+1 for librarian.

https://yamahasynth.com/blog/user-and-library

Useful tools/tips:
_ Always backup your work.(...)
_ You can assemble data from a Library by using the "Import Library" function (version 1.10 and later): UTILITY > Contents > Library Import

Importing copies from Library to User. This would "transfer" data from the selected library to your user area. Library and User area are distinct areas and one does not load into another - although library performances can be imported ("copied" from the the library) to the user area.

You are limited by the free space in your user area. Your user area is 640 performance slots total minus the number of used slots. If you are using 40 user performance slots, then 640-40 = 600 left over. Therefore, in this example you can import a total of 600 performances from a library or libraries.

Lets say you have 6 library slots.

Library Slot 1 contains 100 performances
Library Slot 2 contains 200 performances
Library Slot 3 contains 10 performances
Library Slot 4 contains 90 performances
Library Slot 5 contains 150 performances
Library Slot 6 contains 60 performances

The total performances in all of your libraries is 610 ... so you cannot import all of the data from all libraries into the user area (which, in the example, has 40 performances already in the user data). You need to "shave" 10 performances. Maybe not import any performances from Libary Slot 3. Maybe avoid importing 2 performances from slots 1,2,4,5, and 6 (10 total) but import all of Library Slot 3. Maybe you don't like anything but one performance from each library - plenty of space then. You get the picture.

Each library could be as big as 640 performances - but hardly any library you purchase or install is going to use up all 640 performances.

Assuming you're using the user area just to create a new library (combine a "best of" library from select pieces of other libraries) - you'll probably not want to mix in your current user data. So, if this is true, backup your user performances first - then initialize the user area - and start combining libraries. Maybe you DO want to merge your current user area with select parts of different libraries - then don't initialize first.

Other info:
https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/how-can-i-make-my-own-library-in-the-montage

There's lots of previous topics and people sorting through this every once in a while.

hi BM, what is the process if i want to load more than 7 libraries? how many libraries can i load to the user area? also wouldn't it be easier to load , swap performances, etc through a pc, so can that come in a future update ? basically connect the montage to a pc and manage all data settings through a librarian .

Hi Andy,
I do believe it would be easier to manage Libraries offline (in a computer) where you could easily build appropriate files. Building them there would make batch selections easier and the visuals perhaps more convenient, not to mention the speed of certain operations. What it will not speed up is the process of then installing the data to a playable state. That will remain constant. .

However, in order to play and make your selections, you will still need to Load the data to Montage, presumably assembling in the computer will be simple, but you still will need to create a file .X7L (Library) or .X7A (Backup), Export that to a USB drive. Clear the Montage completely - then load your new file to Montage.

Certainly, the real value of offline editing will be in Waveform creation. Something not available in the hardware.

I do believe that the longer you own Montage the more you recognize how to best and most efficiently utilize the Library spaces. To have a Library with 640 slots with just 16 Performances in it - is like buying a room filling bookshelf complex and only having a few books to put on those shelves. Take your time. Accumulate your data, assemble it into useful combinations of data as makes sense for your situation. A Library contains all the data to make your Performances play properly, including your User Arpeggios, Motion Sequences, Live Sets, Micro Tunings, etc. It takes some time to gain this perspective, and some time to manipulate it meaningfully. Take your time.

Some people will make it a mission to fill every slot. Some will place data in ROM that doesn't belong there because it's too much work to remove it. Others will populate it with data they never ever will use. But hopefully, it gets put to use - it is user definable memory. Out of the 6,347 Waveforms Yamaha chose for the Factory Wave ROM, many will never, ever be used by you... hopefully everything you choose for the Library ROM is exactly and only the stuff you will use.

There are eight Libraries by the way, not seven.

Hi, do not count only performances, a library contain this :

- Performance max. 640
- Curve max. 32 (for Control Assign & Motion Sequence)
- Arpeggio max. 256
- Motion Sequence max. 256
- User-Waveform max. 2,048
- Micro Tuning max. 8
- Live Set max. 256

So if you have two library with 150 "user" arpeggio but 100 performances each, you cannot have all "user arp" that the two library's contain even if you have enough place for performances.

Same think for User waveforms, motion sequences, curve, Live set ...

ok thanks all,i just need to manage this more intelligently. BM i like your analogy of a bookshelf. yes i and most users will never use all the waves. but i still think given the constraints users should be given flexibility to delete factory performances.

