First, If I am simply editing factory voices, once I name and save them to a user preset A-B , 1-16, do I still need to save them on external smart or flash and load them every time I want to use them? I did add DIMM memory to my Motif ES for my sampling but didn't think I needed it for creating these user voices. I was thinking they remain in on-board memory even after I power off. TRUE / FALSE?

True and False: Voice data remains except samples recalled fro DIMMs... Please see the following:

The Voice data when stored to a USER bank location remains permanently in memory, until you either Load something new to that location or you do a Factory Reset of the instrument. What will disappear (and render the Voice unplayable) is the audio Sample data that is used as the Voice's Oscillator Waveform.

There are two types of Oscillator Waveforms:
1- Preset (in the Motif ES there are 2,670 such Oscillator Waveforms in the Wave ROM)
2- User (there is room for custom Oscillator Waveforms on your volatile DIMMs, this memory disappears when you power down) and therefore must be restored each time.

In any synthesizer, the Oscillator Waveform is responsible for the vibration that the sound is built on. It is the sound source. The oscillator then travels to a Filter (where you can change the timbre or tone of the oscillator by filtering/removing certain harmonics. The Filter feeds into an Amplifier where you can shape how the loudness of the sound is changed over time: how it starts, what it does while you hold a key, and how it disappears when you release a key. Additionally, there are various LFOs (low frequency oscillators) which can be applied to these three components. An LFO applied to the Oscillator's Pitch gives us "vibrato" - the musical term for Pitch Modulation; An LFO applied to the Filter (Filter Mod) gives us the musical term "wah-wah"; An LFO applied to the Amplifier (Amplitude Modulation) gives us the musical term "tremolo"...

The Filter, the Amplifier, the various LFOs, the Effects, the EQs, etc, are all Voice parameters - and all remain permanently stored when you STORE a Voice to your ES. What disappears when power is lost is the Oscillator Waveform that is written on your volatile DIMMs. This portion of the Voice must be reloaded each time you power up. Therefore the answer to your question is: it depends

If the Voice's Oscillator Waveform is being recalled from one of the 2,670 Waveforms in "preset" memory, your Voice will play normally every time you turn on your ES, just like all the Voices in the PRESET Voice Banks... If, however, the Voice's Oscillator Waveform is being recalled from one of the "user" locations on your DIMMs, then you will need to restore the data from your backup File each time you power On your ES.

Call up the VOICE
Press [EDIT]
Press [1] to view Element 1 parameters
Press [F1] OSC
Press [SF1] WAVE
Here you can see where the first Element in this Voice is referencing its Sound Source... Either from "pre" Wave memory or "usr" Wave memory (DIMMs).

That said, you can "teach" your ES how to look for and Load a specific File ALL data File from your USB drive every time you power On. This is described in your Owner's Manual under AUTO LOAD.

PRESET -refers to data selected and created by Yamaha (permanent)
USER -refers to data selected, loaded and/or customized by you, the USER.

USER PRESET = there is no such thing. It is an incorrect terminology.

It is better to say "User program", or "User Voice", or "User sample"... But never "User Preset"

Your other questions should be clear now from the above. I will add that you can LOAD any single Voice from an ALL data (.W7A) or from an ALL VOICE (.W7V) file.
Press [FILE]
Select LOAD
Set the TYPE = voice
You can now highlight the File name, press [ENTER], the file will open to show you a listing of individual Voice's inside the file.

You simply select the individual Voice you want, and direct it to the internal USER VOICE bank you wish to place it (it will show you the name of the Voice currently occupying that location, select one you want to overwrite, and proceed). In this manner you can fill your internal User Voice Banks with sounds YOU like!!! Instead of loading "all" the data from a file. Make sense?

The ES will do all of the "heavy lifting"... It will write the Voice parameters to your selected User Voice bank location (where they will stay until you either write over them or do a factory reset) and it will place the audio samples, if any, to the "lowest numbered empty location" on your DIMMs. It will then catalog which location that is, and update the Voice data in your USER VOICE (the OSC/Wave screen)

You do not have to worry about which of the hundreds of locations on the DIMMs - the ES "knows" and will catalog that automatically.

