Lanny, that is correct.
The 8 Control Sliders act as Element Level when in Voice mode, and can be used as pseudo-Drawbars (they technically are not, but technically the XF is a synth, not an organ). That said, routing a sound to the Assignable Outputs is fantastic and can make, in particular, the tone wheel organ sounds incredible (a Leslie, awesome!)

The tradeoff is you must place it in a Part (meaning Performance or Song/Pattern Mixing - which as you correctly surmise eliminates the individual Element Level controls via the eight CS. Because they now are Part Volume.

But, of course, if you want to accomplish this, there is a way. The Motif XF can, in Master mode, transmit on eight MIDI channels simultaneously. So by making each "drawbar" footage a separate User Voice, and then placing each as a Part of a Song or Pattern Mixing, you can address them, once again, separately via the Control Sliders.

To accomplish this workaround, you can use ALL BARS PERC as the template to create your 8 separate Voices.
If you know this Voice, the first "drawbar" combines the 16 foot and the 8 foot as a single Element.
The second Element is the quint 5-1/3'
The third Element is the 4'
The fourth is 2-2/3'
The fifth is 2'
The sixth is 1-3/5'
The seventh is 1-1/3'
The eighth is 1'

Make each one a separate user Voice. This can be done quite quickly by turning OFF the other Elements and storing it with just the one business Element set On.

Place your 8 new User Voice in Parts 1-8 of a Song MIXING setup. One per MIDI channel. Set each of the Parts to OUTPUT SELECT = Asgn L&R

Then you can then link this Song setup to a Master program with 8 Zones, one transmitting on each channel, 1-8... internally.
That's the idea... worth the work though... if you need more details let me know... the result will be 8 Control Sliders - each acting as a pseudo-drawbar...tweak until you're happy. Let us know.

Fantastic. I'll give it a go. Thanks:) 🙂 🙂 🙂

Phil - if i just want to route an organ voice through an external effects (a Neo Vent in my case), can I do that just using PERF mode. I'm already set up with 20+ songs in Perf mode, I've never "mastered" (ok, pun intended) either song mode so it would be very advantageous near term if I can just route a PERF voice without switching everything over to Song mode.

Imagine a PERF with a Wurly, a Moog and B3 voice (I know, kick ass old school rock setup there, eh?). I want to route just the B3 voice to a Neo but I don't need the individual drawbar (8 sliders) control on the B3.

@ David
Just set the Organ Part's "Output Select" to the Assignable Output(s) as required- store your Performance.

Cool, you are the bad master mister! on er which screen do i find this "output select" parameter? Nevermind, found it in the Ref Guide. its on the Voice Output tab (in Perf). damn I'm lazy!

Hey, since I got you here - can I do the same on a MOXF6 - does it even have assignable outs? (lol, of course I should know ). ok ok, yes, lazy. i'll go look and come back if confused.

ok, I'm going to say NO on the MOXF as it has no assignable output jacks.