I can tell you from experience that saving all the USER data to disk works great! You can totally initialize the user factory presets and then load up your previously saved SOUND file. When you load your stuff everything is just like you saved it, including which patch/performance/rhythm set you were on 'when' you saved it! It really is amazing how little memory it takes up on the disk too.

So when working on a song, I usually do one of two things:

#1: Use the method described above and Load the SOUND file that corresponds with the SONG or SONG+SOUND that you want to play. This is good for when you have several patch or performance changes in a song, so you have access to all 128 User patches/32 performances/and 2 rhythm kits.

#2: This method is good to use when saving songs as a .SMF0 or a .SMF1 (this is the usual method for saving songs to MIDI). When saving songs as a Standard Midi File, there is only one way to 'save' the sounds you used to make sure that they are the same each time you load your song. That is by using Sysex (I can hear the cringes now).

When I first started programming with sysex I thought it was really confusing, but it's not bad at all depending on how much you want to do. The JV's and XP's make saving sound data for each song a cinch! Just make sure you have about 4 measures of blank space at the beginning of your song. Just go to UTILITY-> DATA TRANSFER-> then you get to decide just how much you want to save from the user memory...Usually I have a Performance that I've made changes to so that little star is by the name. I then choose PERFORM TEMP: +PATCH By doing this, you save only the temporary performance plus all the patches 'currently' being used at the time you performed the transfer.

The great thing about this method of saving is that the sounds load right up with the song! It's great if you only have 16 parts to use with no patch changes. The sounds load at the beginning of the song and does so even if a patch is changed later. The downside to this method is that if you need to use more patches, they either better be preset patches (so you know what you're getting) or you must always keep your USER memory the same (so you know where you're getting the sounds and which ones...I don't like this idea).

This post is getting long so I'll finish up in another one.

Jake