Now you then must make a backup - ALL data file that will include your custom Wave ROM, this file will represent not only the Voice's you have personally selected to load, but where they are looking for their audio sound source, be it preset Wave ROM or user Wave ROM (DIMMs)

Hope that helps.

Very Helpful....and I think the AUTOLOAD feature could be a hidden gem for me, but I am having trouble with it. What I tried to AUTOLOAD from SMARTMEDIA was a single pattern I created along with a user wave ROM from the Sound Library CD ROM that I use in the pattern mix. Let's put the wave file aside for now and start with the pattern itself. Here is what I did. I went to FILE-LOAD-PATTERN to find the Pattern I wanted, then renamed its file, to AUTOLOAD.W7A. I left that highlighted and went to UTILITIES followed the instructions in the manual ( I thought) to turn on autoload, get, store. - File not found...What am I doing wrong?.

Most common mistake is forget or ignoring the step where you press [STORE]

Autoload
The Motif ES can “autoload” whatever data, whatever setup defaults you like each time you power it on. Set every parameter as you wish to have it, then create an ALL data file called literally “AUTOLOAD.W7A”.

You can teach the Motif ES where to find this file and it will dutifully execute and load your data each time you turn it on, much like your computer loads particular things at boot-up.

To save an ALL file to SmartMedia or USB drive and set up the Motif ES to load that file on power up:
Press [FILE]
Press [F1] CONFIG
Press [SF1] CURRENT
Set the CURRENT parameter to CARD or USB (whichever you are using)
Press [F2] SAVE
Set the file TYPE field to ALL
Set the file Name field (immediately below the TYPE field to “AUTOLOAD”
(If desired navigate to a sub-directory where you wish to save your AUTOLOAD file.)
Press [ENTER]
(Without changing directories) Press [UTILITY]
Press [F1] GENERAL
Press [SF4] OTHER
Set the AutoLoad parameter to ON
Press [SF5] GET (to register the current location on the SmartMedia Card/USB drive as the place to look for the AUTOLOAD file).
>>Press [STORE] to write this to Flash ROM<<
Power cycle the Motif ES and your AUTOLOAD All file will load each time you power on the instrument and the Card or USB drive is in place.

Ahhhhhh. (I think???) So, AUTOLOAD lets me pick up wherever I left off? It creates a snapshot of all ALL my data / files / settings and brings them all back automatically on startup?? Is it not possible to just AUTOLOAD a single pattern and leave everything else at a default (factory settings) ??? Does it depend where I save this AUTOLOAD file? If its possible, can you walk (write me) thru the settings to do this. I think I am OK with all the Utility steps, my problem is where to create and store all the right files needed to find and execute this function......Ideally, I would only like to load a single pattern + whatever voices I had attached to the mix (including any user wave DIMM voices) I was working on when I powered off..

Been reading everything I could find in the manual and your old motifactor forums...still not clear. The manual talks about changing names of files (more than one?) to AUTOLOAD. However, I was previously just starting to convince myself that there could be only one AUTOLOAD file - file type ALL. and its just a question of whether or not I want to create one. If I do NOT create one, but still turn on Autoload in Utility then Motif gets the DEMO songs and patterns. If, I do create one then Motif simply Gets everything that was in the sequencer and user voices at the time I created the AUTOLOAD file provided I have the source Smart Media / USB connected when I next power off / on........True / False?

