Last night I was checking out Bad Mister’s Motif Production DVD., and his very helpful explanation of customizing Arpeggios. btw (I highly recommend this DVD for those that want to dig deeper in to the MOTIF,MOXF, or MOX it is quite good) As I started to gain an even better appreciation for the power of the Motif Arpeggiator and for the almost limitless possibilities it gives you for real-time performance interaction, I couldn’t help but wonder how much different the motion sequencer is {and would my audience notice the difference?}.  And while pondering that question I reflected back on my experience with Motif Karma (also very awesome for real-time musical interactivity and inspiration). That is so massive, that I feel even after a year I’m only
scratching the surface.

The Motif Arpeggiator, Montage Motion Sequencer, Karama, Interactive Phrase libraries, these are extremely powerful big ideas, and they all seem to have almost unlimited potential.  They also are kind of hard to get your head around in any comprehensive kind of way (if for no other reason than permutations). I’m definitely a Yamaha fan boy, but where do we even go from here? The lines are starting to blur… LOL

How much of the difference between these technologies really boil down to marketing and packaging?  I know they all have their pros and cons, but how much does Motion Sequencing really give you over Motif Karma?  Or are they really apples & oranges?  How much does Motif Karma really give you over the Motif Arpeggiator+Scenes?  Or are we talking evolution from one to the other?

TBH I can’t even imagine squeezing all there is out of Arpeggios+Scenes on my MOX.  To really put it all in context I’m still getting miles and miles out of my Yamaha QY100 and the 4,285 preset music phrases that can be combined, mixed, matched, and morphed in countless ways.  Sure my MOX is an improvement, but with a little work, I get my QY100 to kick ass in all kind of real-time scenarios.  The sequencing, and phrase creation is not as dynamic, but if you dig into the phrase types the basics are there.

Question: how many Motif series owners really have a full grasp of the power of the Arpeggiator? and all the crazy real-time stuff you can get out of it?

Question: how many Montage owners will every really get a comprehensive grip on the motion sequencer?

Question: Out of those that purchased Motif Karma how many musicians
have truly mastered and integrated the concept into their
performances?

Question:  And going way back for those of us that got up on the
QY 100,700 sequencers, how many of the musicians really got
the point of just how much music power they had with the
preset music phrases, phrase types, and pattern recording?

Question:  What is the creative potential differences between
Motion Sequencer, Motif Arpeggiator, & Motif Karma?
I imagine they all could work together, but what would
that even sound like LOL.

I suppose you can never have to much of a good thing, or can we?

Apples and oranges..

Motion sequencing

Assuming Yamaha approaches it similar to how Korg uses that term, it merely is a way to sequence controllers. Not notes!!! Just controllers, to have your sounds changing over time as you play.

Arpeggiator

The arpeggiator is a mini-sequencer that is controlled by the notes you play. That is, the actual notes you play change what the sequence plays. This is different than either an old school arpeggiator or a normal sequencer. Because the heart of arpeggios are short sequences, they can adjust controllers as well as play notes. You can find some controller only patterns in the factory preset arp patterns.

Karma

Karma is often confused with an arpeggiator. It is better thought of as the next step beyond the Motif arpeggiator where it can be controlled in real time as it plays to affect how it plays...make things more or less complex, add some variations on the fly, etc. Instead of the endless repetition of an arpeggiator pattern, Karma can sound more human because it will adjust what it is doing when you tweak the controls as you play. It’s probably best experienced on Korg keyboards where it is built in, as opposed to the software version available for Motif. Go to a store that has a Kronos or any of the older Korgs that have Karma and try it.

Musical Phrase Library

Yamaha has used the phrase concept for decades in it’s sequencers. What a phrase is has varied a bit over the years but basically it is a collection of notes entered into the sequencer.  On a Motif, if you are in Pattern mode and record to track 1, what you record is called a phrase...it is assigned a unique number. You can do two things with phrases: share them and copy them. When shared, you can place that phrase into tracks of different pattern sections. It is not a copy, though...it is the same phrase, same number. If you edit the phrase in one pattern section, all the sections and tracks that share that phrase are changed. This has often confused users who wonder why an edit in one section affects other sections. If you copy a phrase, it becomes a new phrase (different phrase number) and now if you edited either the original or the copy, the other does not change.

