Hi Jack,

installing data to the Flash Board is complicated (no doubt) - The first thing to grasp is this... It is accomplished through a LOAD function.
So before you ever work with a Flash Board, the thing to do is, first, understand what the Load process is about and how the XF utilizes the data that you load.

It is impossible to understand why it is so complicated until you understand the *problem* that is being solved by the Flash Board.
Once that is understood, then you can appreciate what and why it works the way it does.

If you would rather not go this route, and simply just want to load particular sounds... That's ok too, just let us know specifically which data you wish to load, we can point you in the correct direction.

We agree it is complicated, but the upside is instead of just having the programmers at Yamaha selecting the WAVE ROM for you, with the Flash Boards: YOU get customize your own Wave ROM!!!

Yamaha gives you 3977 Waveform from which the entire set of over 1100 Preset Voices are made.
The Flash Boards gives you an opportunity to hand pick as many as 4096 Waveforms that you can place on your Boards (2048 on each Board slot) from which you can build your own Voice Libraries. You can build as many Voices as you desire from your selected Waveforms. (yes, you can have more Voices than Waveforms - that is what is complicated)

The key point to grasp is VOICES use these Waveforms as 'sound sources'.
A Voice is a set of parameters that all together make a playable sound. It can be made up of as few as one and as many as eight Waveforms. A Waveform can contain as few as one and as many as 256 samples.

You could build a Voice from a single Waveform, let's say you select a "Sawtooth" Waveform... That becomes the OSCILLATOR.

In a synth the Oscillator goes to a Filter (where you can change its tone), the Filter feeds into an Amplifier where you can change its loudness shape(how it comes in at Key On. What it's does when you hold a Key, and how it disappears when you release the Key). But in a sample playback instrument the Oscillator is always this recorded audio - which can be as small as a few kilobytes and as big as 64 megabytes!

That single Oscillator Waveform can be programmed into hundreds of different Voices, by how you manipulate the Filter and the Amplifier blocks.

The oscillator (waveform) is the audio sample. The single Sawttoth Waveform can be made into String sounds, Brass sounds, Pads, Leads, etc. etc. depending on how you program the other components of the Voice.

If the Sawtooth Waveform is among the 3977 Waveforms that Yamaha permanently placed in the Motif XF Wave ROM, each Voice that uses that Waveform will point to a specific location in the Wave ROM.

The most important thing to take away from this is the following: A Waveform can be shaped into lots of different sounds. You can use a single Waveform to create hundreds of different sounds.

From a Sample Library you can choose to load a single Voice. The XF will place the audio Sample onto your Flash Board by *installing* that audio in semi-permanent memory on your Board... It then loads the rest of the Voice parameters to an internal location of your choosing.

The XF must then make sure your selected User Voice location "knows" where the Sampled audio is placed. So it creates a "catalog" (Waveform List) that contains information about each Voice you load, and where that Voice must look to find its correct Waveform data.

Call up any Voice
Press [EDIT]
Press [1] to view Element parameters
Press [F1] OSCILLATOR
Study this page... Here you will see exactly where the Voice "points to" its audio data.

Best way to learn is pick *a* Voice you want to load, and follow what takes place when you load it ... Let us know which Voice you would like use to learn this... Trust us, it is complicated but it is doable.

Thank you for taking the time to explain.
I'll follow direction and see how it goes!!
Happy NewYear.