True

Can I tag on a couple related questions on the overall Motif file management system? 1) FILE MODE-DIR - whatever I create there although will first appears under the default name NEWDIR, however, it is not a directory but merely I folder I can use for organizational purposes. Folders are not executable, i.e. naming a folder AUTOLOAD doesn't cause Motif to load anything. TRUE / FALSE? 2) whenever I want to load from SmartMedia or USB, anything less than the entire contents of patterns, songs, etc....then I should organize them into separate folders, like gig-set 1, 2,3 etc...., set the DIR to each folder and THEN when I load ALL pattern, song,etc..., MOTIF will load only those patterns / songs from the external media under the that particular folder TRUE / FALSE? Can I return to AUTOLOAD for a moment? Can I create an AUTOLOAD executable file under ALL PATTERN, SONG, VOICE and cause Motif to autoload only those pattern or song files then existing in the sequencer? That would mean potentially having more than one AUTOLOAD file........If yes, can I also place an AUTOLOAD file under a folder and cause Motif to load only those patterns (for example) then in the sequencer which are tagged to that folder? I am thinking - NO but..........Finally - let ask about moving / changing location of a pattern, song, voice, etc....on external media. If I store a particular song under the folder-gig-set 2 but now want to move it to folder gig-set 3, do I just load it from 2 then save it to 3 and Motif then removes it from 2 and puts it in 3 OR am I left with a copy in 2 and 3?

1) FILE MODE-DIR - whatever I create there although will first appears under the default name NEWDIR, however, it is not a directory but merely I folder I can use for organizational purposes. Folders are not executable, i.e. naming a folder AUTOLOAD doesn't cause Motif to load anything. TRUE / FALSE?

When you create a new item in the File Directory, it is given the default name "NEWDIR". Each new directory item is a folder. There is only one directory, each new item is given a name, NEWDIR, NEWDIR01, NEWDIR02, and do on. Use the RENAME function to give each new item a unique name of your own. This should be familiar to anyone that uses a computer. There is one Directory, and many Folders... Folders can contain Files.

2) whenever I want to load from SmartMedia or USB, anything less than the entire contents of patterns, songs, etc....then I should organize them into separate folders, like gig-set 1, 2,3 etc...., set the DIR to each folder and THEN when I load ALL pattern, song,etc..., MOTIF will load only those patterns / songs from the external media under the that particular folder TRUE / FALSE?

You can organize your data and load from that data whatever you wish. An understanding of the File TYPES is absolutely critical before you proceed.

In general, the File TYPE determines what is contained (and more importantly what is NOT contained) in each File. An ALL data File (.X7A) contains literally "all" stored user parameters and settings including all User Voices, all User Waveforms, all User Arpeggios, all Performances, all Master programs, all Songs including User samples and Mixing Voices recorded to each Song, all Patterns including User samples and Mixing Voices recorded to each Pattern, all Mix Templates, and all Utility mode settings.

Significantly, you can choose to selectively load certain individual items from within an ALL data file... For example, you could choose to load a single VOICE from within an ALL data File, by setting the File TYPE = "voice" then highlighting the .W7A file will open revealing lists of the individual Voices contained inside the file by Bank. You can select any individual Voice and direct it yo your current internal Library.

Other File TYPEs may not be available to provide you with all the data you need when you attempt to extract a single program item. For example, say you SAVE an ALL SONG file (.X7S) while it saves all 64 of the Songs currently in the ES sequencer, it does not save User Voices. So imagine that different User banks might be loaded in when you attempt to load a single Song from this file. Your MIXING setup stored the fact that you used USER 001(A01), but what if a different User Voice now occupies that location? So knowing that to use the ALL SONG File Type to save your Songs requires you turn each User Voice that is apart of your MIXING setup, into a MIXING VOICE. A MIXING VOICE is a User Voice stored "locally" into the SONG data.

ALL (.X7A) means all data
ALL SONG (.X7S) means just data concerning and stored within the Songs. It does not save all User Voices, it does not save arpeggios, or Performances, or Patterns, or Masters etc.,... It does save 64 Songs, up to 256 Mixing Voices, it does Save any samples recorded using the Integrated Sampling Sequencer function where the sample is synchronized with the sequencer.

So studying the FILE Chapter of the Owners Manual is very important before you decide to manage your data in the smaller more convenient file Types. Saving an ALL data file is the safest backup - because without knowing all the details - it backup EVERYTHING.

