In trying to solve some other issues, I’ve suddenly realized that although I have Yamaha Motif Midi OUTs of 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, ... 0-8, when it comes to midi IN I only have Yamaha Motif Rack ES 0-1.

I see examples, screen shots, etc. in many places where there are multiple MIDI INs 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, coming in from the Motif Rack ES, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get them to appear in ANY of my PC midi-related software (Sonar, MidiOx, Aria, Philharmik, etc.)

When I open the Yamaha Midi Driver configuration utility within WinXP Control Panel, I see all but Midi IN 0-1 is greyed out. This suggests two things ... (a) more than 1 is supposed to exist, (b) there’s something about how I’ve configured my Motif Rack ES that precludes their being accessed.

Any insights would be appreciated!

- OneWatt

The Device-Port numbers

When you see 0-1, ‘Zero’ is the Device number and ‘One’ is the Port number.

If you had two Motif-Rack ES’s connected via USB, then one of them would be designated DEVICE 0, and the other would be DEVICE 1.

Each of them would have their own eight (possible) Ports:
0-1, 0-2, 0-3, 0-4, 0-5, 0-6, 0-7, 0-8
and
1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 1-6, 1-7, 1-8 respectively.

Although there are 8 available ports on the Yamaha USB-MIDI driver, the Motif-Rack ES is one of many Yamaha products that uses the driver. It does not use all of them. Each PORT is 16 MIDI channels and therefore there is no need for the Motif-Rack ES to use all of them. (at maximum the Motif-Rack ES can utilize 33 PARTS multi-timbral when PLG boards are installed, and it can pass thru 16 additional channels OUT via the ThruPort… explained below)

If you are still seeing the DEVICE-PORT numbers, you probably have an older driver (no biggie, but the newer Yamaha USB-MIDI driver would identify your product’s ports, “Motif-R ES-1, Motif-R ES-2, and so forth)

Port 1 - is reserved specifically for the 16 internal PARTS of the Motif-Rack ES. This is fixed and will always be PORT 1.

Port 2 - could be used for any PLG-series boards that you might plug-in. The PLG150-series are single PART boards. Say you had two PLG150-series boards installed… they would both occupy the same PORT. One MIDI channel each on Port 2.

Port 3 - could be used for any PLG-series boards that you might plug-in. Say you had a PLG100-XG multi-PART board. You could place that on PORT 3 and it would have its own 16 discreet MIDI channel… The XG board is 16 part multi-timbral.

The other Port could be used when you want to additionally use the Motif-Rack ES as a MIDI interface for an external device… say you have another tone generator that you want to communicate with in a computer setup… with the MIDI IN/OUT parameter set to USB any keyboard or controller plugged into the 5-pin MIDI IN jack would arrive at your computer as Port 1… You could connect an external device to the 5-pin MIDI OUT jack and that device could be communicated with via what is called the “ThruPort”

Press [UTILITY]
Page to the MIDI screen
Cursor down to “THRU PORT” you can set this to any number 1-8 and this will determine the PORT number you could address that external device. Say you set the THRU PORT = 4

Now say you have a multi-timbral MIDI module connected to the MIDI OUT of the Rack ES via 5-pin MIDI cable. Any track in your DAW routed to Port 4 would wind up triggering that module - with its own 16 MIDI channels discreet from both the internal 16 and any other Ports.

So the maximum number of simultaneous MIDI ports that your Motif-Rack ES can use is four. 3 internally and 1 pass thru…

Hope that helps.

Bad_Mister -

I really appreciate the comprehensive reply and will dive back in at home, but I’m not sure the nature of my problem is what you’ve addressed (although could be!) ... I have the proper OUT ports available, it’s the Midi-INs that seem to be missing. I’m using USB Midi and have the Utility set to USB.

I only have one (1) Yamaha Motif MIDI-IN choice listed on the left-hand side of my various Midi Options/Devices screens throughout all my WinXp midi-related applications.

The info provided above is very helpful in gaining a further understanding of some of the inner workings of the Motif, but I already have multiple OUTs.. it’s the single Yamaha Midi-IN that’s confusing.

Are you saying that this is to be expected (since I only have 1 Yamaha unit in my rig)? And it’s simply not an issue? I was only wondering because I keep seeing screen shots showing many Yamaha Midi INs 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, etc and thought I might be missing something ;-)

- OneWatt