Yamaha Motif XS6 Synth - Now with Conclusions, and Motif XF "Coda"

[thefunk]

Do these keyboards have the ability to do basic transport control of ProTools (Mac)? Anything beyond just the basics?

[avl_digital]

Hi. Dope review. I'm thinking about to buy this nice machine, but I've got the EDIROL FA-66 Audio Interface connected to my PC via firewire. Can I do something to connect both in order to have the audio interface as the main component of my "studio"?

Maybe I'll buy a workstation too, like AKAI MPC1000 or the ROLAND MV-8800 and I wish to have all integrated.

Thanks you in advance.

[Anderton]

Hi. Dope review. I'm thinking about to buy this nice machine, but I've got the EDIROL FA-66 Audio Interface connected to my PC via firewire. Can I do something to connect both in order to have the audio interface as the main component of my "studio"?

 

 

I don't have the Firewire add-on for the XS6, so I'll be speculating, but I'm sure someone from Yamaha will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I believe there's no technical reason why you couldn't hook up the FA-66 to one Firewire port and the Motif XS6 to another port (it seems to be good practice to have separate ports for each firewire device you use rather than try to daisy-chain them). However, at the DAW end of things, if you plan to use the FA-66 as an ASIO interface, that "locks out" the possibility of using other interfaces, at least with Windows. A company called CEntrance has a driver that accommodates using multiple Firewire ASIO interfaces, but I don't know if it accommodates ASIO and mLAN; I would tend to doubt it.

 

WDM/KS drivers for Windowsdo allow for having multiple interfaces working simultaneously, and while I think that would mean mLAN would also be available, I can't vouch for that without trying it myself.

 

The Mac is another story, what the ability to aggregate interfaces, but that's not a technique I have tried.

 

Hope this helps....

[Anderton]

I went to the http://www.yamahasynth.com site, and found a couple programs to download: Studio Manager software, and a Motif XS editor. So here we go again - another learning curve!

I installed the software, and so far, so good although both applications seem somewhat complex, and it took me a while to figure out how to set up the MIDI ports so they would communicate properly. At the moment, I have the computer synchronizing with the XS6 so that as I make changes in the editor, they're reflected at the keyboard itself. You can also do the reverse, where changes you make on the keyboard alter settings in the editor.

Refer to the image, which I had to reduce to fit the BBS size limits for screens...the actual graphics are nice and crisp. This shows an editor screen for all elements; you'd use this if you wanted to, for example, change the filter cutoff for all elements simultaneously. But you can also call up screens for individual elements, organized similarly to the instrument interface (separate views for Oscillator/Pitch, Filter, Amplitude, LFO, etc.) so there's no need to acclimate yourself to a different UI.

Okay, and now I'm going to forget this program ever existed so I can get back to the keyboard itself...otherwise I'll probably find myself exploring the software for the next few days, and there's so much we need to cover in terms of sounds, the sequencer, etc. But again, I must say I appreciate Yamaha's relentless approach to support. You don't just get a keyboard, you get an editor, the Studio Manager software, some serious web resources, networking...I'll admit it's a bit overwhelming sometimes, but there sure is a lot of cool stuff going on here.

[Athan Billias]

In answer to avl_digital, The Motif XS has a built-in SP/DIF output so you could just connect that to the SP/DIF in of the EDIROL FA-66 to integrate the Motif XS into your studio.

The Motif XS has complete mixing capabilities so you can mix all your Motif XS sounds digitally and record the stereo output digitally via the Edirol or set some tracks to an assignable L & R digital output and record Motif XS tracks one at time.

As far as using two Firewire devices, as Craig pointed out, most Fireiwire devices are peer to peer so you can use both but not at the same time.

You need to switch the ASIO driver in your application between the two devices.

So our recommendation would be to just use what comes standard on the XS and connect digitally via SP/DIF to your Edirol interface.

[Anderton]

And now, in response to your requests

The attached files are of solo violin, solo cello, and solo contrabass. As with the previous examples, I just played these into my sequencer, and saved them as MP3s...nuthin' fancy. This time around, though, I converted them to mono so they would have somewhat higher quality when played back as MP3s. I figured the gain in quality would offset some of the loss of spatiality that would occur by going from stereo to mono.

I'd also like to add that these riffs are played strictly off the keyboard: No added modulation, footpedals, etc. I wanted these samples to represent as "naked" a sound of the keyboard as possible. Obviously, if you start adding aftertouch, mod wheel, footpedals, etc, you could get more expressiveness. What's important about these examples is that I feel the expressiveness of the samples themselves is quite noteworthy.