Bad Mister wrote:
I do believe that the longer you own Montage the more you recognize how to best and most efficiently utilize the Library spaces. To have a Library with 640 slots with just 16 Performances in it - is like buying a room filling bookshelf complex and only having a few books to put on those shelves. Take your time. Accumulate your data, assemble it into useful combinations of data as makes sense for your situation. A Library contains all the data to make your Performances play properly, including your User Arpeggios, Motion Sequences, Live Sets, Micro Tunings, etc. It takes some time to gain this perspective, and some time to manipulate it meaningfully. Take your time.

Yes time indeed. It takes too much time focussing on one thing. Better to allow users to select which things they want to store as a Library file (directly from the synth itself). This simple addition would be far more practical and would encourage far more books to appear on Library shelves IMO.

Please explain to me the most efficient way possible to "accumulate my data" and "assemble it into useful combinations of data as makes sense for your situation" as you see it.

Do you agree that being able to select which things from your User section you want to store as a Library file would be far more efficient? And do you think that it's possible that this procedure could be coded into a firmware update?

I work with it how it works, don't get me wrong, I love this instrument. Just always looking towards streamlining efficiency and logic and practicality.

Sometimes its hard to see what some one else is NOT seeing. And forgive me if I'm not understanding your comment but... It seems you are not clear about how the Library File is created. If I'm wrong< just ignore the following

You do select which Performances from your USER Bank you want to store as a Library. That is exactly what you do. The discussion we were having here was about what a computer tool would be useful in doing. But rest assured you can create Library data from the USER bank, right now that is the way you do it!

Yes, time. You are customizing a Wave ROM - the time it takes to do it pays dividends over the use of the Montage. It is not something you are doing every day. You are creating your own custom Wave ROM, equal to the Factory Wave ROM in access time and in for "being there" when you need them. You are writing a "catalog" of where to find the data for all the PARTs and future PARTs you create that use that particular Waveform/Sample set. And this will be in all the FILES that you create using YOUR Montage. Every SONG you do, every setup you create - the data you need will be located by the data in this "catalog".

Instead of writing all 1.75GB of data in every file, it simply has a "catalog" (Waveform List) that tells it where the specific data will be... So your every day files will be small, quick and agile to load and save.

This is why when you read that you cannot edit a Library, you have to understand what is being said. It is the same as you cannot edit a Preset. You can but in order to make change you have to Store it, in this case to "Store it" you must rewrite your ROM for long term storage. You don't need to do that -- You, of course, could edit it and use it and keep it in a User Bank File you load to USER. Remember you may recall the CFX + FM EP and create an edit where you replace the EP with an Organ... you store that to your USER Bank. USER Files can load and save in seconds. 640 sounds - zip, zip, zip... These can be edited data from Presets or edited data using your custom installed Library Wave ROM. (It takes a minute to sink in - but you are basically creating your own addition to the Montage WAVE ROM, which you can then use in creating scores and scores of variations) If you start thinking of it as you do the PRESETs Factory data, you will on the right track.

The time it takes in creating and installing your WAVE ROM (versus the XF and what you have to do there) is much, much improved. (I will not bore you with stories of how in the old days it took 20 hours to burn a 8MB Wave ROM, you wouldn't understand) ... 🙂

The first time you're doing it you are hyper aware of how much time it takes, but once you get your data in place - it is not something you do that often. More often you are loading USER Bank (and it will reference your installed data so no long load times, no waiting for stuff). If you do the assembly work properly and efficiently, when you need the data, it is seconds, Not Minutes, away.

Take your time. You will begin to see that the ONLY way to select which sounds get installed in a Library is from the USER Bank.
That's exactly how it works.

_ You can load data from the Motif XS/XF/MOXF directly to a Montage Library.
_ You can load data from the Motif XS/XF/MOXF directly to the Montage User Bank.

_ If you load the transfer data to a Library, then you would use IMPORT LIBRARY to transfer the "keepers" to the USER Bank. This allows you to assemble a "best of" collections from multiple installed Files (Libraries); leaving you with a USER Bank with just what you want to use to create your custom Library.
_ If you load the transfer data to the User Bank, you simply can delete the Performances you don't want to 'keep'; leaving you with a USER Bank with just the data you want to use to create your custom Library

You can use a combination of both methods... you assemble your 'keepers' in USER - then you create the .X7L file that you will "install" (I use the word "install" here because this is your long term storage - this you are going to burn to ROM for the long haul). Once you have your .X7L File you DELETE the temporary Library with the .X0A/.X3A/.X6A extension and replace it with your custom Montage version. The initial Load to Library was temporary and just so we could "play" the data. The data has to be in place - even to audition it. So loading a Motif XF file to a LIBRARY is necessary as it has to translate Motif data into Montage data. So even to audition the XF data you have to load it to Montage.

