looking for multisamples of the 4 basic synth shapes

[juno987654321]

Thanks for the replies so far! It's always good to learn something new or solve a problem together here.

I think you may have misunderstood. SFZ players, like Sforzando and Sfizz, define their instruments using text files, and to assign a sample to a region you typically will type something like:

sample=hihat1.wav

True, I did not know that. I assumed that .sfz files always contain real samples themselves. If Sforzando uses a tone generator / osc as well, then it's not only a sample player, is it?

But instead of a sample you can also use the internal oscillator. This is useful for testing purposes, but also for augmenting sampled instruments, or for pure synthesis. So instead of assigning a sample, you might use:

sample=*saw

However, I suspect that these built-in waveforms are not samples, but generated algorithmically inside the software. So there's no samples to grab and use elsewhere.
This is all fine if you intend to use the waveforms within a SFZ context, but not useful for you otherwise.

Yes, it's probably not useful then. I wanted to use a converter like Awave Studio afterwards to convert the .sfz file (or whatever other format) to a different target file (.m2v) to import to and use with my workstation, an old Motif 8. The essential part will probably be to start out with a real multisample file. A text file won't do the job.
My real aim is to expand functionality with my Motif 8 so that I could use basic waveform shapes on it and create some own sounds - without having to expand it with a laptop, etc. I have a laptop attached to it but I don't always want to switch it on for particular sounds and often rather just play on the Yamaha thing itself. Yamaha didn't allow for or think of the possibility I'm aiming at but I could probably find a way to make this happen - even on a cheap used workstation that even I could afford buying...

The sounds on it are cool as they are, especially if you tweak them to your taste. I like the sounds, but they're still too limited and so, as often in life, one has to become creative and think of ways around again.

[DSmolken]

The four basic synth shapes are keyboard, rack, drum machine and modular.

Carry on.

[juno987654321]

Using this text editor, you can change "*saw" to any of the other waveforms.

Excellent! This really works.
I now understand that such .sfz files are just text files.

But not all Sforzando files are text files only, are they? Only the .sfz files, then?
I just tried and threw a sample sound of a saw wave on the Sforzando and I could only save this one as .aria.
Is this .aria file then the 2nd format for Sforzando and always based on real sample sounds and would it also work for multisamples?
Then I'd need an .aria multisample file for Sforzando, right?

[r1_000]

Samples from Mars have multisamples
of different oscillator shapes including the basic ones.

[BertKoor]

I find it hard to believe the Motif8 does not have basic analog synth waveforms. Perhaps it's not in the Samples section...

[Etienne1973]

I find it hard to believe the Motif8 does not have basic analog synth waveforms.

Yamaha Motif6/7/8 provide them in their Wave ROM.

@OP: Have a look at the Wave List of your device.

Source: Document Motif6/7/8 Data List > Wave List > Page 20 > Waveform 397 - 500
Link: https://ch.yamaha.com/files/download/ot ... OTIFE2.pdf

[JeffLearman]

I assumed that .sfz files always contain real samples themselves. If Sforzando uses a tone generator / osc as well, then it's not only a sample player, is it?

Usually the .sfz file comes with a folder full of samples (but sometimes just one long audio file with lots of samples in it.) These waveforms are an exception, and they're usually used for testing non-sample-related features, but they can also be used to enhance waveforms, or just for themselves.

Normally, when using the classic synth waveforms and if you plan to do much modulation, it's easier to use a softsynth with a nice GUI (like Tal Noisemaker). But there are times when sfz's synth capabilities are useful.

[JeffLearman]

I don't know what .aria files are.

[JeffLearman]

The four basic synth shapes are keyboard, rack, drum machine and modular.

[lobanov]

Using this text editor, you can change "*saw" to any of the other waveforms.

Excellent! This really works.
I now understand that such .sfz files are just text files.

But not all Sforzando files are text files only, are they? Only the .sfz files, then?
I just tried and threw a sample sound of a saw wave on the Sforzando and I could only save this one as .aria.
Is this .aria file then the 2nd format for Sforzando and always based on real sample sounds and would it also work for multisamples?
Then I'd need an .aria multisample file for Sforzando, right?

Sforzando was developed by Plogue for Garritan. .aria is an extensions of files for Garritan libraries. Just proprietary variant of sfz. I think this format gets additional functionality that we can find in Garritan products only. I don't know may be they also encrypt them. But basic functionality of .sfz files isn't affected. And you can use .aria files in Sforzando only. .sfz files may be loaded by different samplers.

Try to open .aria file you created in a simple text editor. On Windows right click, Open with... > Notepad (you can choose any text editor you want). I don't know for sure but if an .aria file is just .sfz file renamed it will open with readable text.

If you want to edit .sfz files then edit and save them in any text editor. Not inside Sforzando. Then they will be accessible in other samplers.

[juno987654321]

I find it hard to believe the Motif8 does not have basic analog synth waveforms.

Yamaha Motif6/7/8 provide them in their Wave ROM.

@OP: Have a look at the Wave List of your device.