Listen away

[Anderton]

There are various ensemble sounds in the XS6, here's a (very) small taste.

The Ensemble patch was converted to mono, for the reasons given in the previous post. I like the thickness of the sound alot.

The Cello Duet patch is in stereo, because I figured you already heard the naked cello in the previous patch, and would find the difference in spatiality interesting. The cello duet patch is really quite warm and expressive...

Anyway, check 'em out. I'll do some more orchestral patches (pizzicato, brass, etc.) tomorrow. I had a bit of a setback today as we had a bunch of lightning storms, and when I started hearing crackles through the headphones that were timed with the lightning strikes, I figured that turning off the computers for a bit was a good idea

[avl_digital]

Athan_Billias a lot of thanks for your reponse. But I think the EDIROL FA-66 has not SPDIF.

Check it out:



How could I connect then the XS to the EDIROL? Thanks in advance again.

[Anderton]

I'm not Athan, but I think I can answer that. On the rear panel, the FA-66 has optical SPDIF (the Out - Digital - In connectors). The XS6 has coaxial (RCA jack) SPDIF. The data format is exactly the same, only the connector is different, but you can buy optical to coaxial adapters (it's handy to have one around anyway).

 

This M-Audio converter would do the job, and costs only about $60.

[Athan Billias]

You actually only need the optical to coaxial conversion one way (you just need a digital input to the Edirol and don"t need both SP/Dif in and out) so you can get boxes for about half the price.

A quick Google search found this.


http://www.svideo.com/toslinkcoax1.html

[Anderton]

Thanks for the tip, Athan!

 

But a note to AVL Digital: You still might want to get the bi-directional box, because you never know when some other piece of gear will show up in your studio that needs optical-to-SPDIF conversion...This is a corollary of Murphy's Law, namely, "Any adapter you don't have will be needed sometime in the near future."

[Anderton]

Here are some brass sounds for ya

Same ground rules as before: Real-time noodling into a sequencer recording the audio output, no expressive mechanism other than playing the keys.

First up is classical trumpet, then French horn.

[Anderton]

These examples are of muted trumpet and sax. For the muted trumpet, I was trying to go for a bit of a Miles Davis vibe 'cause I always thought he had the muted trumpet thing totally down.

The saxophone example broke my rule of "no extra expressive gestures." Seems I simply cannot try to play a sax part without messing with the pitch bend wheel, so I figured, why fight it?

[Anderton]

Over the course of doing these examples, I've become more and more into using the control surface to control the recording process. I've been using this with Sonar (sorry Athan, Cubase will get its turn...) and increasingly, find myself turning to the computer less and less.

While recording, I would turn remote mode off while looking for sounds, then turn it back on when I was about to actually begin recording. The transport buttons did most of the work here, as the faders weren't really needed for what I was doing.

For those times I needed to undo, both undo and redo are implemented. As I recorded these examples (one after another, in the same tracks) I really didn't need to deal with the computer mouse or QWERTY keyboard at all; only when I was done recording, and ready to save out each example then bring it into Wavelab for trimming and MP3 conversion, did I actually need to move away from the keyboard and get back to the computer.

Old habits die hard, and it took me a little while to feel totally comfortable about controlling Sonar while sitting at a keyboard. But once I got into it, I have to say, it made recording go a lot faster...it took me about 2/3 of the time to generate today's examples compared to the ones I generated yesterday. To me, that's tangible evidence that the "let's add a control surface to the keyboard" concept has value.

[Athan Billias]

We completely re-did the user interface for the DAW control on the Motif XS and it is really nothing like the Motif or Motif ES. we re-grouped paramters to make them more logical and gave you access to key windows ( Project or Mix) on almost every page

That plus the the fact that the XS has 8 sliders and 8 knobs really make it a very complete and usable DAW controller.

It may well be the DAW controller with the largest sized color display on the market. Most devices like Mackie controllers usea small "scribble " strip display.

In fact , in Remote Mode by pressing SF5 Page List, you can access every DAW control parameter from one page. This is an incredibly fast way to work (even with Sonar ).

[randelph]

Craig,
Thanks for a great review- good to hear the ins and outs of actually getting things hooked up and running! I’ve got the XS7, and while hooking it up the computer has not been a nightmare (motifator.com keeps me sane and in the game), there still is a lot of looking everywhich where in pdf manuals and the forum for getting things hooked up (so far I’ve got the Editor going, and am working on getting all the MIDI channels to be automatically configured when I import a Song from the XS).