Once in Montage you can decide do I want to keep this data or not, on a PERFORMANCE by PERFORMANCE basis (this too, takes some time) Take your time... The goal is to start with a blank USER Bank (0/640) and fill it up with data. You have eight slots you can use them in any manner that suits you, there are no rules really.

Hope that helps. Again if I missed your point about the USER Bank, sorry, but not knowing your situation, I cannot make suggestions on what is the step-by-step actual best way to assemble your data. But if we can help, let us know.

I think the inference is that starting not with a library, but with a collection of user performances:

1) Saving all performances (SAVEME.X7U save)
2) Selecting+Deleting one half of the performances
3) Saving user performances to a library (VOL1.X7L)
4) Loading all performances back (SAVEME.X7U load)
5) Selecting+Deleting other half of the performances
6) Saving second set of user performances to a library (VOL2.X7L)

is less efficient than

1) Selecting (no deletion) one half of user performances to save to a library (VOL1.X7L)
2) Selecting other half of user performances to save to a library (VOL2.X7L)

... if such a workflow existed as it negates the need to save and recall user performances in order to accomplish this type of usage. It also skips having a separate action for delete which is an additional, yet minor minor efficiency gain.

That's one translation of the request. I had an earlier response queued up I never sent that had the same general sentiment as BM - that promoting content to a Library should have a high enough bar that:

a) The content you promote is not something you need to edit and make a new revision of the library anytime soon because it's not really a library for checking in/out books as much as it's an ARCHIVE for storing "forever" and also making photo-copies (make a user performance version of your library file - much like you do for presets for enhancing the preset/library starting point). But not for checking out of the library (removing) or marking in the book.

b) You're not going to need to do this whole process any time soon - or really ever for the same content. Which means there should be some reasonable planning to ensure you do not inflate the library or leave too much out such that you're going to have to maintain your library routinely.

The general guidance may change if libraries can be generated on a computer using X7U, other X7L, or any of the previous X3?, X0?, .. and so on formats as inputs. Then you can self-regulate how much time you want to spend deleting and installing different libraries that are relatively easy to create.

I agree there are improvements that could be made - but I've spent all the time since owning the keyboard in the "planning" stages of making a library - not having generated one yet. So the inefficiencies that do exist do not affect me. Once I generate a library - if everything is the same - I'll be reminded of how Yamaha elects to do things - which is how they've "always" worked - will slightly grit my teeth (if that's warranted) - but the process will work, be straight-forward, will be simple (even if a few steps more than it could otherwise be), and I'll get through it.

Jason wrote:

I think the inference is that starting not with a library, but with a collection of user performances:

1) Saving all performances (SAVEME.X7U save)
2) Selecting+Deleting one half of the performances
3) Saving user performances to a library (VOL1.X7L)
4) Loading all performances back (SAVEME.X7U load)
5) Selecting+Deleting other half of the performances
6) Saving second set of user performances to a library (VOL2.X7L)

is less efficient than

1) Selecting (no deletion) one half of user performances to save to a library (VOL1.X7L)
2) Selecting other half of user performances to save to a library (VOL2.X7L)

Yes Jason, this^ (with "one half" of course being just a simple example of many possibilities)

Bad Mister wrote:
You do select which Performances from your USER Bank you want to store as a Library. That is exactly what you do.

Technically, no. Exactly what you have to do now is store everything that is in the USER Bank as your Library file. Your version of "select" is to delete all the Performances from USER Bank that you don't want to be in the Library and then save what's left to the Library file. This is spelt out by Jason above.

Hello all - I think we're not grasping each other's problems! Say I want to save my 'Piano' Category to a Library for safe-keeping. To do that I have to save every User file that exists on my Montage into a new Library on the USB, then load it back onto the Montage, open it and select all my Piano sounds from the 633 Pfs I have loaded, convert them into a User bank (so that they are then the only User files on my Montage), then save them again to a Library file. I think I have that right? Now, the problem arises because my Piano Pfs have names (about 60 at the moment) but the Library file deploys in alphabetical order - ouch! So my Piano Pfs are scattered throughout the Library - and I don't remember all 60 names - so I have to first write them all down, and then search them out. That is not a good way to achieve a simple aim.

So I am advocating a change, maybe an option, to at least allow owners to load single Categories as Library files. This would take probably less than 10 minutes, as opposed to almost an hour using the existing system.

