Hi

Note this is *NOT* a bash against yamaha per se.

But I think the time has come that it seems less and less rationale to spend kilobucks on hardware synths.

What is a PRACTICAL (low latency < 3 ms) hardware and software combo that can at a minimum:

1) Play back and select sounds easily
2) With waveforms and fx

Optionally

3) Analog Synth
4) B3
5) Arps type capability (jam mode)
6) Synth workstation type UI

Note please don’t just say get a PC and sampletank. It’s really hard to get low latency. I’m really looking for a hardware/software combo, preferably something that has premapped controllers, out of the box and go.

So if it’s eg sampletank, sampletank + WHAT INTERFACE and HARDWARE?

And price!

7) <$2500 and ideally <$1000

I just think most of these hardware synths are equivalent to netbook + a dsp chip + some rom + keyboard.

Somehow there has to be a more cost effective way of getting that functionality than putting a lot of money in hardware synths.

Ideally I want the hardware to be cheap and small enough that I can get two in case of failure still for less than XF/XS/Fantom/M3 et al.

Funkster

Funkster - 31 August 2010 05:24 PM

Ideally I want the hardware to be cheap and small enough that I can get two in case of failure

That says it all right there!

It doesn’t say it all right there.

Most touring bands have two of everything, including two motif’s.

So having two of something does not equate overall to a negative.

Trust me wedding photographers show up with 2 cameras, bands show up with 2 guitars for each player, etc etc etc.

Of course a netbook or notebook is going to be a little more fragile requiring redundancy a little more than a hardware synth, but the hardware synths are not reliable enough for most touring bands to gig without a backup.

That’s a long winded way of saying your post is moot and irrelevant viz a viz the topic I posted.

Hell the XS takes 15 minutes to load 512MB of samples. A simple POWER outage can kill your stage presence for 15+ minutes. This is not the poster child to hold up in terms of the reliability argument, especially for $2900.

Sure the flash on the XF solves that, but so would USB 2.0 on the motif XS which would have added a $5.00 max to parts cost.

Back on topic please

Funkster

Funkster - 31 August 2010 05:43 PM

Most touring bands have two of everything, including two motif’s.

The pro’s do, yes… the average band? No. Many keyboard players can’t afford two workstations.

I tried the softsynth route live and it was about exciting as watching the grass grow. Some musicians don’t take computers seriously as musical instruments, but your mileage may vary.

But by all means, let’s get back on topic!

Funkster - 31 August 2010 05:43 PM

ent, especially for $2900.

Sure the flash on the XF solves that, but so would USB 2.0 on the motif XS which would have added a $5.00 max to parts cost.


Funkster

Huh? You have completely lost me. How would USB 2.0 do the same thing
as Flash?

Really don’t understand what you’re talking about here..

Because at the transfer rate of USB 2.0, it wouldn’t take 15 minutes to load sample libraries.

I could just use a high speed USB stick and it would load quickly.

The whole reason for needing flash in the first place is because it loads files slowly over USB 1.1....right?

EG, if the XS had USB 2.0, I wouldn’t have to spend $2900 to get “flash”—I could just (auto)load things quickly and wouldn’t need to. And it wouldn’t have added much to the part cost of the XS.

I do USB 2.0 transfers to flash sticks at 10+ megabytes per second when I shoot video..Can transfer 32 GB in about 15 minutes, versus 512 MB in 15 minutes on motif with usb 1.1.

(I want my, I want my, YOO ESS BEE!! 2.0)

F

I just read an article about John Legend and his band. Check this out:

http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/in-action/johnlegend/

The article is awesome and shows you the possibilities of a laptop!

Funkster - 06 September 2010 09:04 PM

Because at the transfer rate of USB 2.0, it wouldn’t take 15 minutes to load sample libraries.

I could just use a high speed USB stick and it would load quickly.

The whole reason for needing flash in the first place is because it loads files slowly over USB 1.1....right?

EG, if the XS had USB 2.0, I wouldn’t have to spend $2900 to get “flash”—I could just (auto)load things quickly and wouldn’t need to. And it wouldn’t have added much to the part cost of the XS.

