I'm leveraging BM's experience here - this is what had me follow the path of describing -- if there were less bytes -- where this would be more meaningful (over the MIDI bus not USB storage).

My comment about taking two to tango I think is what's making the results seem to conflict with BM's thoughts on the efficiency as a possible motive.

If there is conservation of parameters in the USB sticks (user, library, all files), internal memory, and across the wire with "slow" MIDI over various electrical physical layers then I would take a gander that these show up when either Part Zone is OFF or Zone Master is OFF. Either one OFF, I'm guessing, will reduce the bits if that is to happen. And that only having both turned ON would consume more bytes.

Which brings me back to the same conclusion that it wouldn't really matter and Zone Master could be on by default with no consequence to any Preset. Since all Performances' Parts have Part Zone turned off (as far as I know) - nothing would happen to an initialized keyboard when you toggled Zone Master. It's only when it meets content you've changed through programming or loading some data file (X?U, X?L, X?A, X?B) that this would possibly matter. And then it would depend on those Parts inside those Performances having Part Zone turned ON.

The biggest "problem" you would have by having Zone Master turned ON all the time is if you have your keyboard configured as Hybrid or Single (already non-defaults) and you somehow have Parts with Part Zone turned on (I would say "accidentally" - because this would mean you don't really want to use zones) and you -don't- want some specific Performance(s) to be Multi-Channel. By this I mean those specific Performance(s) that "accidentally" have Part Zone turned on which would invoke the "Zone Master + Part Zone ON defeats single/hybrid and forces multi-channel" rule. Remember this is about not wanting to defeat Single/Multi channel (meaning you're in one of those two modes). If you're in multi-channel mode already then there's no defeating "gotcha" business.

I think you can freely leave Zone Master ON without any problems. The only "gotcha" case involves having to have Part settings counter to every Part reference you can start with in the Presets and hardly seems like a pitfall even if you start with library/user file content.

This tumor is benign.

[quotePost id=118994]

and maybe put it into Multi mode, but I think maybe that's the default anyway?

Bad Master already covered that in an earlier reply

When Zone Master is enabled in [UTILITY] and the current Performance has one or more Zone Switches set to On, this setting overrides a global “MIDI I/O Mode” = "Single" or "Hybrid" setting for the individual Performance. Activating any Zone Switch within a Performance (ZoneMaster enabled) automatically changes the status to address multiple devices (same as if “MIDI I/O Mode” = “Multi”.

[/quotePost]
That quote from Bad Mister does not cover the answer to that question, which was whether Multi is indeed the default, since I didn't remember whether or not that was the case. But Jason answered that question in the next message, where he said, "if you have your keyboard configured as Hybrid or Single (already non-defaults)". Since those are not the default, then the default is indeed Multi (since those are the only three options).

[quotePost id=118995]Which brings me back to the same conclusion that it wouldn't really matter and Zone Master could be on by default with no consequence to any Preset.[/quotePost]
At this point, that's my thought as well. Which means, IMO, Yamaha should have made this parameter default to On. Because having it default to Off seems to provide no benefit of consequence, while unnecessarily adding an unintuitive step for every customer who ever wants to trigger an external device. But as they say, it is what it is.

[quotePost id=118996]

Once you do {set Zone Master to on, and if need be, toggle the 5-pin vs. USB parameter}, someone with just some basic familiarity with keyboards and MIDI could probably figure out the rest without even opening a manual.

