Can the eight knobs on the MOX also perform the same
functions as the eight sliders on the XS?

For example on the MOX can the eight voice elements
be controlled in real time with the knobs?

Is the lack of eight sliders a disadvantage?

Can the eight knobs on the MOX also perform the same
functions as the eight sliders on the XS?

No. The 8 Knobs of the MOX function in a similar way as the 8 Knobs of the XS. When you select a VOICE (in VOICE mode) or a PART (in PERFORM/SONG/or PATTERN mode) the 24 parameters (8 knobs times the 3 rows of parameters) apply to the that one Program. If the COMMON button is lit it applies to all ELEMENTS or PARTS together, if the individual ELEMENT or PART is selected they apply to that ELEMENT or that PART.

For example on the MOX can the eight voice elements
be controlled in real time with the knobs?

The MOX does not have 8 CONTROL SLIDERS, so if your question is: Is it the same as the XS, the answer is, no, it is not the same. The XS can control Element Level via the CS (Control Sliders) the MOX does not have CS.

Is the lack of eight sliders a disadvantage?

I guess if you need individual ELEMENT level control in real time. Remember mostly (even on an XS) you do not. It is really only handy on VOICES where they are used as faux ‘drawbars’ on the handful of B3 organ sounds where 8 Elements are used to recreate individual Volumes. Mostly you do not adjust individual Elements each-by-each within a VOICE (the drawbar organ is the only real case). Mostly when two or more instruments are combined within a VOICE, the ASSIGN 1 and ASSIGN 2 knobs normally are used as VOLUME controls via the CONTROL SET within the VOICE… as in the VOICE: PIANO & STRINGS (AS1 controls the piano Volume, AS2 controls the string Volume). The Knobs can be used, as they often are within many voices to control certain combinations of Elements, this is even done in organ voices like “16+8+5&1;/3"_ so is having 8 Control Sliders on the top-of-the-line Motif-series an advantage, well, yes. Do you get 8 CS on the MOX, no.

The design concept of the MOX was to get you as many of the key features from the XS series as is possible - keep it about half the price, half the weight, with the same fundamental sound quality. Not having 8 CONTROL SLIDERS means individual real time accessible Element Volumes is not possible on the MOX. Mostly it has limited use in reality, yes, when you want to use them as faux tone wheel “drawbars"). If you think about the “Full Concert Grand” VOICE… you are not really dynamically adjusting the individual Elements in real time of the piano, or of a bass or a flute… so it is limited use case. Very cool for setting up 8 drawbars on an organ where 8 Elements are used as 8 organ flutes… but not much elsewhere.

The cost versus benefit ration here probably precluded having 8 Control Sliders. In my opinion, is having 8 CS an advantage, yes to be sure. Is it essential, well no, not when trying to build the “best of” feature set into the MOX-series.

Hope that helps.

In fact, you can use the knobs as sliders if you choose to play the Yamaha soft synth - Yc-3B, which is included in the software. Check out this video for reference. The interesting part begins at 4:31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqFT2gpgaTI&feature=related

Apart from the organ drawbar emulation which Bad_Mister mentioned, the big limitation is that you don’t have instant control to Volume for the (up to) 4 parts you may be using in Performance or Master modes.

To me, that seems to be the biggest “loss” compared to at least having 4 sliders (as in the S90XS and in the MOX predecessor, the MO).

Having removed those 4 faders, I’m actually kind of astonished that there is no mode that allows you to use 4 of the 8 knobs as 4 volume controls for 4 parts.

That said, if you happen to have an iPad, it looks like you might be able to duplicate the function of the “missing” sliders using the forthcoming “Faders and XY Pad” app shown at http://www.yamahasynth.com/jp/library/motif_xf/ipad/soon.html

bad move Yamaha… I don’t understand how companies allow themselves to go backward…

Mister, do you think that more people use the faders to control 8 elements in a voice or 8 voices in a performance?  .... I think it’s the later.

really hard to see how that was overlooked.  I had a friend sold on this board until he saw that it didn’t have faders....

Hallo, anybody who has MOX6/8, say me, please, where does make it? I mean what wrote in label(made in Japan or China or Indonesia). Sorry for English.

Apex - 19 May 2011 03:31 PM

bad move Yamaha… I don’t understand how companies allow themselves to go backward…

Mister, do you think that more people use the faders to control 8 elements in a voice or 8 voices in a performance?  .... I think it’s the later.

really hard to see how that was overlooked.  I had a friend sold on this board until he saw that it didn’t have faders....

I don’t think it was overlooked. Since Yamaha decided to make a keyboard nearly identical to the XS available for 1/2 the price, I’m sure it was a well thought out, but difficult decision as to what to sacrifice. And as BadMister points out, there are many contexts of Motif use that will not suffer from the lack of sliders. Unfortunately, mixing Voices in a Performance isn’t one of them.

Personally, the lack of sliders is one of the factors that has convinced me to stick with my XS Rack/Novation RemoteSL37 combination.

But the MOX is killer value for dollar, and in these times, a creative & generous offering from Y, imho.

I did my first gig with the MOX6 this past weekend. I’d only had the keyboard for 2 days and had to program performances for 25 songs.  The programming went surprisingly well, but even so, I had just finished setting up the last performance about 2 hours before the gig.  I knew the part volumes would need adjusting at the gig, so I was a little nervous about not having separate volume controls for each performance part.  But it went fine.  I very quicly got accustomed to hitting the appropriate part select button and then using the one volume knob.  It’s a few extra movements, but it quickly became second nature. 