I do USB 2.0 transfers to flash sticks at 10+ megabytes per second when I shoot video..Can transfer 32 GB in about 15 minutes, versus 512 MB in 15 minutes on motif with usb 1.1.

(I want my, I want my, YOO ESS BEE!! 2.0)

F

Sorry, but this is unfortunately not technically accurate. 

Yes, the data transfer rate of USB 2.0 is faster than USB 1.1, but that is not where the critical path for data transfer is in the Motif XS or XF.  The data that arrives at the the USB port on the Motif must be transferred by the internal data bus of the Motif from the USB port to either the Flash memory or the SDRAM memory.  This is the limiting speed factor on data transfers so having a USB 2.0 connection on the Motif would actually not make storing data any faster.  Yes, the data would arrive to the Motif faster , but it would not be stored any faster as it would need to wait to be transferred to the memeory by the internal data buss.

If you wish you can search past posts where we have said exactly the same thing for several years.

It’s a nice concept and we wish it was a realistic suggestion because anyone would agree that being able to store data mutiple times faster would be a great feature, but unfortunately it is not technically possible.

Well thanks for the clarification, but all the more reason to have a kurzweil style loading and saving feature....

Get a used one or check out the manual.

Being able to select just which patches (and optional dependent) waveforms would be a great solution to storing smaller files which would be faster.

Also, if the ethernet port wouldnt be any faster (and it sounds like it wouldnt be from what you describe), why have the Ethernet port at all?

Why not just have USB share the memory sticks, the way most digital cameras and portable music players work?

One less cable....
F

“Being able to select just which patches (and optional dependent) waveforms would be a great solution to storing smaller files which would be faster”

Sorry, but Yamaha is way past that. On the XF you can just load the waves you need to your XF flash board once and then save and load Voices without having to deal with the waves at all. 

Loading waveforms every time you turn on your keyboard now seems pretty old school after working with the XF wiht Flash installed. 

BTW, Kurzweil has also moved Flash. They have a “game changing” (their words , not ours) 128 MB of Flash RAM on the PC3K.  We actually didn’t need to download the manual for the PC3K because a number of the many people that were let go at Kurzweil a few years ago when they were purchased by Young Chang came to work for Yamaha. If we have a question , we can just ask them.

We have been working with the XF for several weeks now and it never takes more than a few seconds to save or load a file because we have already stored all the waves we need on the Flash board.

The PC3 series doesn’t save and load things like the K2X series.

So you’d need to check out a K2500, not their PCX series.

With the XF, maybe you don’t need it (as much) for storing WAVEFORMS, but you STILL need it to effectively manage the User Patch space, which is very limited (512 patches, 128 of which point to the new ROM).

So, yes the XF could still benefit, and the XS could still benefit.

Having an “all or one” approach is not “way past that”.

It’s all the way back to the 80s with a sysex dump of the whole machine or just one patch. Hardly innovative.

In the 80s I could store one patch at a time or the whole machine and the same with the XS and one patch or an .ALL file.

That’s progress? 

F

Yamaha_US - 07 September 2010 01:54 AM

S

Yes, the data transfer rate of USB 2.0 is faster than USB 1.1, but that is not where the critical path for data transfer is in the Motif XS or XF.  The data that arrives at the the USB port on the Motif must be transferred by the internal data bus of the Motif from the USB port to either the Flash memory or the SDRAM memory.  This is the limiting speed factor on data transfers so having a USB 2.0 connection on the Motif would actually not make storing data any faster.  Yes, the data would arrive to the Motif faster , but it would not be stored any faster as it would need to wait to be transferred to the memeory by the internal data buss.

Talk about getting yesterdays technology today !!!!
Are you saying the INTERNAL data bus of a Motif XF is SLOWER then a high speed USB 2.0 connection ?
Are your trying to tell us this is the STATE OF THE ART ? It certainly gives new meaning to the term “vintage synth”.

I think you need a new advertising motto

THE YAMAHA MOTIF XF - Lets party like its 1999!

Its time to wipe the slate clean and start again from scratch with a new 64bit workstation using modern technology. No more “updates” for the motif. If things are that bad its time for a whole new system.

