You have to use "Import Library" to save the Waveforms to your User bank. If you simply [STORE] then Waveforms will not be copied and instead the User copy (using STORE) will point to the Waveform in the Library. This means if you delete the library, this will invalidate the STORE'd copy as it will no longer have a Waveform to reference. This is by design and gives you a choice of how to manage Library data. Keep the library and spawn off variations in the User bank (STORE) or make full atomic duplicates and delete the parent Library.

Import Library is available in the [UTILITY] "Contents" area.

Although for Montage, see Import Library in this doc which applies to MODX as well. There may be a MODX equivalent doc, I just didn't find it with a quick search.

https://www.yamahasynth.com/yamaha-synth-rss/user-and-library

Is this something that can be done in the Melas Tools? I own the Melas software for my MOXF but not for my MODX yet. For the MOFX I found it a lot easier to do maintenance and organisational things via the software rather than direct on the synth 🙂

I believe so. I don't have the tools - so I'm not sure of the details in practice.

The information isn't that hard to find. I did a search on "jmtools modx" and found the facebook post as one of the first few links:

Learn how to do Library Management for Montage / MODX using Montage Waveform Editor in latest Yamaha Music Production guide:

http://www.easysounds.eu/MusicProductionGuide_2019_02_EN.

If you break open this PDF - page 11 even walks you through special considerations for using JM Tools with MODX and the CS80 library. I think some reading there would be illuminating. Confidently can say you're covered if you want to go that route.

There seems to be some really good libraries out there, especially on Yamaha's website. One of them is the CS80 library. But the downside is that some of them are HUGE. The CS80 library is almost 1/2 a gig because of all the wave files. Even though there are hundreds of performances in there, I'm really only interested in one or two. How can you extract a performance from a library?

Recommended workflow...
Load the CS80 data temporarily to a Library location.
Play through the data, making note, specifically, of the Performances you wish to keep.
Then in a single operation you will mark and move, using “Library Import”, just those Performances to your Internal User Bank.
This will extract the data necessary to make those Performances play properly. (This means the Part data, the Waveform data and the Arpeggio data, if any) and add them to data already in your User Bank. Because you do it in one operation, the MODX will sort out the data and eliminate the possibility of Duplicating any Waveform or Arpeggio data... in other words, it will address any changes necessary as it rewrites the data. During the rewriting of this data, it will repoint the Elements to look to the User Wave memory.

Now that the data has been imported to the User Bank you can Delete the temporary Library. The act of “importing” the data you desired to keep, has created a new updated User Bank. In this Bank the Elements now reference Waveform data in User memory

You can continue to add data to this User Bank by repeating this process... load to temporary Library location, make note of keepers, use “Library Import” to add your selections to the current User Bank.

It is the USER Bank that can be ‘saved as...’ a new Library.
You assemble data for a Library in the User Bank. Then you create a Library File .X8L.... it is this File that can be “burned” to your instrument’s Flash memory.

I tried loading the library, then saving the specific performance to User and then deleting the library. But now the performance is there but no sound or anything. I'm assuming all the waveform data got erased. Is the 1/2 gig of waveform data needed for just one performance? Can just the waveform data be saved for that performance alone?

Libraries can differ... for example, the Bosendorfer Library contains a detailed sample set of an Imperial 290 Bosendorfer Grand ... all of the Performances in that Library use that same set of Waveforms. So importing one Performance is the same amount of Wave memory as importing all the Bosendorfer Performances, if done in a single operation.

We are stressing this because if you were to import each of the Bosendorfer Performances individually, you would be instructing it to duplicate the Waveforms with each import... by “importing” all of the Performances in a single operation, you allow the MODX to sort and remove duplicates!

There are a variety sounds made from a variety of different Waveforms in the CS80 Library. So simply pick the Performances you like, then in one operation, “Import” those Performance titles. The MODX will “do the heavy lifting” of going through the Waveforms and Samples ensuring economy of memory. If several Performances use the same Waveforms, MODX will only import one set of the Waveforms (to do so it must repoint Elements to make the sound play properly).

