Hi,

I recently bought a MOXF and I’m very happy with it,

One thing that seems a little unusual to me is how low the digital signal via USB is into my DAW.

For example, if I record enable a track in my DAW with the MOXF as the input and play a very busy performance sound with all kinds of sounds and drums going at once, I barely get above half way on the metering in my DAW and commonly only about a 3rd of the way up even with velocity maxed out on my midi track.

(my DAW is Logic, also tried in Cubase with same outcome)

I was wondering if this was yamaha being deliberately careful with such a low level or if it is something I could increase somehow from within the board.

I’m not looking for very hot levels into my DAW but even above half way would be good. Experience in recording tells me that i would never usually accept a level that low.

I have tested this on another MOXF at a friends and it appears to be the same deal, so I don’t think it is a fault.

it is not a huge problem because all I do is push the track fader up quite a bit after it has been recorded, but if you consider that my example was with a busy performance sound, you can imagine, single voices like pianos etc are worryingly low.

Being a digital signal, I would expect not to be able to change its level and I believe I am getting the most output out of my MOXF with maxed velocity and MIDI volume.

Any info would be appreciated.

thank you

Welcome to the a Forums!

Yes, it is Yamaha allowing you to mix… There are sixteen Parts in total, so a few Parts (like a Performance (4)) are not going to fill the entire record space… If you need or wish to record just four of the possible 16 Parts, you can expect NOT to be pegging the meters.

You actually have plenty of level, you can adjust the signal at the source. It works the same as you would in any recording situation.

Each VOICE that you use can be thought of as a musician or instrument.
The VOICE is placed in a PART. Each PART can be thought of as an input to the studio mixer. The Parts each have a PART VOLUME. The Part Volume is like the fader on a mixer.

If you have turned the mixer fader all the way up, and are not getting enough signal, you do exactly what the record engineer would do in this situation with real musicians…

Ask the individual musician to increase their level at their instrument (source). Remember each VOICE is a musician and has the ability to control their own level.

PART VOLUME = volume at the mixer
VOICE VOLUME = volume at the source

Here’s how to turn up the instrument’s Volume:
Call up your SONG
Press [MIXING]
Select a PART to work with [1]-[16]
Press [F5] VCE EDIT (Voice Edit) - this drops you into full Edit on this particular Voice
Press [COMMON]
Press [F2] OUTPUT
Increase wisely

Press [STORE]
You will be offered a MIX VOICE location local to the current Song

Again, most of the Voices are conservatively set as to Volume so that you can mix. Not every one uses the same amount of instrumentation… The general volumes are purposefully conservative so that you use as many as 16 simultaneously.

If you are using less, simply remember how to turn up the VOICE VOLUME

PART VOLUME is the mixer, VOICE VOLUME is the individual instrument’s volume…

Make sense?

Bad_Mister - 27 November 2013 04:51 PM

...Again, most of the Voices are conservatively set as to Volume so that you can mix. Not every one uses the same amount of instrumentation… The general volumes are purposefully conservative so that you use as many as 16 simultaneously.

If you are using less, simply remember how to turn up the VOICE VOLUME....

Bad_Mister, your ability to patiently (and freshly) explain this over and over is stellar!

To the OP, it took me a while to see what the engineers were trying to provide as a starting point for really mixing sound as opposed to simply providing a master volume level that could be spun up to 11 with no other considerations required.

Once I began to understand the design philosophy...well, that’s when I was able to start appreciating the sophistication of gain staging that has been built into the Motif default condition.

Thank you very much Bad_mister,

That makes perfect sense and works beautifully. Thanks for such a great and patient explanation.

To cmayhle, yes, it really is designed with great thought for anyone combining lots of parts and I had an inkling what was going on but just no idea how to use it.

I prefer to play my MOXF live into my DAW without any MIDI tracks (as a live performance against previously sequenced and recorded tracks from other gear) and make use of voices and performances as they are without using song mode. So getting a better level out of each voice or perf as I get to them is critical to me, I just had no idea where to look and it is all clear now in all ways.

thanks to both of you for such a great and helpful site.

Medhi

medhimo - 27 November 2013 07:00 PM

[...]I prefer to play my MOXF live into my DAW without any MIDI tracks (as a live performance against previously sequenced and recorded tracks from other gear) and make use of voices and performances as they are without using song mode. [...]

If you are using a Performance, and need to adjust the levels of the 4 Parts, see the HINT on page 36 of the MOXF Owner’s Manual.

The “Hint” on page 36 of the Manual addresses PART VOLUME, not the aforementioned VOICE VOLUME.

In order to get to the VOICE VOLUME parameter you must Edit the Voice itself. You can proceed one of two ways:

1) COPY your Performance to a blank Song/Pattern location and use the VCE EDIT shortcut I posted above
2) rebuild the Performance by preparing the voices ahead of time (editing each in Voice mode)

I prefer Method 1 mainly because it places me in Multi-timbral mode for use with my DAW and I can access the editing of the Voice from within the Mixing setup.

Go to a blank Song or Pattern
Press [MIXING]
Press [JOB]
Press [F3] COPY
Press [SF3] PERF
Setup to copy the attributes you wish to use to the current Mixing setup targeting the PARTS 1-4, for example.

Now that your Performance is in a MIXING setup you can edit the Voices as outlined above using the VCE EDIT shortcut. This COPY function place the PARTS of your Performance into PARTS of the Mixing and places them on the same MIDI channel so you can play them all simultaneously. And since you are recording externally, this is a viable use case.

Hope that helps.

I had no idea you guys posted more here so thank you once again and sorry to bump this thread.

Anyone know what famous piece of music bad_mister is playing on the rhodes sound in this video at approx 5:38

http://youtu.be/T9X6KcKAXBk?t=5m37s

The video should cue up at just the right spot!

I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere, maybe a fusion jazz classic of some kind?

thank you Medhi