In the Motif, phrases can only be created in pattern mode, but they can be copied into songs...this is a big deal. Let’s say you go into pattern mode and record a bunch of four bar bass lines in various pattern sections on various tracks...you could create up to 256 total four bar phrases this way (you could also create phrases of any length you like). Now you can create a new song and build up the bass line by dropping particular phrases into the song at particular locations. If the song was 128 bars long, for instance, you could have a different bass line phrase every four bars. If after assembling the final bass line you decide you’d like to tweak it a bit, you could choose to replace any four bar phrase with a different phrase. Now think about applying this to drum phrases, melodic phrases...for example, you could piece together a complex solo by assembling various phrases in a particular order.

Now where do you find phrase libraries? Go to the Motifator shop and look under Patterns and Loops. These libraries contain MIDI data in pattern format. Each of the patterns contains multiple phrases, each phrase can be dropped into your own patterns or songs.

Wow, this is fascinating stuff.  It almost seems like the more you learn, the more there is to learn.

So we have sequencers, mini sequencers, meta-sequencers, controller sequencers and a whole bunch of music happening interactively and in real-time, but all based on some pre-sequenced musical phrases (notes), or musical gestures, or other effects and dynamics.

But the motif arpeggiator has a real time (interactive component) to it right?  E.g the AccentVelTh parameter is really only triggered in real-time or interactively.  I definitely see how Karama takes the Arpeggiator to the next level for sure. But with a little extra effort, the Motif Arpeggiator can produce very dynamic, interactive and real-time results right?  I know it can’t match Karma but we might imagine that the Motif Arpeggiator is either a subset of of Karma or at least there is a big intersection between the two.  Actually, I was just reading the Keyboard Magazine June, 2011 that features 10 Years of the Motif retrospective.  In that article Athan Billias (one of the marketing directors for original Motif) says that the original Motif was kind of a ‘Hardware Karma’.  Or at least thats how I read the article. In that retrospective he makes the point that he was a project planning Manager at Korg and worked with Stephen Kay and says “ I gave Stephen his first copy of Cycling 74 Max’ which Stephen used to develop Karma.  Hopefully Keyboard Magazine did their fact checking :-)

I do plan on getting the Montage at some point, because its awesome FM engine.  But I can’t help but wonder is the Motion Sequencer giving me very much more than Motif Arpeggiator + Karma?  I know the FM Synthesis engine + AWM2 is worth the price of admission, but for now the Motion Sequencer has caught my eye.  And when you dig deep into these technologies Yamaha Phrase/Pattern Sequencers e.g QY 100, Motif Arpeggiators, Motif Karama, they seem to share a big core of interactive/dynamic midi sequences & control

For example, at the time I bought my Yamaha QY100, I was primarily just interested in it a 16 track sequencer.  I paid little attention to the preset music phrases, and phrase types and the interactive automation that was possible.  It was only after I got my MOX 8 and started playing around with the Arpeggiator and its associated vocabulary that caused me to mess around with the QY100 preset phrases, phrases types, pattern mode recording,etc.  And amazingly, that little QY100 feels a lot like a first generation arpeggiator, or ‘Karama in the womb’ LOL.  And the more I messed with it the more real-time/interactive music ideas I could squeeze out of the QY100, which in turn made me appreciate my MOX’s arpeggiator’s flexibility even more.  I think in some ways we’re still only scratching the surface of the Motif’s arpeggiator (even after all these years),.  And Karma certainly ups that game.

But is the motion sequencer really not related at all to the Motif Arpeggiator and Karma?  Or is it the latest
improvement or enhancement to the Yamaha’s original interactive musical phrase library Which has culminated in the Motif Arpeggiator?  Maybe the progression goes like this:

QY Sequencers (interactive sequence phrase libraries) are foundation for
Motif Arpeggiator which is foundational for Motif Karama which is then enhanced by Motion Sequencing

I know, its a bit of a stretch, but if you just take the 50,000 ft view....  How much of the differences between these is marketing speak for really the same basic technology that has just evolved over time?  Is the Motion Sequencer really just the next logical enhancement to Arpeggiator-Karma like sequencing tech?
Is the Motion Sequencer just a way of simplifying the whole kit-n-kaboodle for the mere mortal musicians out here?

And I guess more importantly for me, is can I achieve (with extra effort) the same basic effect to my audience, using Motif Arpeggiator + Karma?  Or does the sequencing, meta-sequencing, hyper-meta sequencing, quantum-hyper-meta-sequencing continue in the Motion Sequencing and therefore I need to add the Montage to my workflow sooner than later.  LOL

Thanx meatballfulton for you informative post.