onboard simultaneously.  I keep subsets of these for each band I perform with and load them as needed.  However, I save each Pattern onto the USB drive as follows.  You can do the same with Songs.

1.  I always keep Pattern 1 as a temporary slot.

2.  I copy any new or modified Pattern to this slot.

3.  I save an “All Patterns” file (.X0P extension) to the USB drive into a specific folder.  I name the file with the song title (e.g. “BlackVelvet.XOP").  All the other patterns on the keyboard at the time will also be saved, but I care only about Pattern 1, which will appear at the top of the list when browsing.

I’ve been using this approach for 8 years and I have yet to lose anything.

Good luck!

Joe

Trikri - 27 December 2022 09:22 AM

Would that also work with the Rack Version of the Motif XS?

Not as straightforward, but possible. The Motif-Rack XS doesn’t have removable storage, and can’t save or load files like the keyboards do. You would therefore have to bulk transfer your Voice data from the Rack via MIDI to a computer running the Motif-Rack XS Editor software.

The Motif XS and Motif-Rack XS Editor applications save voice library files in their own separate file formats. Both file formats can be opened, however, so it is possible to convert voice data from one to the other.

Sampling and sequencing is not possible on the Rack XS.

Does it matter if it’s the XS7 or XS6?

It doesn’t matter, since the XS6, XS7 and XS8 are functionally identical. Like BeeRad pointed out, the amount of installed RAM can potentially be an issue if you use samples.

- H -

Thanks all, that’s really appreciated. So the decision is made: It will be a Motif XS 7 again.

@Joe: May I ask, and maybe it’s a stupid question, but what’s the benefit of doing what you do over always making a full copy of everything on a USB stick? Is it that you have different setups for different bands and you actually only load into the keyboard what you actually need? Maybe I’ve not fully understood.

Best regards
Trikri