My PC has a Firewire interface, but does not have a 24 bit sound card. If I buy a fw16e for my Motif XF, will my PC be able to record in 24 bit? In other words, does the fw16e become my sound card?

My friend has a Firewire audio interface (Focusrite Saffire PRO24 PRO 24 DSP Firewire Interface). Can that be plugged into the one of the Firewire ports of the fw16e such that audio is passed to me PC to record vocals/instruments?

Thanks for your time!

Craig

Welcome to the forums!

My PC has a Firewire interface, but does not have a 24 bit sound card. If I buy a fw16e for my Motif XF, will my PC be able to record in 24 bit? In other words, does the fw16e become my sound card?

Yes and yes. Computers, in spite of all their power, are not initially built to do professional digital audio recording (they simply do not have the physical inputs or outputs for this type of thing - thus there is a whole separate industry of devices that you can add (external) to your computer to help make it a professional audio recording device. The FW16E is a firewire interface made specifically for the Motif XS/XF that allows you to deliver 24-bit audio at sample rates of 44.1k, 48k, 88.2k or 96kHz. All that is necessary on the computer side is a FW port.

Through the FW16E will travel all of your MIDI and audio communication to and from the computer. The A/D INPUTs on the back panel of the Motif will allow you to route any mono or stereo external device (mic, other keyboard, module, mixer, etc. etc) on its own assigned bus to the computer.

The Left and Right main outputs will connect to your monitor speakers - both the audio from the computer and the audio generated by your Motif will be routed through these outputs to your monitor speakers. So the Motif XS/XF with FW16E is literally taking the role of the soundcard. It is responsible for MIDI and Audio INPUT to the computer and it is responsible for MIDI and OUTPUT from the computer.

My friend has a Firewire audio interface (Focusrite Saffire PRO24 PRO 24 DSP Firewire Interface). Can that be plugged into the one of the Firewire ports of the fw16e such that audio is passed to me PC to record vocals/instruments?

No. The FW16E connects directly to your computer. The significant thing about the FW16E is it is built specifically to turn your Motif XF or XS into an audio interface for you cmputer.

If you elect to use the Focusrite Saffire, you have selected a different method of getting the audio into and back out of your computer (you will still need to find a way to send MIDI in and out of the computer). However, according to the way that it works, you must connect the devices you want to record, (the Motif XF) to it via the analog L/R ouptuts (just a stereo feed from the Motif). IF it has SPDIF you could connect that way (but again just a stereo connection).

To be clear: You will not be able to take advantage of the 16 simultaneous audio outputs of the Motif XS/XF through the Focusrite - it can only address signal from your XS/XF via a stereo feed. The 16 audio outputs of the XS/XF are only available via the FW16E.

The FW16E gives you 16 separate audio bus outputs from your Motif XS/XF and 6 (3 pair of stereo) audio returns. The 16 AUdio bus outputs are the main L/R plus fourteen additional assignable outputs. These fourteen additional outputs can be configured as ODD/EVEN stereo pairs or as mono bus sends, as you may require.

Thanks for the excellent, thorough reply. I am convinced I want to buy the fw16e.

For recording vocals or instrument, what would the best approach be? I have a dynamic mic (Sure Beta 58), which uses an XLR connection. The Motif does not have XRL-in. My friend’s interface does.. It seems to be that adapting from XLR to 1/4, is somehow a quality loss. Is there any advantage to using his interface over the Motif, for recording one track of vocals/instrument?

Thanks,
Craig

There is no quality loss. Simply get a cable with XLR female on one end and 1/4” phone plug (Tip-Sleeve) on the other.

I got my fw16e. Wow, I love it. I took me a while to figure out how to change my ASIO driver in CUBASE. For anyone with the same issue, I downloaded it from Yamaha. Then in CUBASE, under Device Setup, look at the folder view on the left. There is an optional called “VST Audio System” with a sub option (mine said ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Driver”. Click on “VST Audio System” (it was not obvious to me this was clickable. Then the right pane has a dropdown selection for ASIO Driver. Change this to the Motif-specific ASIO driver (I forget the exact name).

Once I did that, then I had access to all the fw16e buses. Prior to that I was limited to the “L/R” bus.

Hope this helps someone..

Craig