LOL! Good luck with that.[/quotePost]
Once you're on the Performance Home screen of the Performance to which you'd like to add an external zone, these are the steps, which I think are almost entirely intuitive:

1. Select the Part which you want to set up to transmit to an external device, by tapping on the name of the Part. (Knowing how to select a Part to be able to Edit may be the trickiest part of this, but it is something you quickly have to learn in order to do practically anything, so let's assume someone has already learned that much before getting to the point where they want to start controlling external devices.)
2. Tap "Edit"
3. Tap "Zone Settings"
4. Tap the "Zone" field (the only field there is) to toggle it to On
5. Tap "Transmit Ch"
6. Tap the number of the desired transmit channel, and close the pop-up.
7. Enter the desired Program Change values, in the obvious spots for them. Make other obvious changes if desired (key range, octave shift), nothing at all tricky there.
8. Here's the one bit that I think might trip someone up without further research... toggle off "Int SW" if you don't want the Part to play an internal sound as well. I think they could probably have squeezed in a more descriptive heading for that field, like "Internal Sound." Or they could have made it more intuitively understandable in context by changing both the name of that field and the field to its left, e.g. "EXT Zone" and "INT Sound" (where, just as now, you could toggle either to ON or OFF). Sometimes what makes something simpler or more complicated just comes down to what word(s) you use to describe it.
9. click Store, to save your changes to the Performance as usual.

For almost every step, you are just tapping on what you want or entering obvious info in obvious places. It really seems pretty straight-forward to me. Once you get past the one-time global settings which are the ones that are not so obviously discovered.

[quotePost id=118996]

(Other than maybe needing to set the output to 5-pin or USB, if it turns out they want to use the non-default connection.)

MIDI out means 5-pin[/quotePost]
I was speaking in terms of the connection, not the labels. I guess I could have typed "5-pin MIDI or USB" instead of simply "5-pin or USB," to make it even more clear.

[quotePost id=118996]And there is MIDI Sync and Arp MIDI Out to consider also.[/quotePost]Unlike the parameters I've mentioned, you don't actually need to do anything with those to be able to successfully create a zone that sends MIDI out to a given device on a certain channel. But of course, there are additional things one can configure if one needs to.

[quotePost id=118996]It's global and sticky. Once it's ON it stays on until you turn if OFF.[/quotePost]I know. That's why I said I wanted to be sure I was not "missing some reason I might want to turn ZM back off when I'm not using the zoning functions". Because yes, once it's on, it stays on, unless I turn it off.

1. Select the Part [...]
2. Tap "Edit"
3. Tap "Zone Settings"
4. Tap the "Zone" field (the only field there is) to toggle it to On

And once you're here turning on Part Zone you're breaking from default. Since none of the factory Parts (that I'm aware of) have Part Zone turned on.

... and once you're here the conversation changes to how intuitive is this thing? I do think it's OK - but I wished there was a way to put up (and take down) a wall between your internal sound for this Part and external. Take the octave shifting. I like that you can make it impact the internal Part. Sometimes this Zone setting purely for internal use is the best way to shift around your pitches. That said, sometimes I just want to shift around my external gear and maybe I'd prefer to have this Part w/Zone ON both transmit to external gear and also to the internal tone generator. Unfortunately the offsets you put in here for note shifting are peanut butter spread across both internal and external without an option for only selecting one or the other or both. I'd be happy with just an "opt out" button for the internal note shifting without having the full configurability of opt out and in for both ext/int. What I would like or want is not really material here - I bring this up more to illustrate how if you rigidly (and, btw - I think it's logical to think this way) think that Zone is all about external devices - you'd be wrong. And here's where things can get murky. Of course it requires INT SW is ON -- and turning it off for most applications may shield you from this "consequence".

The note range works the same way - it will affect the internal and external sounds. This is the primary reason why I would have a Part not pull double duty of internal+external. What I normally do, if I want int+ext control, is program the external gear for the split so I don't have to have the master controller do this and then the range can be left wide open C-2 to G8 since the target slave device is handling its own note range.

Even though I think this is a possible tripping point - it's only for a certain configuration that may not be very likely for most (having Int SW ON). And at least when I ran into this it took maybe 10 minutes to run through the system and find out what was going on and what my options were for note shifting and a little longer to see how to deal with note ranges.

