I am a public school music teacher with some skills in (and a great affinity towards) music technology. We are doing The Addams Family for our school musical. It comes with a patch list for the keyboard part. I have a motif 8 and up until now I have only used it as a portable piano for my groups. The musical company offers all the patches (which is supposed to save me hours of programming). My problem is that I have no idea what they are talking about. I think I should buy the patches (whatever patches are!) How do I load (program?) these onto my motif 8 if possible? How do I set up the keyboard so that the keyboardist can change songs as quickly as possible while playing?

Welcome to the forum.

“Patch” is a generic term for the programming that produces a particular sound in a synthesizer. It originated from the time when “patch cords” (wires/cables) were used to interconnect various synth circuits. Yamaha doesn’t use the term “patch” for that purpose.

A few questions…
1) Do you have an original Motif (Classic), or is it a MO?
2) Exactly what is the company offering you?
- What media will the “patches” be supplied on?
- What are the file names, complete with extension?

I’m sure the difference between classic and MO. My unit says Motif 8 on the back panel and the manual says Motif 6, Motif 7, Motif 8.

The company is called Theatrical Rights Worldwide. Here is what they say on their website.

“Today’s Broadway orchestrators rely heavily on keyboard patches with specific instrument combinations, sound effects, tuning, etc.  This vital new product from TRW is the fast, easy and affordable solution to recreating these sounds in your pit and saving your Music Director hours of valuable time programming each keyboard part.  TRW’s Keyboard Patch Pro works exclusively with Apple’s MainStage--the preferred program of Broadway pit musicians. Ordering is easy.  For one flat price, this new ShowGo production enhancement tool will take your orchestra’s sound into the sonic stratosphere.”

I cannot find the names of the files at present. I will contact the company for more information.

SalinaEd - 10 February 2016 01:08 AM

I’m sure the difference between classic and MO. My unit says Motif 8 on the back panel and the manual says Motif 6, Motif 7, Motif 8.

You have a Motif 8, which is the original (Classic) Motif. The MO is a different model.

 

SalinaEd -

The company is called Theatrical Rights Worldwide. Here is what they say on their website.

“Today’s Broadway orchestrators rely heavily on keyboard patches with specific instrument combinations, sound effects, tuning, etc.  This vital new product from TRW is the fast, easy and affordable solution to recreating these sounds in your pit and saving your Music Director hours of valuable time programming each keyboard part.  TRW’s Keyboard Patch Pro works exclusively with Apple’s MainStage--the preferred program of Broadway pit musicians. Ordering is easy.  For one flat price, this new ShowGo production enhancement tool will take your orchestra’s sound into the sonic stratosphere.”

I cannot find the names of the files at present.

It appears you’ve been referring to this:
http://www.theatricalrights.com/node/53707
http://www.origintheatrical.com.au/work/8572

It’s now clear why “patch” - it’s the terminology Apple uses.
http://www.apple.com/mainstage/
http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011/12/09/is-apple-mainstage-at-30-the-biggest-bargain-in-music-software/

It’s not obvious exactly what role your Motif 8 would play. The software TRW provides might use synthesis capability built into MainStage.

 

SalinaEd -

I will contact the company for more information.

That would seem to be a good idea.

I guess my other question is can the motif 8 be used to produce all the other sounds needed for the production. The keyboard part has a “patch list” with items like “Clavichord (loco+8vb)” which I take to mean it sounds like a clavichord while a note octave lower being sounded while the note is played. Or “R.H. Clavichord+Horn (loco+8vb); L.H. Clavichord (loco+8vb)” which among other things means the left hand plays different sounds than the right hand.

Your Motif can produce a wide range of sounds, and as long as the keyboard parts for the production are “bread and butter”, it probably will be up to the task.

The “key” to that working correctly is mapping of sounds to where they’re located in the Motif. You might want to ask the company how that’s accomplished - it’s typically done using something like a Cakewalk instrument definition (.ins) file.

Playing two notes at the same time, one an octave lower, is easily handled by MIDI. Splitting the keyboard for LH and RH sounds can also be set up, with proper programming. A Song or Pattern Mixing could assign Voices to 16 different Parts.

Just to be sure, I think you should contact the company and ask them specifically if your Motif would be compatible with what they provide.

Thank you.

Hey SalinaEd,

I’m a professional keyboardist who works in musical theatre (and the owner of a MO8, which is why I visit this forum from time to time).  TRW is talking about the program Mainstage, which is a Mac/Apple product.  It’s $30 and basically you load the patches (the various sounds) into Mainstage, hook it up to your keyboard via a MIDI/USB cord, and the sounds are now produced out of the computer, not the keyboard.  You hook the computer up to your sound system, and voila, you’re now using your keyboard simply as a controller to generate sounds that are coming out of your computer. 

Alternately, you can program Mainstage yourself to produce the sounds you need for the show (i.e. strings first, then harpsichord, then whatever, etc. etc. until you’re done), but I know Addams Family is an exceptionally difficult show to program because of all the changes. 

But all that means nothing if you don’t have Mainstage, haha!  You can use the keyboard you have if you want, but it won’t sustain sounds past a patch change like Mainstage will, which causes a lot of problems in musical theatre. 

Feel free to drop me a line at if you’d like me to help some more.  I’ll be happy to lay out some more options and help you get through this.  Good luck!