This is the Official US Yamaha Page

….and I thought then in Nov 2019 it would be short lived!

29JAN2020 - It doesn’t look good for Apple’s creation called Firewire....  :(

I did discover the sound a Motif XF produced from the Outputs(2 channel stereo only), cabled into Apollo hardware to be incredible!
Though losing all those nice features of the FW16e Expansion Board, not to be named here now, but what is to be mentioned and most important, is forfeiting the value,
....the reality of a now depreciated resale value of a five year old,
White, Anniversary Addition, Motif XF8 purchased in late 2014.  ! ?
I never assumed then in 2014 this could happen, and it hasn’t yet, officially, so hope is still present.
I might have known though it was coming when the production from Yamaha of their product in question stopped, placing the availability for new purchases of the FW16e, slim at best.

Could this be the last “Stake In the Heart” from Yamaha for their prized Yamaha Family Member so successful during her life? ....the Motif XF with FW16e?

signed, ”Disappointed” & ”Nervous Nellie” ;-)

After more consideration, all Apple has to do is stop support for Firewire.
That would be the end of it.
Apple has disregarded some software probably to include drivers that were not 64 bit compliant.
I suggest a support request to Yamaha Support USA might be in order to verify the rumors I’ve been made aware of recently.
And maybe Apple Support too.

All things considered, what rumors I’ve heard may simply be Yamaha unwilling to update anything from 32 bit to 64 bit that is now required beginning with Catalina, Except of course, its current money makers.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a success product just be dumped out the truck onto the road while it was moving and kept going like this!
Faith in Yamaha Corp USA is becoming difficult at best.

I am hoping beyond belief that I am wrong!
And that Yamaha will surprise us all with something just incredible to better this situation….but even I need to smile and laugh about that one.

*I recently communicated directly with Stephen Kay (Karma). He said for Mac users stay with Mojave as long as possible as his Karma Software is all in 32bit! He said there ‘may’ be a 64bit version of his software which he’s looking into but when? how long?, he couldn’t say….
Luckily he’s got Korg!
And so did I last year instead of Montage. I got an open box deal on a mint Kronos2-88 $3100! YES!
Talking about a learning curve!
Turning 65 in June…. I don’t know, why I get myself into these things!!!

On A High Note;
**I will have to look into S/pdif from another post within Lounge. I would probably need some advice from Universal Audio as I am on their team. (I wish! we are just customers and heavily invested with UAD and very happy about that! If you’ve worked with their plugins you’d know!!)

Thanking 5pinDIN for his wealth of factual information postings!  The Legend!!  😎
….“bar keep, I’ll have another!” 🤠
Peace!

Thanks for the kind words.

Unfortunately, I’m also losing confidence in Yamaha. A Motifator member recently asked about the proper Editor VST for his Motif XS keyboard, compatible with Cubase 10.5 and Mac OS 10.14. While I have a link for the updated Editor VST for the Rack XS, I can only find one covering Cubase 8.5 and Mac OS 10.11 for the XS6/7/8 models. I suggested that Yamaha Support be contacted.

Computers are replaced by users in as little as three years, due to technological advancements, so support for them by their manufacturers might be somewhat justifiably short-lived. However, synthesizers are musical instruments that are often viable for decades, and lack of support by companies like Yamaha is unconscionable. I own several pieces of Yamaha gear, but I haven’t purchased a Montage or MODX - my Motif XF is likely to be the last Yamaha product I’ll buy unless I see a change in Yamaha’s corporate attitude, however unlikely.

By the way, you’re a youngster at 65 - I’ve got another 7 years on you.  :-)

I tried to choose a title for this last rant that maybe Larry Crane will include on his Rant Page at TapeOp!  ;-) But I could not come up with one.
“A for effort”

A recent post by a Korg Forum member Kevin Nolan, located in Dublin, Ireland wrote;

“MOTU are the best music tech company for driver support of legacy hardware, period.

As said - the best company for supporting legacy equipment, bar none. It means you get a comfort zone - a stress free future with your interface environment into the future.”

Mr. Nolan is not the only person I’ve read that knows and promotes publicly the importance of company transparencies regarding supporting their customers, old and new customers alike, and to recognize that this approach is valuable, maybe not in every attempt, but in most efforts they are justified if only to improve or maintain their customers’ opinion of the stability of the company and that they, the company, in return value and appreciate legacy customers as well as their own creative money making endeavors of their past.

As when USB-3 was first produced and offered, it was made backward compatible. I’m not aware of the company name nor the cost of time and labor to allow for this, all I know for sure is the importance of All Customers’ money invested in their products to continuing to function without regard for ’new’ money coming in, should be or become a valued business model.

I’m certain there are more companies that value this approach but from what I’ve seen since 2005 when I bought my first Apple product, they don’t, (or possibly can’t due to advancing technological events directly related to the needed security of computer platforms in the world) which in this case would change from desire to make more money from new customers while disregarding older customers, to need to protect everyone, old and new, by introducing their advancements.
Having just witnessed again this issue with High Sierra not being available to progress to Mojave recently. Maybe there was no way to allow for progress, maybe there was. Apple has not been the most transparent of companies to know which allows for the word ‘dishonest’ to pop up. One would think a good businessman or company would not have openly identifiable flaws such as this that diminish trust from their customers, old and new.

Focusrite, MOTU, and as mentioned before, Universal Audio, whose complete existence was and still is, even with their inclusion of Brainworx and many other companies that not only remodel legacy hardware from many years and decades ago, back to original specs, that, from what I have in my possession as evidence, is spot on and will be a shock to anyone as well if they’ve actually owned that piece of hardware back in the day ...but also offer New Software plugins that are newly created within this century.

I really thought my Motif XF’s were the best sounding as anything with the FW16e, but with my acquisition of UAD hardware and especially that UAD Studer plugin, and Ampex, the AD/DA converters within the Motif XF’s have been surpassed by Apollo’s 8p and even more so, the x8p audio interfaces.

Everybody’s Welcome!  ...to reply.
Thanks 5pinDIN for your reassurance. “I’ve never seen my name on the industry’s BlackList, so if it should appear, that’ll mean it’s party time to celebrate the new event!” hahaaa
“If The House Is A Rock’n Don’t Bother Knock’n
Just Come On In” ~StevieRayVaughn r.i.p.

*The Original Korg Forum Post is HERE.