Maybe they could sell off the golf cart division and use the funds to focus more on musical instruments.... :)
F

http://www.yamahagolfcar.com/

* It’s true it used to say motorcycle but I changed it to golf cart to take a little sting out

Funkster - 07 September 2010 04:16 AM

Maybe they could sell off the motorcycle division and use the funds to focus more on musical instruments....

F

If the motor division approached product development at the glacial pace of the motif division they would be out of business. In the past 5 years they have brought out the best 4 stroke outboard engine in the word with the F70, the best 4 wheelers, the best small generator (beating out honda the generator king). They do really well. Their bikes are always coming up with new technology. Always bringing out new and quite revolutionary products.
I know the reason why Yamaha music doesn’t develop the motif line, I can hear it in the delusions of motif apologists all over this site.
They think the motif doesn’t compete with software solutions and that people will always want a stand alone hardware solution. They even state that Yamaha will always make a hardware synth. Well they are all completely wrong. Yamaha would stop making and supporting Motif’s in a second if they couldn’t make the huge margins they make out of them.
Yamaha doesn’t develop it because they know that software is the future and they don’t want to spend money on “dead ends”.
I’d agree that people like me (and you) would prefer a hardware solution but when it gets stuck in a time warp and it clearly doesn’t offer any advantages but only disadvantages over software then sticking to hardware becomes a expensive policy of rapidly diminishing returns.
The XF will be my last Motif (and I’m only buying it because I want to replace my XS6 with a 88key) and possibly my last hardware workstation until Yamaha (or Korg, Roland etc) give me a real solid reason to buy one.
I’d love a fantastic hardware workstation with up to date technology in a all in one solution I’d buy one in a heartbeat and so would many people. Even people who have never owned a hardware synth (and there are many serious musicians who ONLY use software) would buy such a workstation.
Currently workstations are sold to people who already own one not new adopters. Kids these days are showing up with a laptop and a midi controller and have more functionality then if they had 3 or 4 full workstations.
The one rule of business is if your not growing your shrinking and due to the shortsightedness and lack of commitment from all the big board manufacturers the market is shrinking fast. People need to be offered a reason, a advantage to buy a workstation over a software solution. With the current boards there are a lot more disadvantages then advantages.
Yamaha is not the only one to blame here ... the whole industry is to blame for not expecting VST’s to take such a huge part of the market. But now instead of getting up and trying to get their hardware competing we have to try and make do with boards that Yamaha admit are so slow internally that they cannot even keep up with a USB 2.0 connection. Things like the flash memory are just band aids on a bleeding wound. The only solution lies in a complete redesign but they have allowed the market to go so far over to software that they cannot afford to update their boards because of the shrinking market.
I think the XF is the last hurrah of the motif line and I don’t think it will be replaced.
I hope I am wrong about this ... but I don’t think I am.

I think that’s true; the fact that is mostly Dinos here has to be not good news for a company that needs to keep selling.

Soon all the kids will be using iPads and IK stuff or whatever for most of their music creation....

If the kids aren’t here that should be a ticking time bomb in the heads of the marketing folks.

Us complaining about the motif has nothing to do with why the kids aren’t here.

You hit the nail on the head...the kids aren’t here because they don’t even consider it...they just VST and controller away.

That was the purpose of this thread, for people like us to discuss what the alternatives to hardware boards are given that the future is not looking rosy in that direction.

Alot of us are in the same boat and would probably be interested in similar solutions.

I don’t think we need to be pilloried for recognizing the obvious: the fat lady has nearly sung.

F

Well personally I’m using a Macbook Pro and a MacPro via Logic with
a Apogee Ensemble and Duet interfaces.

My main soft instruments are Komplete 7 AU’s. I also have Reason rewired into logic and a few other Software plugins such as Korg Legacy, Vienna Symphony,Omnisphere,M-Tron Pro the list goes on and on. Both my XS6 and S90Xs I’ve got in there at times although a AU compatible plugin would be nice instead of having to use CuBase for some things. My main controller is the S90XS in multimode. I run a korg M3 as well as a Virus TI2 and a few other boards regularly as well.
My next board (on order) in the Arturia Origin.