Note that one thing I left off was that, to make things simple, the numbers were using an MS/ARP Grid of a quarter note. This is why I was using BPM as the frequency because BPM is quarter note = BPM and if you set the grid to quarter note, then the cycle is 1:1 to the beat in beats per minute.

This (having ARP/MS grid control) is good because you can set the grid to a smaller sub-division. Set the grid to eighth notes and motion sequence runs twice as fast. Set to 16th - 4x. Set to 32nd notes - 8x. So actually your max freq is:

(300(bpm or Hz in freq)) / (50% unit multiply) ... or 300 x 2 .. x 8 (set MS grid to 32nd notes)

300x2x8 = 4,800 Hz = 4.8kHz

That's one cycle.

Cutting each cycle into sub-divisions of 4 as drawn before you can achieve

4.8x4 = 19.2kHz if your modulation can follow something like the 4 triangle pattern or similar.

To get to the MS grid:

[PERFORMANCE] (HOME), then touch the Performance name at the top of the touchscreen, then choose edit, then choose the menus "Motion Seq" -> "Common", then change the parameter at the bottom-right corner "Arp/MS Grid" to 32nd note (value of 60) for the maximum speed. Set to a quarter note with unit multiply at 100% and you'll hear when setting the tempo to 60 that each cycle takes 1 second to complete. Keeping tempo at 60 (unit multiply at 100%) and Arp/MS Grid of 32nd note will take 1/8th of a second (125mS) to complete.

I think what you'll find is that the ARP/MS grid and Unit Multiply are "yin and yang". ARP/MS grid lets you subdivide the beat down quite a bit and unit multiply allows for getting back to standard BPM due to high time multiplication. This can be important if you want something to run really fast (many times faster than the nominal tempo) - like you're asking for - and still keep other things running at the nominal tempo.

In a vacuum one setting seems to be lopsided. And for certain applications this may be true. But you can see that looking at these two parameters together help make unit multiply and its limitations make a little more sense in context.

All that aside - the summary is that ARP/MS Grid may be a way you haven't considered yet how to make motion sequence run faster.

Edited to correct typo

This post makes me think that being able to mod control the unit multiply and cycle parameters would be very useful. To make something run a certain speed and then change it up on the fly

For unit multiply - you have a dedicated knob that can be turned for this. There's not a knob for ARP/MS grid. Cycle count for tempo sync doesn't change the speed but may have other applications.

I agree that there's rationale for any given parameter to be a destination and that expanding on today's system to include more destinations would be beneficial to creative use.

August 21, 2018 I created: https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Extended-Macro-Control/209888-45978

Note that one thing I left off was that, to make things simple, the numbers were using an MS/ARP Grid of a quarter note. This is why I was using BPM as the frequency because BPM is quarter note = BPM and if you set the grid to quarter note, then the cycle is 1:1 to the beat in beats per minute.

This (having ARP/MS grid control) is good because you can set the grid to a smaller sub-division. Set the grid to eighth notes and motion sequence runs twice as fast. Set to 16th - 4x. Set to 32nd notes - 8x. So actually your max freq is:

(300(bpm or Hz in freq)) / (50% unit multiply) ... or 300 x 2 .. x 8 (set MS grid to 32nd notes)

300x2x8 = 4,800 Hz = 4.8kHz

That's one cycle.

Cutting each cycle into sub-divisions of 4 as drawn before you can achieve

4.8x4 = 19.2kHz if your modulation can follow something like the 4 triangle pattern or similar.

To get to the MS grid:

[PERFORMANCE] (HOME), then touch the Performance name at the top of the touchscreen, then choose edit, then choose the menus "Motion Seq" -> "Common", then change the parameter at the bottom-right corner "Arp/MS Grid" to 32nd note (value of 60) for the maximum speed. Set to a quarter note with unit multiply at 100% and you'll hear when setting the tempo to 60 that each cycle takes 1 second to complete. Keeping tempo at 60 (unit multiply at 100%) and Arp/MS Grid of 32nd note will take 1/8th of a second (125mS) to complete.

I think what you'll find is that the ARP/MS grid and Unit Multiply are "yin and yang". ARP/MS grid lets you subdivide the beat down quite a bit and unit multiply allows for getting back to standard BPM due to high time multiplication. This can be important if you want something to run really fast (many times faster than the nominal tempo) - like you're asking for - and still keep other things running at the nominal tempo.

In a vacuum one setting seems to be lopsided. And for certain applications this may be true. But you can see that looking at these two parameters together help make unit multiply and its limitations make a little more sense in context.

All that aside - the summary is that ARP/MS Grid may be a way you haven't considered yet how to make motion sequence run faster.

Edited to correct typo

This is insanity. The General obscuring and ruining The Common.

Am using the MODX as a small band in a box. More specifically, my daughter is. I’m torturing some sounds for her.

In that, for several reasons, I'd like the Motion Sequencer to run much faster.

I do not want to mess around with the common settings of the Arpeggios. She is using the arpeggios for other things, and reliant on them operating normally, in their common ways.