Having “graduated” from a high end Yamaha arranger keyboard to the XS, one thing I’ve really been looking forward to is all the controller possibilities: the ribbon, Assign 1&2 knobs, the Assignable Function buttons, footpedals, etc.

I’ve gotten stalled somewhat in this- it’s reasonably straightforward in Voice mode to establish the 6 “Controller Sets” (modulation source, destination and depth), but Performance mode is where I want to be- why play 1 Voice when a Performance can orchestrate 4?

For the most part the Performances inherit the Voice modulation control settings, but they also have a “Controller Assign” page where you can have an impact on the settings you made in Voice mode.

I’m sure I’ll understand the workings of this better over time (it’s very confusing to me now- I wish there was a Template or examples to follow). However, my question for you is as an end user who would want the possibilities this set-up has to offer (and having read your articles for many years, I know you’re also into creative control).

For your uses, how well does this set-up work for you? And most importantly, what are some of the settings so that your performances will be fully controlled/modulated to your liking, taking advantage of the XS architecture?

Thanks,
Randelph

[Anderton]

I'm getting into the articulation options, which are really quite cool. I'm recording examples now (I had a few computer issues not related to the Motif that set me back a day), and will upload over the weekend as there's quite a lot to cover here...so stay tuned, and check back for coverage of what's a very important part of the Motif XS6.

[Rabid]

Have song and patch save/load functions been updatd from the ES. One thing that bothers me on my ES is inability to save and load individual patches without using a computer. I also wish there was a way to load songs without having to overwrite all patches in the process. It would be nice to have a storage area for 16 patches dedicated to sequencer channels that would load with the song.

[Athan Billias]

First, let's clear up saving and loading on the Motif ES.

You can save all voices, all songs and all patterns and everything in the keyboard.

But you CAN load individual voices and songs on the ES. You save everything, but then can load individual pieces so it is easy it compile what you want without using a computer.

The Motif XS works the same way. You can save an All file , All Voice, All arpeggios, All Songs , All Patterns , SMF, All Waveforms, Wav and AIFF files.

You can load all of those things plus you can load individual Voices, Performances, Songs, Patterns, and Waves from within those files.

If you have questions on the specifics of how to do that on the ES , pop over to Motifator.com as that question has been answered several times over on the forums.

Regarding "It would be nice to have a storage area for 16 patches dedicated to sequencer channels that would load with the song."

That 's exactly what Mix voices are. This is from the Motif XS manual ( but the Motif ES had Mix Voices as well).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mixing Voices are Normal Voices that have been specially edited for and saved to specific Song/Pattern Mixs. Up to 16
Mixing Voices can be stored to each Song/Pattern Mix. In this mode, you can edit the Voices assigned to Mix Parts 1 –
16 respectively and store them as Mix Voices.

Keep in mind that Drum Voices cannot be edited in the Mixing Voice Edit mode.

Press the [F6] Vce Edit button to enter the Mixing Voice Edit mode.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First , on any Motif you have Part offset parameters. You can offset the Voices filter cutoff, resonance, Amp and Filter EGs, etc, for each Part in a Mix. Many times that is enough to tailor the sound to the Song you are working on. These Part setting get saved with Mix.

But if that isn't enough, you can Press the Mixing Voice edit button and do complete Voice editing of every parameter available in Voice mode for each of the 16 Parts ( with the exception of Drum Voices which are huge in parameter size). These Mix Voices are also stored with the Mix data that is a part of each Song/Pattern. After saving an All, All Song or All Pattern file, you can load individual songs or patterns from those All files and the Part Offsets and Mix Voices for the Song will load without effecting anything else in your Motif.

So to be clear on both the Motif ES and XS , you can fully edit each Voice in a 16 Part Mix ( with the exception of Drum Voices) , save an All Song, All Pattern or All file to external memory and then load just that individual Song or Pattern and it will load the Mix Voices associated with that song/pattern.

If you've got an ES , you just got two major requests answered immediately. If you are looking at the XS , it works just as you described that you wanted it to.