A not-so-good alternative is for Library files to load Categories in sequence - all the Pianos, then all the Keyboards, then all the Organs and so on which would make it much quicker to separate the Categories for subsequent.re-saving as Libraries - but this is nowhere near as good or simple as loading individual Categories in the first place.

Hi Rod,

I understand how the Category system of saving Libraries (that you are requesting) would maximise your own workflow on the Montage but it is most likely that if any change is to be made (to the code in the Montage via firmware update) to allow users to save selected USER performances, it is most likely that they would add this functionality via the Utility-->Contents-->/Store/Save menu (which altogether is still a clunky option but it would still be more efficient than the current process!)

So assuming this, you would still miss out on what you want to achieve unless they added sorting via categories as an option to the Utility-->Contents-->Store/Save menu. Now while I agree that this would be a great addition to that menu in the context of workflow that you described using categories, I think it's a less likely/less easy to change part of the firmware and altogether a different (or additional) thing to the change in the code required to simply be able to save any selected Performances into a Library file.

One step at a time to sort through the code design and optimisation.

This is assuming that selection of Performances to save to a Library file was done via Utility-->Contents-->Store/Save menu.

Again, even better would be ability to select Performances you wanted to save from the USER Bank via a "job" button in Category Search screen (that is only available when in the USER Bank). (Likewise, having the ability to delete selected Performances from the USER Bank via Category Search screen too would be fantastic).

But if you think about it, they'd most likely add this to the clunky Utility-->Contents-->Store/Save menu.

Just being able to select whichever patches you like from the USER Bank to save as a Library, from any category (without having to delete anything) is the key point here. Further, saving this new Library file directly to USB would be ideal if possible. And.. Even if this functionality was only possible via the Utility-->Contents-->/Store/Save menu (which altogether is still a clunky option) it would still be more efficient than the current process as outlined by Jason above.

Here is an example of an ideal situation which I believe maximises both your request and mine:

1) Go into some kind of Category Search screen "job" mode
2) Select the category (and/or subcategory)
3) Select all the patches you want from that category (which could be a lot I know) (pressing "select all" or something would be good).
4) Press "Save to Library file" (Preferably being able to name the Library file whatever you like at this point).

That is, while you are in "job" mode (in Category Search) you can select any patches from your USER Bank (from any category) and continue to do so until you exit "job" mode. And... "job" mode should allow deletion of selected Performances too!

But like I said, I imagine that the ability to save selected Performances to Library file would most likely be added to Utility-->Contents-->Store/Save menu, not the Category Search screen.

One step at a time :p

Joe

Hello Joe - what you're suggesting is a big refinement on my request, and made with much more practical knowledge than I have. I thought I'd be making things easier for Yamaha by cutting down the degree of sophistication, and therefore be more likely to succeed! I see that in my workaround I forgot about having to delete all the other User files before saving my selected Category as a Library - not to mention having to repeat the entire thing every time I wanted to add even one more creation ... what amazes me is the lack of support for such a massively useful function! I notice the huge numbers viewing anything to do with additional voices etc:, but no-one appears to be thinking about how they're going to handle all these extra Pfs!

That there is a lack of support is a huge assumption. If you read the tea leaves - you can see Yamaha information dating back to a very early time in Montage release that states library creation is only available by Montage "at this time". The "at this time" part hints at another time when something else can create a library. You see similar hints about other features which were later released so now, for other features not initially available for Montage, have made "at this time" today.

There may be work ongoing to enhance the library creation process. I think it is good/useful to share your suggestions on how to improve Montage and detail areas where a design choice "gets in the way". Yamaha does a reasonable job of internalizing feedback and making adjustments.

As with anything else - you're going to have to adjust your expectations and workflow to what tools/methods are available to you today. Spending the time will allow you to get to the end result you want - even if the path is not as efficient as you would otherwise want. Taking notes on what you have to do and following this will allow you to become proficient at the system provided as it stands today.

Jason wrote:
I think it is good/useful to share your suggestions on how to improve Montage and detail areas where a design choice "gets in the way". Yamaha does a reasonable job of internalizing feedback and making adjustments.

Indeed.

Jason wrote:
As with anything else - you're going to have to adjust your expectations and workflow to what tools/methods are available to you today. Spending the time will allow you to get to the end result you want - even if the path is not as efficient as you would otherwise want. Taking notes on what you have to do and following this will allow you to become proficient at the system provided as it stands today.

Indeed.