Hi,i was wondering if it is possible to have more then 16 midi tracks/channels simultaneously using motif xf and logic pro 9,because sometimes it is not enough.
so for exemple i am recording the midi tracks as audio but if after a few weeks i am deciding that i want to change the tempo , so i need to start everything from begining-to delete the audio and record from the begining.and eventually all the process take to much time.
working with 16 track simultaneously with DAW-logic pro is very easy and quick and in real time.
is it possible to have this lets say to have 32 midi tracks/channels simultaneously using DAW and motif xf?
do i need to buy another motif xf and there will be 2 motif xf that are connected to the DAW and in this way to control 32 midi tracks/channels simultaneously?
any advice?

You’d need to buy an additional Motif XF for two x 16 MIDI channels simultaneously (to make the 32)

You’ll also need a multi port MIDI interface (such an interface is is built into the XF)

If I were you and in this situation what I would do is always keep the midi tracks after you convert them to audio.  Just mute the and disengage them from the motif so their wont be any problems.  That should help you out.  This way if you have to go back and make edits to the tempo etc… You don’t have to start over.  Delete the audio track that you are wanting to change.  Open the midi track back up and make all your edits then re-record to audio.

I hope this helps even a little.

This is what i am doing now but the tempo issuu is just one thing that is making me work on a track to much time with audio files.when converting to audio then it becoming visually not orginased in the DAW becuse lets say i am recorng a single region on logic and convert it to audio-the next region i will need to record to audio will be at a different track on the DAW becuse if there will be 2 audio on one track one after another it is like one on top and one on bottom and one of the audio losses imself -like it does not exitst-i hope you understad what i mean.so eventually i get a screet with to much audio tracks and not visually orginaizd.and if i want to make a change you dont know from were to start.and working only with midi is sp easy and fun and in real time and most importlly very very fast.

now lets say i willing to take one step forward and buy one more xf and multi port midi interface.
i have some questions about it.
1. do i need to buy an xf or i can settele with motif rack module or an moxf.
the reason i am asking is of course to save money but only if all the effect are saved exactly like on the motif xf-because all the purpose working with the motif sequencer in the have the coomon effects on all 16 track\channels will be play like it is a band the are playing the instrumets at one place( room or a club ) and with the xf i know i can just just as an all.file and open this file on a second motif xf and to add more instrumets to the new 16 channels and all the common effect are saved professionally .am i thinking right or am i wrong?
2.can i have an example of what is a multi port MIDI interface.right know i have my motif xf conncted to lexicon lambda interface and the lambda is conncted to my imac.will i need to buy another sound interface that has multi MIDI ports?can i have an example of a spcific product ?

Apex is right, you should keep your MIDI and keep it organised, perhaps even export MIDI files of everything you do so that you can keep them safe and backed up.

Perhaps if you saved and organised your MIDI, you’d find the whole process of going back and changing things a lot easier, which would speed up your whole replacement process.

You do not have to buy another Motif XF and could use a variety of other keyboards or modules as long as they are 16 part multi timbral, but the only thing that will sound exactly like a Motif XF, is a Motif XF. 

The MOXF would be an excellent choice for sounding like a Motif XF but at a much friendlier price.

A multi port interface is a MIDI interface which has more than one in and one out.  They do come different configurations though.

Mine is 8 in and 8 out, which will give me 16 channels x 8 devices.  (128 MIDI channels)

You only need 16 channels x 2 devices (32) if you’re adding another Motif or MOXF, so 2 in and 2 out is the minimum you need.

Your Lexicon does Audio and MIDI at the same time but the MIDI part of it is only 1 in and 1 out.

You’d need a dedicated minimum 2 in and 2 out MIDI interface.

I’m also not entirely sure if you sequence your music in the Motif sequencer or Logic.  There are various things you’ve said that suggest you start in the Motif sequencer, so the thread is very confusing.

If you started creating your midi tracks in Logic, you’d probably find all of this much easier.

I don’t know about the Motif XF, but if you bought a moxf you could send the 16 MIDI channels to that via USB and not needing a 2nd MIDI interface.

Yes you can go MIDI via USB on a Motif XF.

philwoodmusic - 20 April 2015 01:20 PM

the only thing that will sound exactly like a Motif XF, is a Motif XF.

Exactly the reason why one should get something else for the next 16 tracks; a Korg a Roland or whatever. Wonderful as the Motif might sound it’s old studio wisdom to diversify when buying multiple synths.

This being said, it’s suprising how at this DAW age no current synth ever moved beyond 16-part multitimbral operation, a 2 decades old spec. MIDI might be limited to 16 tracks, but USB isn’t, and most synths nowadays have USB as well.

it’s nothing to do with tracks as such.

The MIDI spec is limited to 16 channels and most DAWs offer a very high possible number of MIDI tracks for use across them. Many are in the hundreds.  Most users feel the pinch if they own one device only or don’t sing or record with other musicians, but as you’ve said, getting another device and combining it with the Motif’s multi port MIDI interface or an external one is a good way to expand your options.

You might consider it old or dated, but I personally still think it’s amazing that a keyboard can play 16 different things at once.  What options does a guitarist or a bassist have for that in 2015? ...or anyone else aside of drummers with electronic kits for that matter?

Everyone else has to continually commit notes track by track on real audio recordings in order to build up a multi part performance. 

If they were to update the MIDI spec to 32 channels tomorrow, what are the chances that hardware synths would be MUCH more expensive than they are now?  Their resources would have to handle double what they do now.

