If you are talking applying Velocity to cc005 (Portamento Time) this is not possible in the Motif XF.

If however, you want to apply Velocity to pitch change, this is very possible in the Motif XF. There is a comprehensive area in the firmware for applying velocity to pitch sensitivity. Please see the Reference Manual starting on page 71-74. You don't mention what you want to accomplish in terms of a musical result only that you wish to use Velocity. The PEG area within each Element allows a great deal of pitch movement in response to Velocity including increasing or decreasing the amount of change.

Thanks Phil. In the user's manual there is a part which it talks about portamento: we have rate and time.

What exactly is rate? It says the Pitch changes at the specified rate but what is this rate and how is it calculated?

***Phil, I earnestly and humbly implore Yamaha (desperately) to add this feature to MOTIF XF 🙁 All of the String VSTs that I've worked with are capable of doing this and they all use it extremely heavily! It is musically very important. It saves lot of editing time If I'm able to control things through velocity and record them either in MOTIF or in a DAW.

Perhaps my answer was not clear, Yamaha has chosen a different method to accomplish this goal; by giving the player control over pitch change with its own programmable Envelope Generator sensitive to velocity (as well as rates and time parameters). Forgive me, but we find it very musical. Now, it may not be what you have gotten used to with the various VSTi's you may have worked with, undoubtedly 'easy' being its main draw, but I recommend it at least worth considering the PEG portion of the XF engine. Who knows? You may find it more musical to use. At least try it so I can give what you've recommended a position as an improvement, a move backward or just simply a different way of accomplishing the musical goal.

"Rate" is a measure of how fast something is moving
"Time" is a measure of how long it takes something to occur

At a fixed rate it takes more time to travel a longer distance.
Portamento Time Determines the pitch transition time or rate when Portamento is applied. Higher values result in a longer pitch change time. The effect of the parameter depends on the settings of the Portamento Time Mode.

Portamento Time Mode
Determines how the pitch changes in time.
Rate1: Pitch changes at the specified rate.
Time1: Pitch changes in the specified time.
Rate2: Pitch changes at the specified rate within an octave.
Time2: Pitch changes in the specified time within an octave.

Sorry Phil I'm totally lost now. Would you please explain to me how I can combine portamento (under Common Edit button, in Play Mode sub menu) with PEG and get a meaningful string section play a beautiful legato/slur? As far as the manual says and I understood (now most likely I'm wrong wrong) PEG is only on directional or positional?

The velocity on the other hand sets the portamento time it means I can play 2 notes in legato, if I hit the first not hard, portamento is automatically set to minimum set value (0 or in my case 32) and if I hit the second note really slow it means I will hear a really slow transition (portamento time set to maximum, 127 or in my set up something between 50ish). Does PEG capable of doing the exact same thing portamento does?

Bad Mister wrote:

Perhaps my answer was not clear, Yamaha has chosen a different method to accomplish this goal; by giving the player control over pitch change with its own programmable Envelope Generator sensitive to velocity (as well as rates and time parameters). Forgive me, but we find it very musical. Now, it may not be what you have gotten used to with the various VSTi's you may have worked with, undoubtedly 'easy' being its main draw, but I recommend it at least worth considering the PEG portion of the XF engine. Who knows? You may find it more musical to use. At least try it so I can give what you've recommended a position as an improvement, a move backward or just simply a different way of accomplishing the musical goal.

"Rate" is a measure of how fast something is moving
"Time" is a measure of how long it takes something to occur

At a fixed rate it takes more time to travel a longer distance.
Portamento Time Determines the pitch transition time or rate when Portamento is applied. Higher values result in a longer pitch change time. The effect of the parameter depends on the settings of the Portamento Time Mode.

Portamento Time Mode
Determines how the pitch changes in time.
Rate1: Pitch changes at the specified rate.
Time1: Pitch changes in the specified time.
Rate2: Pitch changes at the specified rate within an octave.
Time2: Pitch changes in the specified time within an octave.

Thanks Phil, I reviewed the reference manual and my question is still there:

Sorry Phil I'm totally lost now. Would you please explain to me how I can combine portamento (under Common Edit button, in Play Mode sub menu) with PEG and get a meaningful string section play a beautiful legato/slur? As far as the manual says and I understood (now most likely I'm wrong wrong) PEG is only on directional or positional?

The velocity on the other hand sets the portamento time it means I can play 2 notes in legato, if I hit the first not hard, portamento is automatically set to minimum set value (0 or in my case 32) and if I hit the second note really slow it means I will hear a really slow transition (portamento time set to maximum, 127 or in my set up something between 50ish). Does PEG capable of doing the exact same thing portamento does?

also when you mentioned rate and time, I understand that time has a specific duration value but when it comes to rate, it varies and gives me the impression that rate is using a formula? Will you please tell me how rate is calculated? In time there is only one unknown parameter and it's the duration, in rate, there is a formula. This is what I guess. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Rate, Time ....the other variable is Distance. And relates to how far are you slurring the pitch?

