Hi, I have been using a MOTIF-ES rack with cubase 4 for around 6-8 months.

It was all working fine, however I have been too busy for the last month or so to get in the studio. I finally managed to get up there tonight with my friend, and upon opening the last song we were working on, was greeted by the following message…

Studio Manager

Following MIDI port(s) could not be found.

INPUT:
Yamaha USB in 0-1 [motif-rack ES (multi) motif-rack ES (voice)]

OUTPUT:
Yamaha USB out 0-1 [motif-rack ES (mutli)]
Yamaha USB out 0-8 [motif-rack ES (voice)]

I clicked OK and opened the studio manager and the multi part editor and then transmit bulk data. The bar progressed up to 100% as normal, and upon pressing play in cubase the track started to play using the preset multi sound (New R&B;) preset voices (not the voices loaded into the bank on screen). I can move through the presets and the voices change but the songs will not play in their original voices (saved in the multi rack in the cubase file). I tried the obvious, checking the device manager settings, restarting cubase, turning the Motif off and on again, reinstalling the USB drivers and reinstalling the studio manager. Everytime I open any of my cubase songs I am still greeted by the same error message and a cacophony of wrongness.

PLEASE HELP somebody. I can not understand where this problem has come from, or think of a way to resolve the issue.

Just thought I should mention, that the midi tracks in cubase are all set to output to Yamaha USB out 0-1 - and they are sending the midi data to the rack ES, just the studio manager is not transmitting the bulk data to change the patches in the multi part editor.

The midi channels appear in the device setup window within cubase and are all set to active in both the midi and studio manager sections.

This makes me think that it is a fault within the studio editor rather than the hardware itself?

I can’t understand it.

Guess this portion of the forum isn’t visited all that often… or everyone else is as clueless as I am.

I sent a request to Yamaha customer support and they replied to me the same day with the number of a motif specialist. Unfortunately I won’t get chance to call him until friday, still I’m impressed by the support thus far. Thumbs up to Yamaha!

Hmmm! (You have old drivers). When the software reported that the Ports could not be found, you basically ignored that warning. This can happen when the system has been reset or reconfigured in the meantime.

What you need to do is go through and reassign and check your MIDI Port assignments.

Go to the Motif-Rack ES and make sure that it is set to USB (this is most likely true because you did say there was communication).

You should also verify that the assignment of both Editor’s Ports are actually reading correctly:

In Cubase:
Go to DEVICES > Studio Manager > Motif-Rack ES Editor (MULTI)

On the menu bar of the Multi-Part Editor go to SETUP > Setup…

MIDI IN REMOTE PORT = Not Assigned
MIDI OUT REMOTE PORT = Not Assigned
MIDI IN PORT = Yamaha USB MIDI IN 0-1
MIDI OUT PORT = Yamaha USB OUT 0-1

Do the same thing for the Motif-Rack ES Editor (VOICE)
Go to SETUP > Setup…

MIDI IN Port = Yamaha USB MIDI IN 0-1
MIDI OUT Port = Yamaha USB MIDI OUT 0-1

Make sure these do not read “N/A Yamaha USB 0-1” ....

That “N/A means the PORTS are NOT AVAILABLE… you should click on them and reassign them. I’m going to bet that your PORTS read “N/A” and need to be reassigned… and that is why the Studio Manager did not find them

That should do it.

When next you can however, you should really update your Yamaha USB-MIDI Driver (I have not seen the “Yamaha USB MIDI 0-1” in quite some time… It (the old driver should still work, but now the newer version of the drivers, typically, identify the product as follows “Yamaha Motif-Rack ES-1” for PORT 1

Let us know. If this is not the solution for your issue - then please include your computer type, operating system, version of Cubase 4, and versions of the Studio Manager and Motif-Rack Editors you are using (also the version of the Yamaha USB-MIDI driver you are working with).

Thanks, hope that helps.

If it makes the OP feel better, he’s not the only one with this problem. I’ve been having the same issues, hopefully a driver update does indeed fix the issue.

Thank you very much.

I downloaded new drivers earlier in the week, but today is the first chance I’ve had to get in the studio. I’ll have a look at what you’ve suggested, and install the new drivers. I got the updates for studio manager and the part editors too. Hopefully that should get it all working again and I’ll be a happy bunny.

I also downloaded the cubase update to 4.5 (was running 4.1) so I’ll have a go at installing that (and the VST sound pack 1).

If all this still doesn’t fix it… (which it sounds like it will, you obviously know what you’re talking about) then I’ll give Dusty@Yamaha support a call.

Once again thanks for your help. (:))

I’ve just been checking that the files I had downloaded were the latest ones…

I had originally downloaded from:
http://www.yamahasynth.com/download/motif_series.html

then today found:
http://www.yamahaproaudio.com/downloads/firm_soft/index.html

Which has later versions of USB MIDI driver and Studio Manager…
there isn’t anything there for the multi part editor or voice editor.

are version 2.2.0 of the voice and multi editor (jul/12/07) the latest versions? Am I better off using SM 2.1.5 (sep/05/05) or 2.3.0 (sep/06/08). I’m guessing the latter is very much more up to date - will the earlier versions of voice and multi editor still work in the more recent SM, or are there newer ones available? I couldn’t see them on the Yamaha site.

I did think that 05 and 07 files must be quite old.

Thanks for your advice. You were right about the N/A state of the MIDI ports. My songs now play with the correct sounds, although I’m having to open each song, remap the ports and save it which is a bit of a pain. I’m just glad it’s working again.

I’ve installed:
Yamaha MIDI USB driver v2.1.5
Studio Manager v2.3
Multi Part Editor v2.2
Voice Editor v2.2
and updated Cubase to v4.5.2

Are these the right versions?

The MIDI ports still seem to be labelled in the same manner though (Yamaha USB 0-1) so I’m wondering if I have actually got the right drivers.  The Recall transmits fine upon loading a song where it was tempremental with the old driver.  In the multi part editor however, when I click transmit multi bulk the window just flashes up and you don’t see the progress bar go up to 100% (unless the new driver is so much quicker that you just don’t see the progress?), and when I click receive multi bulk the progress bar stays on 0% until the message ‘bulk receive timed out.’

Selecting individual patches for each track works in the multi part editor as normal - the new version has the option of filtering the patches by category which is cool.

Thank you very much.

The USB MIDI Driver is at 2.2.3 now.

I tried installing it on Wednesday night and Cubase 5 stop “seeing” any of the Yamaha USB ports. While there was still communication if I opened the USB MIDI driver control panel, the Motif would respond to ALL NOTE ON & ALL NOTE OFF messages…

So I rolled back to Driver 2.2.2 and things came back…