I've actually never used the SuperKnob to do this, and don't know how it handles such things if you program it to adjust the levels of Parts of a multi-Part sound if they are at disparate levels to begin with.

If there's only one multi-Part instrument then Super Knob is fine unless Super Knob is being used already for something else. The Common Assignable Knobs become better candidates since there's an array of them for several multi-Part instruments giving you knob volume like MOXF (which I didn't like ... and, btw - my comment earlier was mostly neither MOX nor MOXF had sliders -- but my experience using volume knobs was with MOXF exclusively. At any rate, thanks for the clarification).

The way you would do this with with Super Knob is identical as to doing this with Common Assignable knobs. Because you would have to have the "same" Common Assignable knob programming only linking the same Common Assignable knobs to Super Knob. I think it'd generally be better to de-link these from Super Knob to free up Super Knob and give you one knob for every group of Parts you want to control. And, certainly, the curve within each Part can have a different slope and/or shape so that individual Parts within the group can decay differently.

Although this wasn't in my thinking - such a system can not only have a mechanism from decoupling - but also a mechanism to couple. So, if you wanted, you could take any combination of Parts (multi-Part, single Part instruments) and assign them to a new group. So you could make a layer of, for example, a 2-Part instrument plus a 3 1-part instruments and control the whole lot with a single slider.

And yes, the initial suggestion of how linked Parts would work agrees completely with what you wrote. The ID would group Parts so no matter what Parts they end up in from a merge (copying from presets to a user Performance) - the link would stay in tact. And certainly a way to remove from the group should you choose to restore any Part back to the old not-grouped way would be there so there's no loss of functionality for implementing this. I don't know if there's an ideascale yet or not.

What's proposed is less rip-and-replace. Just a link mechanism (8 maximum) and first out of the chute for sliders to piggy back on the link. I fleshed it out more inside an existing idea that was light in implementation details but generically expressed a similar idea.

https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/c/idea/278693

I think once you start turning the user interface upside down it makes it difficult to get adoption. Just need a way to opt in/out of G1-G8 (group 1 through group 8) and same-group Parts would take volume control from any slider within the group. G1, for example, could be assigned to all 16 Parts or any 2 Parts. If G1-G8 are assigned to a single Part only then it's really the same as having no group assigned to that Part.

I'd suggest that it isn't enough to just try to deal with 'volume'. What about 'pan' and other 'instrument level' items.

Already covered in the idea linked.

[quotePost id=116639]

I'd suggest that it isn't enough to just try to deal with 'volume'. What about 'pan' and other 'instrument level' items.

Already covered in the idea linked.

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At this point we've got a greater chance of Yamaha Open Sourcing the OS for us to meddle with than of them doing any significant and/or meaningful updates to the OS.

You never know what aligns with firmware delivery objectives. Might as well wish for what you want on record on Ideascale where there's more chance of adoption than here. The forum isn't a bad place to test the waters or double check you're not asking for something already in the box (but unaware).

[quotePost id=116632]
1. a new 'Instrument' layer (and screen) that sits between the current 'Performance' layer and the current 'Part' layer.

2. The current 'Performance' screen might show up to 16 'Instruments' rather than the 16 parts it shows now.
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I'm not sure whether that approach has a net effect of making things simpler or more complicated! 😉

Keep in mind that you can't possibly have 16 Instruments if any one of them has more than one Part... and if all your Instruments were only Single-Part Instruments, this whole issue would be non-existent to begin with. So you're proposing a 16-instrument "layer" where, if you had any purpose for it at all (i.e. you're using multi-part instruments), some of those 16 locations would necessarily need to be empty. So now you also need some way to communicate whether "instrument slots" are or are not available, based on how many Parts are being used in the Instruments that are already in use. I don't know, I think maybe you're trading off one messy situation for another, and essentially adding a new "operating mode" to a system which tries to minimize the sense that you're ever operating in different modes.

Feel free to post alternatives to Ideascale. I think we all agree on the generic end goal which is the key. Yamaha is going to pick their own path even if they decide to tackle the idea. So the more alternatives and varying biases the better.