There comes a distance at which you begin to hear the behavior of the portamento. When hitting a note higher, does the portamento start at the original pitch, or does it arrive at the higher keys pitch without traversing the entire range of pitches in between.

When the pitch leaps are small you may not become aware of a difference in behavior. You can shape the movement to some degree. When portamento is across several octaves that's when you get to appreciate the differences between Rate 1, Rate 2, Time 1, Time 2, and the Slope.

Sorry, if I'm confusing you. I just wanted to point out there might be other methods to your ultimate goal (albeit without exactly knowing what that might be). Portamento on the synthesizer allows you to glide between pitches - typical portamento often sounds very synthetic (forgive the pun) and is full of technical limitations. One of the things Yamaha has done in developing synthesizers is try to come up with ways to extend the palette of musical articulations. In the area of sample-based instruments you traditionally had "Velocity Switching" as the primary tool to change articulation.

For example, the Slap Bass is a good example, a normally plucked bass at most velocities and a thumb slap when you exceed a set velocity. This works great for sounds that are hammered, struck or plucked... but not so for all instruments. Each new articulation extends the performability of synth emulation. The Assignable Function buttons and XA CONTROL allow the musician to recall several different sampled Waveforms (sonically invisible to the ear) so that you can create realistic musical phrases.

Original samples were made by calling in professional players to play a series of chromatic whole notes into a microphone... ultimately these whole notes are trimmed and looped, then mapped to the keys. You would play the brass section, for example, and every note would have the same Attack character... as if the player was just starting a phrase. Attack, attack, attack, attack... what you couldn't do was attack the first note and play a phrase as if only one breath was taken... Legato phrases where not initially possible with sample technology. Things like pitch scoops, fall offs, and the like we're just not possible to perform. You wound up (and many sampled libraries still work this way) having to edit in different articulations in a laborious after-the-fact routine.

Well Yamaha, being the world's largest manufacturer of musical instruments, tasked itself with always developing and pushing the envelope (pun intended) when it comes to realistic synthesis emulation of musical instruments. The XA Control introduced on the XS includes a Legato solution using the ability to switch Waveforms mid-phrase, so that the Attack Waveform is "knitted" on to a Waveform edited so that does not include the Attack. When you play Legato on the keys you switch to a non-attacked Waveform.

In your case, you can program your String Legato/slur using the standard Portamento function as implemented in the MIDI spec, but all I wanted to do was suggest there are other methods to do this. Initially, you simply asked if velocity could influence Portamento on the Motif XF, to which the answer is, no. But because you have an XF, it would be criminal if you didn't avail yourself of the tools built-in to the synth.

It will be for you to decide if it works better or not. If you want every synth to solve the problems the same way (you mention several VSTi that do this Portamento-Velocity thing) sorry, I'm not familiar. What I'm suggesting may or may not work for you. But I'm simply saying acoustic emulation is a driving theme in the Motif-series. If you had to sum up what the XF does in terms of synthesis, it would include the fact that it is a user programmable synth engine with specific tools to accomplish a variety of musical gestures to emulate acoustic and electronic musical sounds.

The multiple Element architecture, will allow you to switch the currently sounding oscillator on demand. Initially, you gave no clues as to your goal, but now we know it's some sort of string slur, (we still can't tell you much, as that is not much info) we can point you toward an example of PEG used to create an articulation involving pitch.

Recall the string sound "Disco AF1" study the Elements (Elements 4 and5) that use Pitch EG to accomplish a String pitch fall off.
While this may not be the exact articulation you need, it is an example that you can use as a start point in your experimentation/exploration.
If you've never worked with a Pitch Envelope before, exploring will show that you can move the pitch around over time in any number of ways.

With several Elements side-by-side you can construct a pitch scoop ([AF1]), and a pitch fall off ([AF2]). The thing about using velocity is it works one way, up to a certain velocity, and you must exceed a threshold to get the other behavior.

What if you don't want to hit the "Slap Bass" hard strike to get the "slap", what if you want the thumbed bass tone played softly. What if you don't want to tie the Legato/slur to a specific velocity, with the Element switching of XA Control you can recall the articulation, on-demand, (when the music requires it)

But as I said, you will need to decide if it is too much work, or not as intuitive to use, but to not try it because you didnt know it existed... well, that's all I'm trying to eliminate. At least now you know that the XF has tools to address musical articulations. Some are very unique, I'll grant you that.