Extra Credit:
The most elegant way to manipulate data is with the John Melas Waveform Editor. It keeps the “parent-child” relationships between Performances and their Waveforms/Arpeggios. You basically work offline, dragging and dropping Performances from several Libraries into the one you are constructing. Because you are offline this all happens instantly... the result is you are creating a .X8L File which you then Load to your instrument. It can remove duplicate Waveforms. Using your computer’s RAM, assembly is lightning fast compared to when you need to copy Waveforms from Bank to Bank.

These methods accomplish the same thing. Both result in a .X8L File that can then be installed (burned) to Flash.
Hope that helps.

Music Production Guides follow through to 2019 > 01/2019 and 02/2019 for the article on the MONTAGE/MODX Library Guide Parts 1 and 2 which includes a discussion of the Melas Waveform Editor

Where is the documentation of the X8L file format so that every one who bought a MODX (with the right programming skills) can write his own tool to extract whatever he wishes and manipulate/create programmatically library files as he sees fit?

Obviously Yamaha gave John Melas this info. Why not make it public (as the data list)? If more people is allowed to create an echosystem of apps to fill the gaps of what Yamaha did not bother to provide, everybody will win, including Yamaha.....

Users will have more choices, possibly better apps and lower prices (you know the benefits of competition). Yamaha will have a more supported and hence more desiderable product.

I've asked the same question in the past. The response was to make a formal request to Yamaha customer support. I did this. No documentation provided.

You can see a historical thread here: https://www.yamahasynth.com/ask-a-question/specifications-used-for-john-melas-tools

There are some pointers to what data is available - which are the fruits of reverse-engineering.

There's also an ideascale suggestion that Yamaha change strategy and provide more documentation to the open-source community in order to supplement the degrading software support offered to synthesizers. At one point synths would come with Yamaha-supplied editors. That doesn't happen anymore. Lots of capable programmers are out here that can fill the gaps and even extend the software eco-system beyond what it has ever been for Yamaha synths.

https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Value-Open-Source-Design/210042-45978

Jason, thanks for your kind and informative answer.

I've asked the same question in the past. The response was to make a formal request to Yamaha customer support. I did this. No documentation provided.

At least you got an answer!! Here in Italy it is not even possible to contact Yamaha. Local (= national) office branches do not even list a public phone or email address (only street and house number), so that you are forced to buy a postage stamp and envelope and send a paper letter with a horse drawn carriage. But usually you give up before attempting this route (and this is actually what they want and their strategy not to be worried). They also provide an European "support" (based in Germany). You apply through a web form to fill-in on their site. You get an automated confirmation email that the form has been correctly submitted and then NOTHING. No one answers you. NEVER. I tried more than once. Never got a single reply.

Very disappointing.

I even tried calling Yamaha Motors (those selling motorcycles), they are listed at the same address (street and house number) of Yamaha Music (those selling the musical instruments). I asked for their "next door colleagues" of the music branch, but the guy of the bikes told me that if I want to buy a motorcycle they can help me, otherwise they are not authorised to give me any contact (phone number, email) of their colleagues in the music department upstairs. I have to use the German based European "support", (which I already knew never answers).

I replied: thanks, but for sure if I ever buy a bike I doubt it will be a Yamaha. Not want to make the same error twice in a row!

Having to post on an overseas forum and hoping in the goodwill of other users to have any support (generally speaking, I am not referring to this particular topic) is frankly unacceptable. Especially for instruments that cost > 1 k€.

Yes, although these devices are historically - for Yamaha and for the industry-wide "closed" systems. Internal information for programming software interfaces (USB / driver - level stuff) is not made available. Programming is limited to MIDI - and some things in the MIDI domain are not fully documented. File formats and such are not as forthcoming. I think there are other manufacturers who have a slightly more open approach to the file formats - at least for some files. But by-and-large, the approach Yamaha takes for this is "standard" and any exceptions to this are anomalies.

I think the port of entry for more support is to hack and reverse engineer until you have something that's useful enough that people start forming critical mass around your application. Then perhaps some hints will be received. But you'll notice even JM didn't get everything. His software doesn't deal with WXC or other encodings. There's a limit. I think where JM tools are for the most part you can assemble the public data (crowd-sourced type, not official) and get something going. The breadcrumbs are all here for the taking.