Source: Document Motif6/7/8 Data List > Wave List > Page 20 > Waveform 397 - 500
Link: https://ch.yamaha.com/files/download/ot ... OTIFE2.pdf

I found this hard to believe, too, but it seems to me that I can really only play the voices from the "voice list". I cannot access that "wave list" to really play these basic waves like voices. The basic waves are there but only to modify what Yamaha calls "voices" (i. e. really playable sounds that you can choose from). So the sine or saw can be selected as an LFO shape to edit voices (as stated in the user manual in the section "wave" for "voice edit mode"). However, I couldn't find any way to play the waves from the wave list as real voices - sounds that have been given a "voice" to actually sound independently on their own (that's how I make sense of Yamaha's weird term). Maybe there is some trick to still be able to convert these inbuilt waves into voices but nothing like this is stated in the manual. The workstation is new and interesting to me. I just got it a week or two ago. Yet, I've already browsed through most of the whole manual.
Thanks for your tip with the wave list but it's probably just there for editing sounds (?). I cannot access it otherwise.

[juno987654321]

Sforzando was developed by Plogue for Garritan. .aria is an extensions of files for Garritan libraries. Just proprietary variant of sfz. I think this format gets additional functionality that we can find in Garritan products only. I don't know may be they also encrypt them. But basic functionality of .sfz files isn't affected. And you can use .aria files in Sforzando only. .sfz files may be loaded by different samplers.

Try to open .aria file you created in a simple text editor. On Windows right click, Open with... > Notepad (you can choose any text editor you want). I don't know for sure but if an .aria file is just .sfz file renamed it will open with readable text.

If you want to edit .sfz files then edit and save them in any text editor. Not inside Sforzando. Then they will be accessible in other samplers.

No, no, the .aria file cannot be edited in a text editor. It's much unlike the .sfz file and also much larger in size. I think that it is sample based whereas the .sfz file is the text based thing you were referring to. In the case where I put a sample into Sforzando to save the resulting file as .aria, an .sfz file was automatically created with it, too. This one could be opened in a text editor but basically it only gives the path of the newly created .aria file.
I suppose that Sforzando just converts sample files into its own sample formats (?). They are slightly larger than the original samples.
If, on the other hand, you only use Sforzando's inbuilt synth then some .sfz text-based commands seem to be naturally sufficient (?). That's how I make sense of it after my experiment.
Sforzando seems to have this twofold structure of texts + (sometimes) additional .aria samples if necessary. (?)

[Etienne1973]

Yamaha Motif6/7/8 Manual Page 158 > Voice Job mode:

"[F1] Initialize
This function lets you reset (initialize) all voice parameters to their default settings. It also allows you to selectively initialize certain parameters, such as Common settings, settings for each Element/ Drum key, and so on — very useful when creating a completely new voice from scratch."

Source: https://ch.yamaha.com/files/download/ot ... OTIFE1.pdf

[enroe]

Sforzando seems to have this twofold structure of texts + (sometimes) additional .aria samples if necessary. (?)

With Sforzando it's all very simple:

There are two kinds of files that Sforzando works with:
1. sfz-text-files
2. wav-files.

You need to load the sfz-file in Sforzando. This sfz-file
then tells Sforzando where to find the wav-files and
how to play them.

You can safely ignore the Aria format (this is the purely
proprietary format for Garritan).

[juno987654321]

Yamaha Motif6/7/8 Manual Page 158 > Voice Job mode:

"[F1] Initialize
This function lets you reset (initialize) all voice parameters to their default settings. It also allows you to selectively initialize certain parameters, such as Common settings, settings for each Element/ Drum key, and so on — very useful when creating a completely new voice from scratch."

Source: https://ch.yamaha.com/files/download/ot ... OTIFE1.pdf

This function will only reset the already given "voices" (presets) but the problem is that I cannot find the right voices I am looking for (the basic wave form shapes). Basic shape forms as I see it can on a Motif 8 only be accessed for the LFO function. I could be wrong, though. Then someone who is familiar with the Motif Classic might still tell me how to also access them as voices sounds because it must be a procedure which is not obvious at all.

Let me give you an example. There is e. g. a voice called "saw ld" in category "GM 082" that I could initialize but even this sound is not a basic saw and will never be. I could never initialize it to become a very basic waveform sound. This one has some LFO thing (wandering resonance) built into it that you cannot get rid of, even if you put off all the various effects and everything that they additionally put on it. It will stay a complex voice that you cannot further strip down to something more basic. At least I couldn't manage to do it.

Same with the other basic waveforms I'm looking for. Some are named after a square (sq something) because there's some square wave in it among other elements. So they must have started out with a square when they first created the sound but it's just never the basic square itself that you can find back to and access if you want to start out with a basic sound yourself and then edit it, layer it, shape it with ADSR settings, etc. At least I haven't found out how to do it on the classic Yamaha Motif. I'm looking for a good static and pure saw/sine... that has no attack, no LFO effects, no slight chorus, no pitch wobbling... built into it.

Seems like the idea to import some pure sine/saw... multisample files and save them as user files on the workstation would really be the only way?

That's why I started this thread. It doesn't have to be a Sforzando file. Sforzando was only an example and it turned out to be a bad one. It's not clear if an .aria multisample file could do the job, but most likely an .sfz file won't since it's just a text file.
It could be any multi-sample files in a "real" multi-sample format (e. g. Tal or Kontakt format?) that could be converted to the Yamaha .m2v format using Awave Studio.