Thanks very much for all the details and lessons Phil. Much appreciate it. I will definitely study more and try to make other voices. Meanwhile I was trying to create my own string which has portamento, I noticed one issue with legato and portamento. I don't know if it is something wrong with my settings or it's a bug or if not how to fix it. here is my string section setup:

I have made a VOICE with 4 elements, 2 violins, 1 string section and 1 Cello which simulates a typical oriental string section. The cello is transposed to play 12 notes upper (lower). These four elements are duplicated into the 4 remaining elements with XA set to legato for them and their samples are properly chosen. I set all the parameters to correct setting for playing legato but when I start playing the created VOICE, the portamento doesn't respect the Cello's octave change and instead of landing the pitch on the latest played note it goes one octave higher and then comes back to the note played which creates an unpleasant and incorrect pitch change.

One remedy I can think of is to use the PEG to shift the Cello, but why portamento is it working like that initially?

Thanks

"I have made a VOICE with 4 elements, 2 violins, 1 string section and 1 Cello which simulates a typical oriental string section. The cello is transposed to play 12 notes upper (lower). These four elements are duplicated into the 4 remaining elements with XA set to legato for them and their samples are properly chosen. I set all the parameters to correct setting for playing legato but when I start playing the created VOICE, the portamento doesn't respect the Cello's octave change and instead of landing the pitch on the latest played note it goes one octave higher and then comes back to the note played which creates an unpleasant and incorrect pitch change."

I underlined all the facts not in evidence - where anyone trying to duplicate your situation would need more information to duplicate your situation.
Without that information it is just guessing, really.

Hi Phil! I played more with the VOICE I made this morning and came up with a very simple setup which has this artifact (no legato etc). Just 5 elements:

1-Violin
2-String Sect
3-Violin non-vib
4-Cello
5- Spiccato

So the VOICE I simplified doesn't use legato. Just portamento, 4 of elements are all set to default values except some minor changes on the AEG and FEG. The only element which is behaving odd is Cello, the fifth element, which its Coarse is set to -24semi and Fine to -2cent. This is a short test I made:

Portamento Strings Using TIME1

This happens for both TIME1,2 and RATE1,2. If I set it to rate1,time1 it is more severe (comes from 24 nots higher) and if I set it to time2, rate2 it's less but still comes from 12 notes higher. It seems the harder I hit the keys the more severe this artifact is. My impression now is that TIME and RATE both use formulae or at list PORTAMENTO TIME doesn't reflect exactly what is going on and how the PORTAMENTO is working or it could be a bug.

I wanted to save the specific VOICE and upload it here but it seems I can not. So here is the pictures from the Editor:

I can't reproduce your issue because you have not told us enough about the Waveforms you are using. I play the audio of what you posted but I have no idea what you are going for... all I can conclude is that this is not what you are going for.

Please provide a few more details, if you can.
Are you layering all 5 (I count 5) Waveforms across all keys?

Hi again Phil,
Please follow these steps:

-Initialize a voice
-select the sine wave (or any string violin sample) for two elements
-select element 2 and set the coarse value to -24 (+24)
-turn the portamento on and the set the portamento time to an audible value. For example select time2 and set time to 50.

Now if you play a quick trill (the time between the nots are short), this will happen.

So you want one of them to portamento from two octaves distance from the other? I don't understand the reason for "-24 (+24)"? What does that mean?

Certainly, this is a "Doctor, my arm hurts if I bend it backwards..." kind of issue. Portamento here is not accomplished by simple voltage control and lag processors, it's likely using the speed of playback to emulate pitch change... there are going to be limits to how far you can bend the arm... we suggest using the direction the elbow naturally bends for pain free operation. If you are getting unusable result try Pitch shifting your Element less distance from its original pitch.

The Differences between Rate 1/Time 1 and Rate 2/Time 2, and the distance the portamento must travel still seems to be eluding this conversation. But again, the longer the distance you ask the pitch to glide (absolutely) the more artifacts are likely... Coarse Tuning something two octaves might very well exceed some limit of smooth behavior.

The different Rates and Times are for different distsnces that the pitch has to glide. It is not always going to be able to stretch the entire distance. There is in all sampled-based systems a limit to how far you can useably stretch the pitch of a sample. And while results are always subjective, if you do not like the results, take the doctor's advice and don't bend the arm backwards!

Thanks Phill. Sorry if i'm asking too many questions. In situations like this I panic and want to know what is really going on! I see your point but it works correctly when I play notes separated enough? How can I save just a single VOICE from XF and upload it here? I can't find any options for doing it.

Im not at all sure what it is you are going after but just FYI Portamento behavior will differ depending on if you are Mono or Poly. If you are judging behavior of portamento, the Portamento Mode, the Mono/Poly and Key Assign settings are critical. I notice in your screen shots you are using "Single", "Poly" and "Fingered" - which is why I say I'm not sure what it is you are going after, exactly. Single Fingered portamento usually is paired with mono.

To save a single Voice you would need to save it as a bulk dump. You can use any DAW or a utility program like MIDI-Ox to capture the Sysex bulk of your XF Voice. You could then zip it and post it here as an attachment.