Groovyband,
Interesting product but I am unclear on this since I don’t have experience connecting my MODX+ to a computer. A “Performance” and a “Library” are the primary terms when talking about MODX/Montage expansion content, but you don’t use these terms in your explanations here. How are these 1800+ top quality sounds and sff2 styles loaded into MODX? I assume everything is reliant on connection to the computer application and no Library file is created and manually loaded by USB?
Rich
Rich,
we talk with the MODX using standard midi messages (including sysexes, shown in MODX Data List) exchanged through a USB connection with the computer. We completely bypass Yamaha's firmware (too limiting and unflexible) and directly address the MODX's sound generator. The sound generator is driven by the so called "performance buffer": a piece of RAM where the data defining a sound (16 midi channels wide) is loaded. When you push a button on MODX front panel, the sound data is taken from internal flash ROM (preset/user sounds + libraries) and loaded into this buffer. The sound generator accesses this buffer and plays accordingly.
Alternatively you could just send a bunch (hundreds) of midi messages (mostly sysex messages) and program the buffer through a computer. We use this route. Our 1800+ sound data (and styles) are stored in the computer SSD, when the moment comes we read those data from the hard drive and send it in real time to the performance buffer.
The MODX internal memory is NOT altered in any way. When you switch off our software, your MODX is exactly as it was before, with all your sounds, libraries, free locations and every other settings unchanged.
Our sounds are a big asset, and although based on MODX preset sounds, effects and waveforms, are a completely different beast. To see what is different, navigate to
https://www.groovyband.live/modx/, scroll to "The sound" header and click on "read more" below it.
Also, what is an HW arranger?
A piece of hardware (keyboard, embedded computer, screen, buttons, case, possibly speakers) and an embedded software (firmware) that orchestrates the whole thing and implements the payload (= arranger features). Usually the only interesting part is the arranger software, but you are forced to buy the whole package, even if your current hardware is still perfectly fine and maybe you are only interested in new/better arranger software. Or maybe your hardware is not fine (poor screen, keyboard, low quality buttons), but you have no choice and you just buy the package as a whole or nothing.
Usually the whole package is sold at a premium price, that surpasses the cost of the components bought separately. This is interesting in its own. Most finished industrial products cost less than buying the single pieces and assemble them yourself (typical example: a car. If you buy all the pieces of a car as spare parts you end up paying 10 times as much, and you still have to assemble them yourself!!).
This premium price of HW arrangers is also confirmed by the cost of synths, which are usually cheaper and more capable as "sound producers", but obviously lack the realtime arranger part.
You have both a SX900 and a MODX+7. I am sure you have noticed that your MODX+7 is better at producing a sound than the SX900 (and globally more versatile also as controller, sound card, and has USB audio), and it also has a better/longer keyboard, endless encoders, sliders, buttons. And yet it is cheaper!!