It makes sense but may not be intuitive at first glance that the note range is for transmit only. One may think that this is the note range of the external gear so if my external gear sends notes outside of this range then they will not trigger the Part. This isn't the case. The Part-Zone note range takes over the range of keys that trigger the tone generator and the external device on the Part's transmit MIDI channel. The incoming MIDI coming from your MIDI-connected device (with the same MIDI CH setting as this Part's transmit channel) is "filtered" by the Part-level note range. At first I thought the Part-level note range was completely overridden. It's not. Just the transmit side. The Part-level note range has a unique purpose even when Zone's note range is in control of the tone generator for your piano keys. Incoming MIDI from outside devices (USB TO HOST port, 5-Pin DIN, etc) is what the Part-level range is now all about.

Note ranges have always been dynamic (not static, state based, etc). Because ARPs can change the personality or meaning of what these ranges do too. So having to remember what happened to note ranges has always been a thing even outside of Zones.

I do enjoy the flexibility and there are nice ways to use these "in the cracks" consequences. There's a heavy burden to keep everything straight - but I'm glad there are some options even if I wish for more.

[quotePost id=119000]
Let's not get hung up on semantics and try to interpret comments in the full context of the thread.
[/quotePost]

This is ironic, self referential humour, right?

RIGHT!!!???

[quotePost id=119000]

That quote from Bad Mister does not cover the answer to that question, which was whether Multi is indeed the default,

I wasn't trying to address whether Multi is the default because whether it is the default doesn't make any difference at all. This was what I quoted

and maybe put it into Multi mode, but I think maybe that's the default anyway?

Maybe it would have been clearer to you what I was saying if I used the full quote

except that, the first time you do it, you need to go to the Utility section to turn Zone Master on (and maybe put it into Multi mode, but I think maybe that's the default anyway?).

In that quote you are saying you may have to 'put it into Multi mode'.

No you do NOT have to put it into Multi mode. Bad Mister explains why in his quote that I used.

Activating any Zone Switch within a Performance (ZoneMaster enabled) automatically changes the status to address multiple devices (same as if “MIDI I/O Mode” = “Multi”.

You NEVER have to put it into Multi mode to use zones but you do need to set Zone Master ON.
[/quotePost]
Ah, I see what happened. You didn't quote too little, you quoted too much. 😉 I would have gotten it if you had simply quoted "and maybe put it into Multi mode." But since you quoted "and maybe put it into Multi mode, but I think maybe that's the default anyway," I thought you were addressing whether or not Multi mode was the default. Whoops!

[quotePost id=119000]

It really seems pretty straight-forward to me.

I'm happy for you - you are the exception to the rule. The issue of how to properly enable, and use, zones is one of the most often ask questions on the forum. And a main reason why Bad Mister wrote detailed articles about how to do it.

You even commented about that yourself when you said this:

This actually first came up because someone online was saying that setting up external zones on the MODX was difficult

[/quotePost]
I know people are confused about it. My point is, the single most confusing part (IMO), is that you have to turn Zone Master on first. Fix that, and the rest is pretty easy (again, in terms of just setting up an external zone to transmit on a certain channel, with basic parameters like Program Change). Remember the context: I didn't say it "seems pretty straight-forward to me" as it currently is, out of the box, but rather it "seems pretty straight-forward to me" after turning on the ZM function, which is why I was suggesting it could be more straight-forward for other people if, out of the box, that function simply defaulted to On instead of Off.

To illustrate: If I were a moderately experienced keyboard MIDI user, walking over to a MODX and trying to "guess" how to control what MIDI channel a Part would transmit on, the first thing I'd try would be to select the Part, locate its Editing functions, and then look for Zone parameters. The biggest stumbling block here is that the Zone parameters are NOT THERE until you turn on the global utility Zone Master function. Toggle that one setting located somewhere else entirely, and voila, all the Zone parameters are right there, where you looked in the first place and expected to find them. Bingo!

Of course there is much more to understand, like why you should put your external devices on channels 9-16, etc. I'm not saying that every aspect becomes simple, or that BM's article isn't full of other valuable info. I'm just saying that, once ZM is enabled, I think merely finding and setting a Part's basic Zone parameters becomes pretty simple and obvious... they are right where I think someone would expect them to be, and generally clearly labeled.

