SX700 memory question

[Lacko]

When I bought my SX700, qccording to many internet information I thought that it has 1 GB memory, from which 400 MB is expansion memory and 600 MB is freely usable as user memory. But:
User manual says that SX700 has 1 GB user memory. No word about expansion memory.
YEM says my packs use 391 MB of voice expansion memory.
All my styles, registrations etc. take about 36 MB space, so about 600 MB should still be free.
And now:
Menu > Utility > Storage in keyboard says User Drive Capacity is 1 GB and available space is 984,58 MB. Again no word about size of expansion memory and available space there (according to YEM it is practically full).
These 984 + 36 are roughly 1020 MB, what is size of 1 GB memory.
My question is - where are my ,,lost" voices, where is the expansion memory? Has SX700 1 GB user memory AND another 400 MB expansion memory?

[BogdanH]

hello Lacko,
Yes, manual is a bit confusing at this and you're not the first one asking that. Here's short and simple answer...

There are two memory banks: user memory (1GB) and expansion memory (400MB).
Voices (actual samples) are always stored only into expansion memory and everything else is stored into user memory. For example, if you install some expansion pack which contains voices and styles (and registrations, and voice settings, etc.), then voices from that pack will be installed into expansion memory and the rest into user memory.
As you can see, your assumption was right

Bogdan

[iulistil2]

If Yamaha wants, part of the 1GB memory can be allocated for the Sampler, through a system update, a programmer from them would do this update in a maximum of an hour, but I don't think they want to... it's a matter of marketing to do it to buy sx900 or Genos.. the idea is that if you want more you have to pay more.....

[DerekA]

If Yamaha wants, part of the 1GB memory can be allocated for the Sampler, through a system update, a programmer from them would do this update in a maximum of an hour, but I don't think they want to... it's a matter of marketing to do it to buy sx900 or Genos.. the idea is that if you want more you have to pay more.....

Not sure that's entirely true - the expansion memory has to have extremely fast access in order to stream samples to the sound engine. Yamaha's sample playback technology is not the same as for example playing back samples from the disk on a PC.

[Lacko]

Thanks Bogdan for explanation.

Lacko

[overover]

Hi Lacko,

From the SX700 Specifications (Owner's Manual pages 118/119) it can be seen that the size of the User drive is approx. 1 GB and the size of the Expansion Voice Wave Memory is approx. 400 MB. (For the SX900, the User drive is 4 GB and the Expansion Voice Memory is 1 GB.)

The size of the Expansion Voice Wave Memory is not directly visible on the keyboard, but is only displayed in the Expansion Manager (YEM) on the computer (after the keyboard's Instrument Info file has been imported into the YEM as Install Target).

Note that four (4) different Memory parameters are displayed for the SX700 in the YEM (each "occupied" / "total"):

1. Voice Wave Size: 10 / 392 MB (10 MB is used by the system by default, i.e. a maximum of 382 MB is available for Expansion Voice Wave data.)

2. Voice Parameter Size: 0 / 8192 KB (kilobytes!)

3. User Drive Size: 0 / 1024 MB (required space of expansion pack data such as styles, multi pads, registration files, etc. in the User drive)

4. Pack Install File Size: 0 / 4096 MB: Size of .ppi/.cpi Pack Install file

Also see the attached screenshots.


By the way, as already mentioned, User drive and Expansion Voice Wave Memory use different memory technologies:

The User drive is an "eMMC" memory (embedded Multi Media Card). This is comparable to an SSD (Solid State Disk/Drive), but less expensive. The SX900 has a 4 GB eMMC chip, the SX700 only a 1 GB eMMC chip. The User drive can therefore under no circumstances be increased by a software update.

The Expansion Voice Wave Memory is based on a completely different technology. A "NAND Flash" memory is used here, which has an extremely fast access time. Incidentally, the same memory type is used for the Wave data of the Preset Voices. The SX900 has 4 * 512 MB NAND Flash, so a total of 2048 MB (= 2 GB) for the Wave data of Expansion and Preset Voices. The SX700 has 2 * 512 MB NAND Flash installed, so a total of 1024 MB (= 1 GB). There might still be some free space in the NAND Flash of the SX700, which could be made usable to increase the Expansion Memory by a Firmware update. But I don't think Yamaha would do that ...


Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Chris

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[Lacko]

Thanks Chris for detailed explanation

Lacko

[overover]

Thanks Chris for detailed explanation

Lacko

Anytime, thanks for your feedback, Lacko!


Best regards,
Chris

[pjd]

My question is - where are my ,,lost" voices, where is the expansion memory? Has SX700 1 GB user memory AND another 400 MB expansion memory?

Chris is quite correct. Thanks, Chris.

Just to finish the point, there is exactly one, dedicated memory unit (waveform memory) which feeds the tone generator IC. The waveform memory contains both the factory preset waveforms and the user expansion waveforms. In SX700, the physical waveform memory is 1GB = preset waveforms + approximately 400 MB user waveforms.

You could reasonably infer that the factory waveforms need approximately 600MB. That's about right given what I've seen in other service manuals.

Hope this helps and doesn't add confusion. :-)

-- pj

[BogdanH]

... In SX700, the physical waveform memory is 1GB = preset waveforms + approximately 400 MB user waveforms.

You could reasonably infer that the factory waveforms need approximately 600MB...

-Interesting info .. thanks for sharing! 

Bogdan