Auto Load is simply a function that allows an ES owner to restore their most used data automatically every time they power up. The need for more than one Auto Load file is something you are imagining. You will have to manually repoint (redirect) the ES to find the file, which is EXTRA work... Get your head around the fact that it only really makes sense to have one auto load.

It is like your computer START UP... you have opted to have computer load automatically some specific things (if you are old enough to remember the first personal computers... They powered on immediately to a C:/ prompt... Yikes.... Everything you see beyond that prompt is something your computer auto loads.... Your desktop, your anti virus, and half a dozen other behind the scenes items.

You don't have multiple Autoloads for your computer (typically) - and neither will you with your ES. It simply is not practical. Sure you could keep a different AUTOLOAD in several different Folder, true. But not practical... In order to "teach" the ES to look in that Folder and retrieve that file, why not just load it?

As you go through the steps to create the AUTOLOAD you create a "macro" (a routine that the Es will follow automatically to find the file. But instead of actually loading it to turn on the "SET" function. That gets stored to your ES's preferences... Having multiple Autoloads would mean you'd have to do all those steps, press STORE, then power down and back on... In order to get the file to AUTOLOAD. Why not just load it?

Try it - you'll see what I'm talking about.

That said, the AUTOLOAD feature includes the PLG150 optional plug in boards which could have volatile User Voices restored automatically... Here's how that works:

PLG150 Autoloads
If you are autoloading an ALL data file for the Motif ES, you would name it “AUTOLOAD.W7A”

If you are autoloading a PLG150-board you would name the file according to the slot that the PLG150 board resides in…

if your PLG150AN is in slot 1, you would name the file:
‘AUTOLD1.w2b’

If in slot 2: ‘AUTOLD2.w2b’
If in slot 3: ‘AUTOLD3.w2b’

When I had a Motif ES with AN, DX and VL boards, I had four files in the route directory which would load not only my three PLG board’s RAM banks but load the ES with the custom VOICES, SONGS, and PATTERNS.

AUTOLOAD.W7A
AUTOLD1.W2B
AUTOLD2.W2B
AUTOLD3.W2B

When I powered On the ES, it would automatically load all of my custom data… sweet!

Bad Mister wrote:

Most common mistake is forget or ignoring the step where you press [STORE]

Autoload
The Motif ES can “autoload” whatever data, whatever setup defaults you like each time you power it on. Set every parameter as you wish to have it, then create an ALL data file called literally “AUTOLOAD.W7A”.

You can teach the Motif ES where to find this file and it will dutifully execute and load your data each time you turn it on, much like your computer loads particular things at boot-up.

To save an ALL file to SmartMedia or USB drive and set up the Motif ES to load that file on power up:
Press [FILE]
Press [F1] CONFIG
Press [SF1] CURRENT
Set the CURRENT parameter to CARD or USB (whichever you are using)
Press [F2] SAVE
Set the file TYPE field to ALL
Set the file Name field (immediately below the TYPE field to “AUTOLOAD”
(If desired navigate to a sub-directory where you wish to save your AUTOLOAD file.)
Press [ENTER]
(Without changing directories) Press [UTILITY]
Press [F1] GENERAL
Press [SF4] OTHER
Set the AutoLoad parameter to ON
Press [SF5] GET (to register the current location on the SmartMedia Card/USB drive as the place to look for the AUTOLOAD file).
>>Press [STORE] to write this to Flash ROM<<
Power cycle the Motif ES and your AUTOLOAD All file will load each time you power on the instrument and the Card or USB drive is in place.

I tried all of these steps to create an AUTOLOAD for my SmartMedia Card; However I continued to get a message saying "Card is Full". I just ordered the cards, so they aren't full. I tried to create the AUTOLOAD using a 32MB and 64MB card. Are these too small to save an all AUTOLOAD file? Thanks in advance for the help.

https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/trying-to-save-an-all-autoload-file-on-smartmedia-card-using-motif-es7