The VST plug in does not work in the same way you believe it does.

Just because it is a VST instrument as such, does not mean that it is a ‘stand on its own’ soft synth.

It’s an editor that encompasses all the benefits of virtual studio technology as a software interface to the Motif XF synth engine.  Making the use of hardware and software both easier and much more efficient.

You do not need it to make music via MIDI with your Motif XF.  You need it if you’re going to get down and dirty with editing your Motif XF’s synth engine.

A pre made MIDI file will import in exactly the same way as I have previously decribed. Maybe try importing one into a fresh project?

The communication is strictly between Cubase and your Motif XF via MIDI (USB MIDI in your case).

“The communication is strictly between Cubase and your Motif XF via MIDI (USB MIDI in your case).”

So are you saying that when the Motif XF VST is loaded within Cubase and I “play” the software keyboard, the data is routed back to Cubase and then output to my Motif keyboard and not going from the VST to the keyboard.

I have just upgraded my Cubase AI5 to Artist 7.5 and will now be watching the tutorial videos. I once again thank you for your help and will give an update on how I get on once I have followed the video tutorial.

You could say that,

In that respect, it is a virtual MIDI instrument, but the sounds are in the chips and electronics in your Motif XF.

You do not need to run the VST at all to play and record your Motif XF using MIDI.

What can I say. After hours and hours of frustration with AI5, I have upgraded to 7.5 Artist and it works perfectly and I haven’t knowingly done anything different.

Right, well that sounds like good news?

I was on to something when I said “Something has complicated your Cubase project and what you’re doing really ought to be very simple. “

Glad you can now do the things you want!

I am now able to record individual midi tracks from my Motif, for example piano on midi track 1 and strings on midi track 2. How do I get Cubase to play both these tracks simultaneously through the Motif with the correct instrument. For example at the moment I play midi track 1 it will play whatever instrument the keyboard is currently set to and not the one I recorded.

Set your Motif XF to Song mode :-)

Song Mode may look like the place where you work with the onboard sequencer on your Motif XF, and it is, but it is also a multi timbral state.

Multi timbral (if you don’t know) means to produce two or more parts at the same time

You get 16 parts (the 16 tracks) and they correspond directly to MIDI channels 1 to 16 on Cubase

All you have to do is remember what sounds you want where and assign them to parts in SONG MODE

When you press play in Cubase, you should hear your multiple parts simultaneously.

Set your Motif XF to Song mode :-)
Sorry I hadn’t switched to song mode and now plays back correctly.
Thanks to your help I have made big steps forward with Cubase and my Motif but would appreciate a little more help with some of the terminology. As stated previously I do not understand what Motif XF6-1, XF6-2 etc mean or refer to, can you explain.
Also what doesn’t make sense to me is that the midi basic receive channel on the Motif is 1 and the transmit channel is 2 but the input and output routing for the Cubase midi tracks have to both be set to Motif XF6-1.
Is the following possible or not.
Rather than having to change the midi instruments using the Motif mixing can the Cubase midi tracks be output to the Motif XF VST and changed there and then sent to the keyboard for playing.

Sure,

Your USB is a multiple port interface.  In your case, 4 ports or 4 discrete lanes for separate data traffic.

The Motif XF itself uses PORT 1. (your regular data)

The Motif XF remote uses PORT 2. (data for remote controlling)

Your 5 Pin Din MIDI connection on the Motif XF uses PORT 3. (Legacy MIDI and external gear)

The Motif XF Editor uses PORT 4 (Your VST plug in and stand alone editors for the XF)

So, it follows that you will need to set your MIDi channels to Motif XF6-1. (PORT 1)

I don’t know an awful lot about any of the Yamaha editors, but I would expect to be able to use them to set up your sounds.

You should also be able to dial in your voice and bank number selections to the Cubase inspector bar for recall purposes.

Thank you for your clear explanation, I now fully understand the port structure.
Hopefully my last “stupid” question. Having recorded one midi track, I obviously need to hear that track playing while recording a second from the keyboard and I am presuming that my Motif cannot play both at the same time through its amp and speaker.
So do I need to route the output of my first midi track through a soundcard within my PC and then out to my amp.
Also YouTube tutorials show the click option being used as a countdown to recording but I do not hear any “clicks” when activated, does this have to also be routed to my soundcard.
My previous PC had a reasonable quality low latency sound card routed to my amp for use with Reason and a dummy midi keyboard but unfortunately this card has no drivers for windows 7.
Can you offer any advice on whether an internal card or usb audio module would be best.

You haven’t asked any stupid questions.  It can be daunting stuff.

Your Motif XF can play back up to 16 parts through its left and right analogue outputs, all at the same time, so you should not have any problems hearing it all.

All you need to do is plug your Motif’s analogue outputs in to your amp or whatever audio system you have so that you can hear it. 

About the click...the ‘countdown’ to recording that you’ve noticed is called pre-count. (not to be confused with pre-roll which is something different)

To activate the metronome click, press the Click button on the Transport bar.  The pre-count button should be nearby (I haven’t used Cubase for 10 years, so I’m a bit hazy).  I’m pretty sure it looks like a star and it will give you a bar or two bars in, depending on how the preferences/properties for it are set.  Precount does not work for playback and will only work when you initiate a recording.

The click can either come from Cubase itself (Audio Click - which means it will come out of your computer) or you can choose to have the Motif make the click sound (MIDI Click).  You should be able to tick MIDI Click or Audio Click in the Metronome set up page which is accessed from the transport menu.  You could also tick both.