I do not want to mess around with the tempo, it’s intrinsic to the way the songs are being constructed to be played, she's reliant on the tempo for all sorts of things, in common ways.

In other words, a common usage is underlying all of what's going on, the MODX is being used as it was somewhat designed to be used, for live creative play, etc.

In that framework, is there a way to make the Motion Sequencer ran faster than 50% of the underlying tempo/beat?

Cycles.

Ignore any other information in this image - it was just lifted off of public sources (Yamaha motion sequence tutorial) just for the sake of showing where the terminology "cycles" comes from.

The word cycle, as used here, is the parent term. The child of this parent is the number of steps.

There are 16 steps in the Cycle in your screenshot.

A cycle of the motion sequencer can be of 1 to 16 steps.

This is the precise reason why the word Cycle is singular. This box should, for specificity, say Cycle Steps.

But it's just saying "hey, here is the setting for the length of the Motion Sequencer Cycle you're currently working on..."

The UI was designed by a programmer.

Since you seem to think somewhat like a programmer, consider the naming to be this:

SequenceCycleSteps[16]

They've done a very bad job of the UI, and the UX, too...

However, page 18 of the manual, you'll see they call them steps.

Page 37/38 they're describing a step's curve and value.

Page 40 they're referencing Lane Motion Seq “Step Curve Parameter”

Page 47 they discus a step's length value, and randomising the values of steps.

Page 48 talks about exactly this label in the UI, and that it's where you can select the desired step length of the Motion Sequence, and a little later on describes how you can access and edit the steps of a sequence, and how, within that editor, the label "Cycle" is used, once again, to provide the location for the setting of the number of steps in a single cycle of the sequencer.

And, on Page 49, having introduced all the above, there are at least dozen uses of the word step to talk about.... steps of the sequencer's cycle.

This is insanity.

Well, I thought you may think that.

Just, sometimes, read what people write at face value, please.

Every time - I read at face value. But - you know - there's details below the surface that you are not aware of or you wouldn't be asking. I take your request and do the best to fill in your gaps.

Here's the deal - you want "face value". There is no "face value" of a mystery. You wouldn't divulge anything specific you were trying to do. I implicitly warned you. That without the details - there will be guessing and consequences. You got motion sequence faster - but if there's other things you need - and something specific you want - there may be tradeoffs. I can't get into tradeoffs with a one-sided conversation. You get what you get.

You can go back and ramp up the arpeggio unit multiplier to get them back to normal speed. It requires programming. That's one tradeoff - you have to work to get what you want.

I still don't know if what you want will or will not be supported by the system. However, what details I have - it seems like you can get MS running fast and Arps running at normal speed.

I'm not sure what "Band In A Box" means exactly. I am aware of what PG Music thinks it means. And, if that's what you're after, the product that is more aligned with that style of operation is an arranger keyboard. Maybe you mean something else. "Torturing sounds" doesn't quite seem to fit anything I can help with. I think I know less of what that means.

At least now you say you have Arps going on -- that's a step in the right direction. You don't have to crank up the tempo to 300 just to get the fastest speed. What you "should" (or could) crank up the tempo to I can't tell you because you won't tell me the tempo. That may not matter if you're OK with not going the very fastest you could go and still maintain the fundamental target tempo.

And to actually learn all of this - you probably wouldn't want to start with a Performance running max simultaneous arpeggios and motion sequence. There's usually a process of learning the ABCs before sentences before short stories before novels. What I'm saying here is that assembling a "band in the box" with whatever requirements you envision on it and constraints you have shouldn't be the goal for this evening. Getting MS faster and learning how to do that seems like a reasonable chunk that's been largely covered. But you may want to dig more into how these settings relate to each other and what changes and what doesn't. So you're not guessing and understand the knobs you can turn.

Adding arpeggio timing adjustments is not far from MS - so you can work with that next. Then combine. But combine one arpeggio and one MS. Not the whole fort. At least, that's the walk-before-you-run suggestion.

I catch what you're throwing about this "Cycle" thing. And I agree the UI has lots of confusing things that ought not be that way. Sometimes terms are double-used so you need to preface what would otherwise be a short description with something longer to indicate which of the two choices you're referring to. Sometimes the labeling is in reverse logic - which makes sense once you decode -- but not altogether immediately intuitive.

The response you responded to which started the "cycle" debate started with: "Change to 60bpm, tempo sync, single cycle."

And so, since there's something to change in the GUI, I used the GUI term "Cycle" to put you in the right spot to change this.

But I can see other spots where, with the wrong interpretation of "cycle" the description could be confusing.

Maybe I'm not towing the terminology line if all pulses together are one cycle. Could be. I'll go back and edit. There aren't many spots since many times the context has the "Cycle" parameter to "1" which conveniently equates a cycle to a single pulse (or step) no matter what your interpretation is. I think we're on the same page here now.

A CYCLE can contain from 1 to 16 Steps.

“Steps” is the word you are looking for...