Very happy with this keyboard so far.

Great, adan - so it’s been designed into the MoX how to deal with that important tweak quickly. cool.

adan - 23 May 2011 02:11 PM

I did my first gig with the MOX6 this past weekend. I’d only had the keyboard for 2 days and had to program performances for 25 songs.  The programming went surprisingly well, but even so, I had just finished setting up the last performance about 2 hours before the gig.  I knew the part volumes would need adjusting at the gig, so I was a little nervous about not having separate volume controls for each performance part.  But it went fine.  I very quicly got accustomed to hitting the appropriate part select button and then using the one volume knob.  It’s a few extra movements, but it quickly became second nature. 

Very happy with this keyboard so far.

what if you needed to control multiple sounds at once… for instance:

you have a piano/string/pad layer… and you get to a part in the song and ONLY want the piano part to play… how can you get the string and pad out (at the same time...)?

I think you can solo the part quickly, on the lower right (Tracks) section,
or mute the other two parts quickly, with push button switches.

Apex - 23 May 2011 05:08 PM

what if you needed to control multiple sounds at once… for instance:

you have a piano/string/pad layer… and you get to a part in the song and ONLY want the piano part to play… how can you get the string and pad out (at the same time...)?

Exactly why I won’t be buying one.

For once, it looked like there would be a decent Yamaha 88 key that weighs less than my old P90 that I could use for gigging (not recording, as I already own an XS) AND had the mod/pitch wheels in the right place so it fits in my car.  But no. I mean, as above, there are performances I use that need parts fading in and out during the song.  If you could assign the knobs, fair enough, that would be great.  I don’t understand why it has Live performance features (octave/transpose buttons, quick performance creator, etc), yet misses this out?

I think I’ll stick to my Kawai MP5.  At least that has 4 sliders that I can use to fade parts in and out, and works brilliantly with the ES Rack.  And has a decent live piano sound that the MO8 doesn’t in my opinion.  Yes, it weighs 20 KGs, but you can’t have it all…

Sorry for the rant.

In another thread, andiho has offered to update his template that allows the sliders and knobs on a Novation ReMOTE SL MkI controller to mimic the sliders and knobs of a Motif XS, for use with a Rack XS.
His new post is at the bottom of the page linked here for those interested:

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/451847/#511715

what if you needed to control multiple sounds at once… for instance:

you have a piano/string/pad layer… and you get to a part in the song and ONLY want the piano part to play… how can you get the string and pad out (at the same time...)?

The only problem with drawing conclusions without knowing the product is you can draw conclusions that may not be accurate.

There are some new options available, that you may not be familiar with. The MOX6/MOX8 feature the same 8 Element architecture found in the Motif XS and XF, and like its bigger siblings you can control what PARTS are playing via new methods. The Assignable Function [1]/[2] buttons can be used to dynamically bring Elements or entire VOICES in and out on cue, and the [PERFORMANCE CONTROL] function allows real time control of playing and muting PARTs via the front panel buttons/knobs, as well.

There are many new functions to learn about if you are not familiar with the new architecture.

You could remove the string and pad PARTS from your piano/string/pad layer, by simply stepping on a foot switch, or touching a button. Not really difficult at all.

Bad_Mister - 04 June 2011 07:57 PM

You could remove the string and pad PARTS from your piano/string/pad layer, by simply stepping on a foot switch, or touching a button. Not really difficult at all.

Thanks for the reply.  I gathered that you can turn parts on/off (similar to the Motif XS).  However, the main point was that sometimes, for myself, there are requirements to fade things in and out during a song when playing Live.  The part on/off buttons doesn’t bring the sound in and out when holding a key down - I tried this on the XS and pressing off turns the sound off all ok, however, when pressing the same part control button again to turn the part back on, the sound doesn’t cut through until pressing the same key again.  At least the sliders can achieve this and more.

Obviously, when recording, you could probably do this after recording the parts individually and then adjust as required.  Easy enough to do on a computer based sequencer.

I’m just disappointed that it doesn’t quite meet the requirements as a primarily, live player.  It ticks all the boxes for size, weight and other features.  I was disappointed again with the S90XS as this is just a little too long and a little too heavy to cart around.

I agree. Not happy with this step backwards for live control.

MOX has some great attributes and some obvious limitations, but I’m sorry, there is no excuse for leaving this Performance /4x vol.control feature out of the SOFTWARE.........except maybe exclusivity for the sake of a marketing price point.

What about an update to have it be the default Performance display page? Then only switch to Tone 1,2,3 parameter control when you press the assignable knob button once?

It is the first, most logical page display you see when you call up an XS or XF Performance. The 4 voices and their vol. levels, leading you to grab a corresponding slider (or knob for MOX) to tweak your BLEND. Usually, this is a constant dramatic blending of a pad layer or strings during a live performance.

The Performance Control feature BM alluded to is something, but it is not quick or intuitive enough for live usage when you want to control blend of layers, etc. It displays only one part at a time then you have to reach over and press the other part button-then go back to grab a knob.

Yamaha gave priority to a row of Arpeg. controls and efx. controls that most people might never use....

Ok, they may have saved 1 LED for the extra row....like the S-90 had 6.

Realizing how aggressively Yamaha is marketing MOX as a great live instrument in the face of this “backward - limit the feature” decision leaves me wary and disapointed.