Will the combination of 4 arpeggiators and
64 note polyphony greatly increase the
chance of note cutting?

No. why? ... the math says no, not at all.

For example a four part performance with arp active on each part.
As each of the four arpeggiators is activated by playing the
keyboard the new arps use more elements. Right?

So doesn’t this increase the chance for note cutting since the
64 element limit is more likely to be reached with the above set
up compared to a four part performance with only one arp running?

No… it is not. You’ll just have to wait and play it. I could explain it but then you’d still want to check it out yourself… and I agree that you should. But you will not run out of polyphony using the arpeggios, period.

Yep. Try sequencing with the thing though. Just a single drum kit and a bass sound can cut notes, because the drum sound “eats up” all the available polyphony.

64 is archaic, IMHO.

Think about what the arps are doing: Playing individual notes in a given pattern. Having four of them running simultaneously would very likely not result in a problem as they do not sustain and only a few notes will actually be sounding at the same time.  When you are likely to notice polyphony issues may be when using a performance with a sustain pedal involving multiple voices. Like a piano layered with an EP and strings. If you’re heavy on the sustain pedal and play a lot of notes, you will crash through with that one pretty quick.  Sequenced material will depend on how it is programmed. There are a lot of 32 and 64 note machines out there that don’t crash on playback. Think about the DX7. 8 notes, and it was a legend.

I agree that 64 notes is a dated spec today, but that’s part of the reason it’s 1/2 the cost of it’s big brother.

My opinion anyway.

SpongeBob - 18 April 2011 10:26 PM

There are a lot of 32 and 64 note machines out there that don’t crash on playback. Think about the DX7. 8 notes, and it was a legend.

So? The DX7 came out in 1983. The MOX comes out in 2011. The DX was a single-purpose FM synth, the Motifs are sample-based allaround workstations. Not really comparable, despite the fact that they’re both (arguably) the “synth of the day” in their respective time period.

Commodore 64 had also only 64kb of RAM, a laptop today can have 8 gigabytes. One gigabyte is 1,000,000 kb… And yet the C64 was (is) obviously a classic, and worked wonders for its time. But that’s not the point.

I don’t know what you guys are doing to regularly eat up 64 Motif voices...must be some very dense sequences.

It’s easy enough to figure out how many elements are used in a patch, just press Edit in Voice mode and you’ll see an LED light up for each element (on XS and XF you can also just look at the screen in Voice mode). You can then select each one and see if it’s stereo or mono, always on, velocity switched, keyrange switched or AF switched...all of which affect the number of voices used per note. A lot of the stereo samples in the ROM have mono variants available you can use to “slim down” patches.

If you choose voices that really have 8 elements in use on every note you play, you will eat up polyphony pretty quick whether triggered by the arpeggiator or not. However, most of the voices use far less than 8 elements so the actual number of simultaneous notes you can trigger will not be that different than the MO6/8 or Motif Classic.

The rules of Motif polyphony have not changed over time:

1 voice per element using mono samples.
2 voices per element using stereo samples.

You never run out of polyphony if you know how to use polyphony - it is that simple. Particularly true with the MO-X because it has a built-in Audio Interface. (its MIDI and AUDIO via USB and is as easy to use as it can get)

Workflow for NEVER running out of polyphony:
Record Tracks as MIDI data to the MO-X Sequencer.
The MO-X features DUAL STEREO audio output buses.

You can use USB1/2 for isolating PARTS you want to record as audio
The rest of the PARTS default to USB3/4.

You can route any PART (in isolation) to an audio track of your favorite DAW (as you know the MO-X comes with Cubase, but you can use any DAW that can use an ASIO driver).

Say you have 12 Tracks of dense data Drums, Bass, Keys, Guitar, Brass, Strings, etc., etc.
You begin to think I might be getting close to the 64 note polyphony wall.
Press [MIXING]
Press [EDIT]
Select PART 1 (Your Drums)
Set its audio OUTPUT to USB1/2 _ this will isolate the Drums on their own stereo audio bus which can be then rendered as an audio track in your DAW.

When the transfer is complete you can set PART 1’s MIDI RECEIVE Channel to OFF, ( you can keep the MIDI data on Track 1, because later if you want to edit your Drums, you have that data as backup- the ultimate level of UNDO) by setting the Channel OFF, gives you back the polyphony.

In this fashion you can route a PART (or several PARTS combined) that you have already recorded and render them as audio in your favorite DAW. They playback in sync. You have a separate DAW LEVEL slider (and Meter) so you can mix the audio back with your other tracks.

I don’t expect you to fully understand just how cool this (at least until you start to do it). And because the Sequencer in the MO-X has 64 SONGS and 64 PATTERNS, there are 128 MIXING setups… for those really thick tracks (that you obviously are recording… you have plenty of storage for the MIDI data and you can record as many audio tracks as your DAW allows…

And the real benefit here is YOU NEVER, EVER run out of polyphony, period. It is all a matter of how you choose to approach using your technology.

The benefit of hardware/software integration is that you get the best of both worlds: the hardware makes the best interface for performing music and the computer hardware makes the best place to store your recorded data, while the included software lets you bring the worlds together.

You can keep backups of your performing (as MIDI tracks) and you can transfer or render them as AUDIO so that you can reallocate your hardware. So not only do you never run out of polyphony but you are only limited by imagination.

And that is my humble opinion… :-D

Badmister, I think you message is technically correct but deflects from the question. By utilizing an external DAW, you can make this whole thing work even if the keyboard had 1 voice of polyphony (although it would be burdensome).

For folks that are using the MOX as a standalone workstation, obviously one can run out of available notes, twice as fast as they would in a 128 note polyphony unit.

Read this thread all the way through…

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/448531

Bad_Mister - 10 April 2011 08:54 AM

No… it is not. You’ll just have to wait and play it. I could explain it but then you’d still want to check it out yourself… and I agree that you should. But you will not run out of polyphony using the arpeggios, period.

Bad Mister, is this “theoretical math probability” the reason why the MOX specifications on yamahasynth.com say that the tone generator max polyphony is 64 and the sequencer max polyphony is 124 ?????????  I’m fine with this if the math backs up the claim! :-) It would seem that Yamaha has done an awesome job in optimizing the sequencer/arpeggiator.

Here are snippets from the MOX specifications:

---------------------------------------------------
Tone generator
Tone Generator AWM2, with Expanded Articulation
Maximum Polyphony 64 notes
Multi Timbral Capacity 16 parts (Internal), A/D input part
----------------------------------------------------
Sequencer
Note Capacity Approx. 226,000 notes
Note Resolution 480 ppq (parts per quarter note)
Maximum Polyphony 124 notes
Tempo (BPM) 5 – 300
----------------------------------------------------

because you can use the MOX sequencer to play external sound module (up to 124 poly), but internal engine is supported up to 64 poly.

Not only is the polyphony reduced compared to the XS,
so are the number of parts which can have insertion
effects. XS has 8 but MOX has 3, same as MO!

tonechef - 05 May 2011 11:59 PM

Not only is the polyphony reduced compared to the XS,
so are the number of parts which can have insertion
effects. XS has 8 but MOX has 3, same as MO!

The price points are not different for nothing. I still feel that you get a much greater value per $ in the MOX.

Guys, if the XF is not really a step above XS, how can you think the Mox could be so powerful? But Mox is an incredible machine because of it’s price and lightness.