I just spent some serious money on a MacBook Pro 15” retina with OS X 10.9 ....in the hopes that recording will be easier than with my 10 year old PC.

I have a ES8 with mlan and a firwire from ES8 to the MacBook.

I tried downloading the driver and it failed to load.

Does someone have the correct link to the driver that will work on this computer with this latest version...."OS X 10.9”

Has Yamaha abondoned support for the mlan16e?

thanks in Advance.

I just spent some serious money on a MacBook Pro 15” retina with OS X 10.9 ....in the hopes that recording will be easier than with my 10 year old PC

Just a reality check, your Motif ES is 11 years old.

It is not that mLAN support stopped so much as it is that computer operating systems no longer handle true networking via FW in the same way, so the protocol had to evolve. Computer operating systems PC and Mac under went some major changes in the 2000’s. Some that changed fundamentally how they worked. During this time you had products that with one setting could be set to work with the older systems and then rebooted and set to work with the newer changed systems. Transitional products… Between 2007 and 2010 Yamaha introduced several dual capable products - they used the mLAN16e2 expansion board.

So it was about 7 years ago Yamaha started making mLAN products that would span the gap between the old networking mLAN protocol, and the new peer-to-peer relationship required by today’s computer operating systems (namely OS X). The Motif XS (2007), the Motif-Rack XS, the n-series mixers, and all Yamaha digital consoles capable of housing an mLAN16e2 were able to run on either OS. These were products used to transition the gap from the old mLAN protocol and the new peer-to-peer FireWire driver which was introduced during this transition… by 2010, products like the Motif XF made the transition to the newer FW protocol complete.

While the XS could select either old mLAN or newer FW, the XF is only capable of the new FW protocol. This all was necessitated because of major changes to functionality of the computer systems themselves. As you know, the handling of audio and MIDI is reallocated by the driver so it is interwoven into the way the computer works at a deep level. When the computer changes the way it’s going to work, it necessitates a driver change.

So if you wish to continue running an old mLAN system, you will need to get a system that can run an operating system equally as old. For a Mac that would be running OS 9.2.x
Or update your synth hardware as well to at least 2007 stage.

You will find that your as powerful as your new Mac is (I have one and its great), it will run very, very few things (hardware or software), that are 11 years old. It is the nature of computers.

Like the computer you purchased, the Motif XF is several times more powerful than the now ancient ES.
Maybe its time. I’m just saying.

The new FireWire protocol (called “Yamaha Steinberg FW ASIO driver) is still MIDI and audio to/from the computer via the connection, still 16 bus outputs, now just three pair of audio returns, - the main difference is the computer has to be apart of the network at all times (eliminates any need for a patchbay). Many of the computer operating system folks did not (frankly) enjoy and certainly were not comfortable with a system that ran with or (heaven forbid) without a computer. In a peer-to-peer system each node on a system communicates via the computer node.

Old mLAN every node, was equally capable of running the system. And a computer could configure the system even if it was not going to participate (Yamaha felt that the keyboard and mixing console could/should be able go to the gig, while the computer stays home). Computer folks didn’t like that so much.

That, my friend, is apart of ‘recent history’, by updating your Rip van Winkle 10 year old computer, you have awakened in a world where the computers have “taken over”, they have decided you will not connect your keyboard to your mixer directly to process your signal, you must connect through the computer. Each mode connects its audio outputs initially to the computer.

Not a problem, Yamaha upped the ante, and developed boutique quality effect processing on board the Motif. Starting with the XS Yamaha VCM (Virtual Component Modeling) effects were introduced on the synths. Studio quality EQs, Compressor/Limiters accurate in very detail to classic studio gear of the 1970s-1980s.

Eliminate the need to process the synthesizer in a digital console, that was one big positive in the short story… The bar on the on-board processing was significantly raised by the inclusion of these powerful effects add-Ons… Developed original as plug-in processors for Yamaha market leading high end digital consoles known the world over… Now in a synth ( where they belong!!!!) :-)

So you have taken one foot out of the recent past, you may want to consider fully awakening and get the other foot on the ground. You will already know all about audio busing and assignment, it’s just “easier” now.
:-)

Hope that short and somewhat humorous tale brings you up to date.

That said, there are folks out there who have cleverly worked around all of this and are still running old mLAN protocol in OS X… they exist in the fringe… Like in an alternate universe… But, true, there is no official support for mLAN drivers for your current computer OS. mLAN has evolved into a system that while easier to run is limited to a much more realistic three devices with computer, versus the 63 device + computer goal of the original mLAN spec.

If you have other questions, please do not hesitate to ask.