From the beginning, take it at face value.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO READ THE MIND OF PEOPLE YOU CANNOT SEE.

Best bit about this, there's no need to try.

It's right there in the question...

How do I make a faster sync to the underlying Tempo/Beat?

That's it. That's the question.

But you couldn't take it at face value, you had to go completely inane and insane in your attempt to speed up the Motion Sequencer, rather than simply taking the question at face value.

As to your "details below the surface".... think about it. On face value, the details below the surface are:

The question is not "How do I speed up the tempo so the Motion Sequencer runs faster"

Nor is it "How do I increase the rate of arps to increase the rate of a synced motion control?"
See the details below the surface???

They're at the face level of the surface... that the user wants to increase the rate of the sync between the Motion Sequencer and the underlying beat/tempo.

That's it.

THAT IS ALL.

Just read the question.

For anyone else reading this, both "answers" have claimed the length of a Motion Sequencer's cycle (1 to 16) impacts the rate of the cycling of the cycle.

This is not the case.

No matter the length of the Motion Sequencer's Cycle count, it's rate of play per step remains the same relative to the underlying Tempo/Beat.

This is a hardcoded timing system, that's always thinking in terms of 16 steps of a sequencer, and timing accordingly by "filling empty steps". Instead of being slower when there's only one step in the cycle's duration, it simply repeats that step 16 times across the same amount of time it'd have taken to play the cycle if it used all 16 steps.

So it's not possible to make the Motion Sequencer "run faster across each step" by packing it full of 16 steps.

This is exactly the same as how the Pattern Sequencer works.

Ignoring any contribution of the modulation waveforms, if you do not want to change the MS/ARP grid then tempo sync can only go 2x the given tempo as you've discovered.

In the second part of this, you've revealed the only true capacity for an increase to the sync ratio. It can be 4x the given tempo, by setting the MS Grid to 1/60th.

Unfortunately, this has the same effect on the Arpeggiator. Which is a great pity.

Shame they didn't make the MS Grid and the Arp time unit base into seperate things, that can be locked, and ratio'd to one another, but are independent of one another.

This would have been wonderfully useful.

On a side note, it seems that setting to 1/60th (MS Grid) whilst playing, the first time, causes a significant delay. This is repeatably noticeable, the first time the change is made. It's as if the MODX is doing some rendering of a lookup table that's taking some time. I think this is a bug, because it doesn't happen on subsequent settings of the MS Grid to smaller values, only the first time...

AND, there shouldn't be any need to render a lookup table, at all.

FYI: my feedback has been that increasing the "cycle" value does not make anything go faster. That was never my claim. This is why I suggested just using Cycle=1 since more doesn't buy you anything with respect to speed. Cycle>1 just gives you more variation but doesn't change the timing at all.

MS/ARP grid helps a lot . Unit multiply helps a little. And changing the tempo itself helps probably even less unless your tempo happens to be very low to begin with. Not that any/all of those are desirable to do - which is why learning more about the application was, up front, asked.

Hopefully you have what you need to make an informed decision about how to apply the capabilities to your situation and an accurate understanding of the limits.

Excuse my slight interjection in this heated debate....

Speeding up the frequency of any type of modulation (motion sequencer for example) will make the sound tend towards the sound of Ring Modulation.

As soon as the frequency of the Modulation reaches the lowest frequency of Human Hearing, the Modulation Frequency becomes a dominant audible pitch, obliterating/obscuring the original fundamental pitch of the note being modulated. What you are hearing is in effect the LFO.

It doesn't much matter what was being modulated originally (pitch, amplitude, phase, EQ, Q etc), what you hear starts off as a low buzz, and will become, eventually, a high pitched shriek.

So if that's what you want, there are Ring Modulation effects onboard.

Ring Modulation is, in effect, Frequency Modulation (FM). There's an FM synth onboard.

Maybe this helps. But noone really knows what you are trying to achieve other than exasperating the design limits of the product.

Maybe this helps. But noone really knows what you are trying to achieve other than exasperating the design limits of the product.

Speaking for yourself and projecting, I presume.

On your attempts at obfuscation based on audible rates of oscillation, just know this:

At common tempos and using common beats with arps running at common rates and using common step types, the Motion Sequencer can go nowhere near audible rates.

LFO's don't traditionally go into audible rates, either. HFO's do.

It's easy to be condescending, isn't it?

Hacking an LFO to run at audible rates means its no longer an LFO. It is just an O, as it's covering a much wider range of rates of oscillation, well outside the Low that the L stands for.

This was part of the last update. A mode of LFO operation that includes some part of audible rates was added. It's a good addition for any sound designing usage of MODX/Montage.

At any rate, it'd be wonderful if Yamaha added the ability to make the Motion Sequencer run at faster rates in common scenarios, and it seems relatively easy to do, and the faster rates desirable are common divisions (and inversions of the current slower rates) of the base rate, thereby slotting nicely into the thinking of users, and their usage of tempos, beats and arps at common rates.