Is there an output overload limiter?

by Philo Vivero
(San Francisco)

I have a Motif ES7 and a MO8, so both Motif-based synths. Both have the following problem:

When I play a particularly loud patch with enough notes or velocity (or other ways of making it loud), the keyboard suddenly cuts the output volume by about 8-10dB -- way more than the normal +6dB boost I give it on the L&R output setting.

If I change the patch, the volume of the keyboard is restored to full until I play loudly again.

At first I blamed my amps. Then I blamed my mixer. Then I blamed that I was using the headphone outputs of my Motif/MO. But after running several tests, the final being running the actual keyboard outputs into two different amps at low volume, I know the Motif/MO are what are actually doing this.

My patches are custom. The general theme of the patches that cause this are I'm using "loud" effects with resonance or other amplifier-killing signal processing.

Even still, my custom piano patch with zero chorus and minimal reverb can trigger this behaviour if I hit several bass notes hard.

So the question is: is there some limiter that sees when my patch is overloading the synth's output amplifier, and if so, does a software cut of the volume? How can I disable this, or at least make it so that if it cuts the volume it doesn't reinstate it when I change to the next patch?

It blows the eardrums when after adjusting the volume to the new output levels when the next patch is super-loud!

Again, it's important to note two totally different keyboards do this, so I know it's an undocumented feature, or at least something about my setup that can affect both keyboards.