[Rabid]

Athan, first, let me just say, thank you. I asked that very question at Motifator long ago when I first got my ES and the answer I got was "when you save/load a song file you also save/load all patches". That was right after the ES hit the market. In early 2006 I bought the large patch collection from Motifator.com that had 8 different patch sets. (Bs Knees, Air, Pulse, Regenerator, etc...) After that purchase I posted a question asking if individual patches could be loaded and saved. The answer I got that time was that I have to use the software to manage patches and create my custom patch banks using patches from all those collections. No one mentioned what you just said, and no one corrected the person that posted that reply. I assumed it to be correct and gave up. Maybe they were literally corrects in that I cannot "load AND save" individual patches. Wow. I wish I had known at that time that I could load individual patches.

I will dig in and try to figure this out. Thanks again.

[Anderton]

...and thanks, Athan, for answering the question while I was still thumbing through the manual I was sure Rabid was under the wrong impression, but he's right a lot so I figured I'd better check!

In case anyone's wondering where the Articulation patches went that I said I'd post this weekend, as you may have heard (we made the national news!) New Mexico had some pretty wild weather yesterday, and power was an issue. I was willing to turn on my computer from time to time because the data's backed up anyway, but I wasn't about to subject an "Expensive Yamaha Keyboard On Loan" to the elements. So I'm basically running a day late.

However, I did get some fabulous pictures of nascent tornado cells hovering over my house...maybe I'll go post 'em on SSS. Thankfully none of them struck!!! Man, I thought I left that stuff behind when I moved outta Florida...

[Anderton]

As mentioned before, an individual voice can consist of 8 possible elements, which gives lots of leeway for velocity or pitch split elements that add expressiveness; the Motif XS6 has several ways to exploit those elements.

It seems that the voice names usually let you know if the assignable expression functions do something special. For example, referring to the display for voice name Classical AF1&2, the AF1&2 part (outlined in violet on the picture) indicates that Assignable Function switch options are built into the patch. However, note that just about all the patches seem to have something built in...it's worth checking the controller info strip to see what's shakin.'

Again referring to the image, the lower strip just above the tab indicates what the various controllers affect. In this case, toward the left, you can see that the Mod Wheel (MW) affects LFO depth, and Ribbon controller (RB) alters coarse tuning.

AS1 and AS2, which represent the Assignable knobs AS1 and AS2 in the control surface section (circled in red), also show their functions. I'm not sure why AF1 and AF2 don't show anything; maybe it's considered redundant due to the title. Athan?

In any event, let's here the switches in action...here's an audio example of the Classical voice. AF1 adds an upward slide - but what's really helpful is that it's different for different notes, which adds considerably to the realism. Toward the end, you'll hear the harmonics added by pressing AF2 (the lower function button).

Another really useful aspect of the buttons is that they can have a momentary or latched action. In a case like adding a slide or harmonic, you'd likely want momentary buttons so you can add a dash of spice if desired. But some AF options are almost like selecting a different sound, as if you'd hit the button on a stomp box. For these cases, the latching action is preferable.

[Anderton]

The Assignable Knobs, AS1 and AS2, are the two upper right knobs when Tone 1 bank is selected (the three Tone banks change the functions of the eight knobs).

The audio example using the voice shown in the image starts off with both latching AF switches off. For the second repeat of the figure, AF1 is latched on, changing the timbre. For the third repeat, AF2 is latched on, sending a portion of the voice through a chorus effect.

On the sustained chord following the repeat, you'll hear the tone change as I vary the EQ peak controlled by AS2. For the following, and final, sustained chord, I'm turning AS1. I did notice some quantization noise when turning these controls, so maybe they're more for set-and-forget tweaking, like tone, as opposed to something you'd control with a mod wheel or aftertouch.

[Athan Billias]

It depends on on what parameter the knobs are assigned to. Many can be changes in real time smoothly, but some DSP parameters are will have some artifacting because delay times are being reset.

You can store the settings of the knobs and there is also a parameter for copying these knob offsets to a Part ina Performance or Song/Pattern Mix.

[Anderton]

I'm not going to go too much more nuts about the articulations, I think after hearing the next set of examples you'll get the point.

 

We'll look at bass first. The first audio example is a fuzz bass sound, but hitting an articulation switch (which latches) changes the decay and sort of "mutes" the sound.

 

The next file has two latching switch assignments. One changes the filter characteristics by making it sharper, the other adds a sound an octave higher.

 

The third one is an acoustic bass. Articulation here adds various slides, effects, slaps, and the like...pretty cool.

 

The final bass example uses electric bass with slide articulation; the second articulation buttons adds harmonics, as you'll hear at the end.