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Repository for old synths patches

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Hi,
Would it be possible to have Yamaha providing on this site a repository for all the patches available for their old synths ?
Typically a folder hierarchy like this would be fine:
- Factory presets
- Yamaha official extensions
- Third party patches (with their agreement of course if the company still exists)
- Hobbyist patches

For more than 10 years old synths, we may consider that all patches are public domain or available somewhere in the internet, so it would be better to get them in one reference place, like a museum.

Conversion tools to adapt these patches to modern synths would be fine too, but that's another story...as would be some Yamaha legacy VST plug-ins.

Huge job, but Yamaha has a strong history and must not forget it.

 
Posted : 07/10/2014 6:46 pm
Bad Mister
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Would it be possible to have Yamaha providing on this site a repository for all the patches available for their old synths ?

The Factory Presets from one synth to the next are usually compatible within a series of products - (in most cases) - let's use the Motif-series as an example. Each successive Motif doubled its WAVE ROM size - that is, the Preset WAVE ROM increased from 84MB to 175MB to 355MB to the current 741MB. After market research dictated what Waveforms remained, what Waveforms got upgraded/replaced and what Waveforms no longer made the cut, and what new Waveforms needed to be added. You are talking about VOICES... Voices are the finished products that the programmers create with the given Waveform ROM.

In the Motif classic and Motif ES (2001 and 2003 respectively) the Voice architecture was based on a 4 Element structure. The XS and XF moved to an 8 Element structure with advanced articulation control. As we moved from Motif classic to Motif ES - Yamaha provided a built-in "look up" table that allowed Motif ES owners to load their Motif classic Voices directly into the ES. These "look up" tables either found the exact Waveform (if it was included in the next product) or found a factory recommended substitute Waveform so that the Voice played with the new replacement Waveform. But this does not include the improved envelopes from one model to the next, the different Effect Types that became available - so more than likely even if the Waveform was the same or similar, it is highly unlikely that the Voice would sound exactly the same because the envelope values and Effect Types are so very different in the new product.

A new product, typically, has enough reason to exist (in the mind of the company releasing it) to warrant a NEW product. The devil is always in the details. So an original Motif Voice played in the current Motif XF would only be using a portion of the features now available - and would have little value really (beyond reminiscing) . What Yamaha does is hire the best programmers in the business to evaluate and re-Voice the *new* instrument. So most, if not all, of the heavy lifting involved in upgrading the product is done at the factory by experts (really).

When the Motif ES transitioned to the Motif XS - Yamaha again provided a built-in "look up" table that allowed the XS owners to load their Motif ES Voices directly into the XS.
When the Motif XS transitioned to the Motif XF - Yamaha again allowed the XF owners to load both the ES and XS Voices into the XF via the VOICE EDITOR format.

When you stretch over a 10 year span, you are not going to find complete compatibility between the engines. Sorry! Things change too much in that amount of time. Yamaha "conversion tools" are provided via the Motif-series Editors (if you have not been using these, we highly recommend them for this purpose). For those who want to spend a lot of time trying to look back - I suggest you keep any OLD synth that you really, really like, and stop trying to make your new synth, your OLD synth.

If you have a Motif, Motif ES, Motif XS or Motif XF and want to assemble Voices you can do by working with the FREE Editors that were made available for each. If you had original Motif sounds you want to load into a Motif XF, I'd highly recommend you first explore to find out if they already are available in XF format.

On the odd chance the VOICE you liked did not make the cut, then find a Motif (classic) Editor File (.W2E) and open it in the Motif ES Editor. Resave it in Motif ES Editor File format (.W7E) - this can be opened by the Motif XS and the current Motif XF Editors.

The Motif (classic) Editors worked on some "stone age" computer OS's, and you may find it very difficult to run it on today's computers - but most of that stuff has already been converted, thankfully.

That is what is on order. I do not know that saying something is 'public domain' makes it so. I tend to doubt that entirely. Commercially available Voice Libraries are like books (and therefore the use of the word actually applies) they still have value and do not become automatically "pubic domain" (FREE) after a certain amount of time. Sort of like a song you wrote and copyrighted 10 years ago, I just can't declare it "public domain" and start using YOUR SONG everywhere without paying you (but I think you know this already)
🙂

Anyway, we get the gist of what you are looking for - and I'll look into posting many of the older Voices - it will, however, include a disclaimer that tells everyone to BEWARE that the VOICES may not sound like they did in their original synth due to the new envelopes (which got faster) the new filters (which got fatter) and the new Effects Types (which got better), etc., etc.,... and this does not mean they will sound better - it means that they have not been individually Quality Controlled by the original programmer.

If and when we post any such Voice Libraries it will certainly be at our site here:

www.yamahamusicsoft.com

Programmers, often seek to redo libraries when new hardware becomes available (naturally, they want to take advantage of all the NEW features made available). This was particularly true moving from the ES (4 Element) engine to the XS (8 Element) engine!

Thanks for the post. Let us know if there is something you're looking for specifically.

 
Posted : 09/10/2014 7:26 pm
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Thanks for your answer. I'm sure the newest synths are better than old ones. I own a MOXF8 and I am very happy with it.
But, because we are in the Vintage section of the forum, I was more scoping the SY, AN.x, CS.x , EX series and all the beautiful synths Yamaha crafted some decades ago.

They still have high value in most of their owner's hearts and thus in our music.
1. Having a repository for their patches would be nice.
2. Having a conversion tool to be able to convert some of these synths patches to Motif would be fantastic too, but quite unbelievable. The FM engine have evolved for sure but basics are still the same, aren't they ?
3. Having a VST version of these synths would be nice too, and probably easier than point 2.

Hoping my requests are more clear now, probably because of my bad english, sorry for that.

 
Posted : 13/10/2014 7:54 pm
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