I hope that you have downloaded and are using the MOX construction kits.

It’s no secret that many of the Motif/MOX arpeggios are taken from Tyros/PSR workstation styles. If you scan through the MOX data list, you’ll notice that many arpeggios share a similar name. These musical phrases belong to the same family. A construction kit is an MOX performance consisting of arpeggios in the same family — a kind of “mini-style.” You can use a construction kit as the basis for a new original performance. Or, just play the arps for fun! This is a great way to get a feel for the musical groove within a family and to dive into the thousands of arpeggios built into the MOX.

I released the first set of construction kits in January 2014. Since then, I have fixed a few divots in my programming. Unfortunately, some sonic glitches remain here and there. Please think of these minor bugs as “exercises left to the reader.” At least the tedious work of arranging arpeggios into performances by family has been done for you.

Since then, I have spent a lot of time translating MOX performances back to PSR/Tyros styles. I have focused on the new combinations programmed by Yamaha since it is kind of pointless to duplicate the pre-existing PSR/Tyros styles which were the original source for the phrases! In my search for additional performances, I stumbled across two MOX ALL files:

“XSpand Your World” voices and performances translated to MOX format, and
Motif XS user bank 2 and 3 performances translated to MOX format.

These files are available at this site.

“XSpand You World” was a promotional package put together by Yamaha to drive sales of the Motif XS. Yamaha distributed new voices and performances through “XSpand Your World” in the form of an “ALL” file. The MOX is based on the Motif XS, so Motif XS voices and performances will play on the MOX when imported into the MOX. The Motif XS and MOX “ALL” files have different internal binary formats. (Yamaha strikes, again.) Fortunately for us, Moessieurs translated the XSpand Your World ALL file to MOX format.

The Motif XS has three user performance banks and the MOX has 2 user performance banks. When it’s factory fresh, the MOX USER 1 bank contains the same performances as the Motif XS USER 1 bank. The MOX USER 2 bank, however, is a “best of” collection from the Motif XS USER 2 and USER 3 banks. Thus, there are 128 (give or take) Motif XS performances that do not ship with the MOX. Moessieurs translated the Motif XS USER 2 and USER 3 banks to a single MOX ALL file. You may import both banks all at once (save your data first!) or you may import one performance at a time into a performance location specified by you. Please see the “FILE” section of the reference manual for further information about file formats, saving and loading.

The Motif XS USER 2 and 3 banks, in particular, are a rich resource for new sonic material. I immediately got to work and imported the funky and jazzy performances into my MOX workstation. Then, I saved everything into a MOX ALL file. The new ALL file (CKITS_V2.X4A) contains construction kits and the Motif XS jazz/funk performances. I prepared two tables (mox_perf_table_v2.txt) listing the performances in MOX USER banks 1 and 2. I’m calling this whole package “Construction Kits Version 2.” Download the ZIP file and have at it!

One final word. The Motif XS has only five arpeggio types per performance. The MOX has six. So, the Motif XS performances have only five arpeggios even though they are playing on the MOX.