[quotePost id=119000]

MIDI out means 5-pin

I was speaking in terms of the connection, not the labels. I guess I could have typed "5-pin MIDI or USB" instead of simply "5-pin or USB," to make it even more clear.

I don't see how you could have been speaking in terms of the connection when you said 'set the output to 5-pin or USB'.
[/quotePost]
You can see how I "could have been speaking in terms of the connection" by looking at that quoted phrase in context: "set the output to 5-pin or USB, if it turns out they want to use the non-default connection."

Again, I suppose I could have been more clear... instead of saying "set the output to 5-pin or USB" I could have said "set the appropriate parameter to use the 5-pin or USB connection" though I actually think that's unnecessarily redundant, considering my use of the word "connection" in the next phrase. Anyway, I didn't think anyone would find what I said confusing or unclear it its intent, or would read that and not know what I meant, but hopefully it's more clear now!

[quotePost id=119000]You can NOT set the output at the connection. All you can do at the connection is plug in a MIDI cable.

You can ONLY set the output using the MIDI In/Out Parameter on the MIDI I/O page as you actually said when you said this

Once you do {set Zone Master to on, and if need be, toggle the 5-pin vs. USB parameter},

[/quotePost]
The fact that there ARE no controls literally at the connection points, and that you're quoting back to me here that I "actually said" there was a toggle-able parameter, makes me surprised to see that you thought I was ever meaning to say anything to the contrary. Unless you're just hung up on the semantics of how I described it, in which case, see:

[quotePost id=119000]Let's not get hung up on semantics and try to interpret comments in the full context of the thread.
[/quotePost]
Also picking up from Andrew's comment... yeah, context is important. Note the places I underlined the word above. You had parsed my comments to make ambiguous things which, when put in context, were more clear or meant something different from what you said they did.

[quotePost id=119001]

1. Select the Part [...]
2. Tap "Edit"
3. Tap "Zone Settings"
4. Tap the "Zone" field (the only field there is) to toggle it to On

And once you're here turning on Part Zone you're breaking from default. Since none of the factory Parts (that I'm aware of) have Part Zone turned on.

[/quotePost]
Right, we're breaking from default, but I'm not sure why that is significant. Any time we make any change, by definition, we're altering a default. We're making a change because we want it to do something other than what it does by default. 🙂

But sure, it makes sense that no factory Parts would have Zone set to On (unless maybe they ALL did). There's no rationale for Yamaha to "pre-configure" some parts to have different external MIDI settings than others. (Unless they had some special category of Parts pre-designated for particular MIDI functions, or something along those lines.)

[quotePost id=119001]

1. Select the Part [...]
... and once you're here the conversation changes to how intuitive is this thing?[/quotePost]
See my answer to Bill earlier in this post. The basics of how to set up an external zone become easier if you don't need to know to turn Zone Master on first... but of course there can still be other aspects that can be complicated.

[quotePost id=119001]What I would like or want is not really material here - I bring this up more to illustrate how if you rigidly (and, btw - I think it's logical to think this way) think that Zone is all about external devices - you'd be wrong. And here's where things can get murky. Of course it requires INT SW is ON -- and turning it off for most applications may shield you from this "consequence"

...

Even though I think this is a possible tripping point - it's only for a certain configuration that may not be very likely for most (having Int SW ON).[/quotePost]
Handling internal and external sounds from the same Part is something I would consider an advanced use (for reasons like those you demonstrated). It's good to be able to do it, but yes, it will always add complications. For most "typical" uses, I would lean toward using one Part for the internal sound and another Part for the external sound.

To me, this is similar to the guidance suggesting you keep your external devices set to channels 9 through 16. Is it essential? No. Are there circumstances where you might not want to follow that advice? Sure. But as a rule, unless you need to do some less common, more advanced stuff, following that suggestion will generally do a better job at letting you do what you want while keeping you out of trouble. Same with keeping your internal and external sounds in different Parts.