Regarding audio interfaces, I would go with a separate usb or firewire interface over an internal sound card every single time.  They commonly sound much better, they are much more flexible and enable you to connect multiple mics and line inputs.  There’s really no comparison.

Whether you actually need one or not is a different matter.

Maybe I didn’t explain myself correctly regarding playback and recording. My setup is an amp connected to the jack plug outputs from the Motif.
When recording a second midi track using a different voice for example, I need to hear the first recorded track at the same time to play along with. But to record a second midi track from the Motif XF I have to select Voice mode but to be able to hear the first recorded midi track from Cubase while recording, the Motif needs to be in Song mode. Does this make sense or am I missing the obvious.
On a progression note, I am now able to use the Motif XF vst in Cubase to change the midi track voices recorded from the Motif, something which was far beyond my capabilities a week ago.
I has been a struggle but thanks to your valued assistance I really am starting to get somewhere.

You should be in Song Mode all the time.

You’re missing something, but I’m not sure what it is.

Here is a very simple way of working:

Typically, you’d set up your first MIDI track in Cubase and assign that to MIDI channel 1 (it most likely already is), then you’d assign the voice you want to track 1 in song mode on your Motif and that should all be ready to record.  When you play back your music, you should hear what you recorded with the correct sound playing on the Motif.

When you want to record a new track with a new sound, you create another MIDI track, assign it to MIDI channel 2 and then assign a new voice to track 2 in song mode on your Motif.

MIDI channel 1 is now already occupied by what you did previously, as is track 1 in song mode on your Motif.

Whatever you have done previously will play back and you will hear it, even when making a new MIDI recording on a new track using a new channel

You can have hundreds of MIDI tracks in Cubase, but ultimately, with one Motif XF, they have to share 16 MIDI channels = 16 sounds.

So any time you want to use a different sound, you need to use the next available MIDI channel or a different MIDI channel to any that you are already using.

If you need 5 tracks of piano (for example) and piano is on track 1 in Song Mode, then you can create 5 MIDI tracks in Cubase and assign them all to MIDI channel 1.

The exact same piano will sound for all those tracks.

Voice Mode will only let you record and play back MIDI data for the voice you are on at the time.

Remember that no sound is recorded and MIDI is not audio.

Your reply makes clear sense and I have obviously been recording incorrectly.
This is how I had been attempting to record.
I created midi track 1 in Cubase, selected voice mode on the Motif and recorded this voice to Cubase. I then used Cubase to edit the track (for example extending it by copy/paste) and saving project to Cubase. I then created midi track 2 in Cubase, a different voice on the Motif and recorded this voice to Cubase (but cannot hear track 1 while doing so). I would prefer if possible to my editing within Cubase rather than the small screen on the Motif but using the method that you have described, my edited midi track 1 will be in Cubase and not the Motif so when played back will be the wrong version. Do I have to send the modified midi track 1 from Cubase to the Motif first before recording midi track 2 ?
Hope that this makes sense as it was difficult to explain in words.

Any time you use voice mode, you will not be able to achieve what you want to do.

For this project, forget voice mode even exists.

Back to the main subject...where I have prepared a kind of schematic! (don’t worry it’s nothing like an oil rig schematic)

You will not have to do any editing on your small screen, it will all be done in Cubase.  The only thing you need to learn to do on your Motif is assign voices to channels by adding them to the corresponding tracks in SONG MODE.

Take a really simplistic look at MIDI with Cubase.

MIDI data is just data that allows electronic musical instruments and computers that are equipped with a MIDI interface to communicate.  It has no sound.

The sound comes from your Motif, which is one MIDI equipped keyboard set in SONG MODE, so think of SONG MODE as 16 musicians (16 parts) who can play a variety of instruments, all together as a band if need be. 

Each musician has a track of their own in SONG MODE, but you can only ever use up to 16 of these great sounding robot musicians.

The way to get those guys to play, is to feed them data on their own exclusive channels.

So, you can certainly feed 16 lots of different data all at once using 16 different channels to 16 different robot musicians and hear it all back at the same time.

I think you may have channel, track and part confusion and the key thing that I believe you are not getting is how to deal with channels.

You seem to jump between creating a MIDI track in Cubase and doing stuff on the Motif.

(Hopefully it’s a MIDI track and not any other kind of track)

So it would follow that your main problem is that all your music is ending up using the same channel.

Just because you create a new track in Cubase does not mean that it is on the MIDI channel that you want it to be. You need to learn how to give it a channel number in Cubase,

If you know you are already using channel 1, then it makes great sense to use a different MIDI channel for your next track...it makes greater sense still to use the next available one.

You do not delete a track after you’ve recorded it to make room for your next, you leave the first one in place and work alongside it.

You can use up to 16 channels which means you can use up to 16 of those musicians.

Here is a simplistic view of a song of 16 tracks using all 16 musicians.

I have split it in half vertically for things that you need to consider in Cubase and things you need to consider on your Motif.

Create a new project.

Try creating 16 MIDI tracks in Cubase…

Give them all a MIDI channel of their own

Choose 16 different voices for the 16 tracks in SONG MODE on your motif.

Move between the tracks in Cubase, keep playing notes on your keyboard as you go and you will notice the sound changes each time you move.

You are not changing any sounds as such, you are just hearing/monitoring the sounds that you assigned to each track and channel on your Motif.

Now try recording a little on each one leaving them all in place. Use record controls in Cubase, not the ones on your Motif.

Don’t delete any of the tracks.

Then play back using the play button in Cubase.