Also, how much does it cost to hire 16 good musicians for the duration of your project? What about 32?  Who’s to say that they’ll be perfect?

We can record, move around and fine tune our MIDI data over 16 channels all we like and then commit definitive musical parts to audio (or tape if you like) when we are finally happy.

Since you brought up USB, USB makes it very easy to print your MIDI tracks to audio and then free up your MIDI channels again.

The current MIDI spec is a very good system for the money.

Instead of the multiport midi interface, why not connect both XFs with USB? 

A Roland Integra would compliment the XF nicely.

philwoodmusic - 23 May 2015 08:51 PM

The current MIDI spec is a very good system for the money.

16 multitimbral tracks is an OK system, but if it was reached 20 years ago, and processor speeds double every 2 years (doubling the amount of possible tracks for the same sample playback), that’s 16384 tracks by now. So I guess a paltry 64 or 128 ought to be doable as a minimum.

A remark: in my DAW, a track doesn’t equal an instrument. My current project has 70 DAW “tracks”, but those are just 16 or so instruments.

- 1 track is an instrument’s MIDI data, saved for any later need, deactivated.
- 1 track is the converted audio of that, because one must convert it to apply DAW plugins, mixing, envelopes, etc.
- I write music by sections. When section A is finished, one can’t just record B’s audio behind it on the same DAW track, or any present reverb, delay etc tails will be cut off. So one must scatter subsequent audio sections on 2 tracks; eg. sections A, C, E on DAW track 1, B, D, F on track 2, etc. This way section starts and ends can overlap and sound natural. Because audio requires this, it helps to organize MIDI the same way to keep things consistent and findable. (Since all MIDI tracks are grouped, away from their audio track counterpart to minimize window scrolling.) So here we see 4 DAW tracks being needed as a mere minimum to record just one single instrument. If we now touch upon alternative takes for comping, etc., 1 instrument like a piano solo might require 16 tracks alone in a project.

All in all, 64 or 128 tracks looks hardly a luxury from where I sit. YMMV of course. But in this DAW world, being able to say “here’s the best keyboard for your DAW. Or any DAW. A 64 or 128 part multitimbral machine that reduces your DAW’s CPU load to a third” sounds like a really strong sales point.

mrdelurk - 25 May 2015 07:58 PM

All in all, 64 or 128 tracks looks hardly a luxury from where I sit. YMMV of course. But in this DAW world, being able to say “here’s the best keyboard for your DAW. Or any DAW. A 64 or 128 part multitimbral machine that reduces your DAW’s CPU load to a third” sounds like a really strong sales point.

As much as I’d be happy for you to get what you need, because all that really matters is music making, you’re somewhat anomalous.

Most people who want more than 16 MIDI channels to MIDI equipped hardware just add more gear.

You require hardware which drastically frees up your computer’s CPU, when over time, the industry has gravitated totally the other way towards using computers for almost all tasks and using much less external MIDI hardware than ever.

Have a look at just how narrow the range of synths and workstations is from the top manufacturers now by comparison to what it was in the mid 90s.  Also, look at how they have all expanded their range of controllers and continue to do so.

I’m not sure about anyone else here, but I own far less MIDI hardware than I did 20 years ago and much more computers and DAW related gear.  I’ve put such a lot of no longer used MIDI hardware gear on eBay in the last 15 years apart from a few really special items I couldn’t bear to sell.

So, when a studio wants more than 16 MIDI channels to MIDI hardware, they just add more gear, and the same can be said at the other end for expanding processing power in computers through upgrading them and/or adding additional computers.

Why do you suppose not a single manufacturer is offering what you require via USB or another suitable standard computer connection? ...or even half of what you require?

philwoodmusic - 25 May 2015 08:11 PM

you’re somewhat anomalous.

That’s my specialty. So Yamaha will become a DAW controller company then?

There is some business rationale in it, my TX816 from 25 years ago still works while I went through a dozen incompatible computers since, each potentially requiring the purchase of a new DAW remote (were I using any). :-)

philwoodmusic - 25 May 2015 08:11 PM

I’ve put such a lot of no longer used MIDI hardware gear on eBay in the last 15 years apart from a few really special items I couldn’t bear to sell.

It’s only by pure chance that I wasn’t one of the buyers. Yeah, software will do anything as well as dedicated hardware. Except the hardware running that software will be gone in 10 years tops. They always forget to mention this little detail. :-)

What you’re talking about is more to do with consumerism rather than having equipment to do the job at hand.  I suspect even your most distant redundant computer could quite happily let you sequence your music to MIDI hardware. I know all of mine could and to be perfectly honest with you, I miss my old Atari and it’s timing.

It’s unlikely Yamaha will become a DAW controller company.  They’ve done what can be expected of any competitive company by hedging their bets and making a much narrower range of gear, but if you look, it’s all multi purpose for studio and live musicians alike. 

I’ll repeat my question for you once more! 

Why do you suppose not a single manufacturer is offering what you require via USB or another suitable standard computer connection? ...or even half of what you require?

(that being a possible 128 part multi timbral workstation)

mrdelurk - 25 May 2015 09:41 PM

[...]Except the hardware running that software will be gone in 10 years tops. They always forget to mention this little detail. :-)

It’s true that when the hardware that runs that software becomes obsolete, it tends to disappear from the market. That includes things such as floppy drives and disks, SCSI and IDE hard drives (especially of low capacity) and CD-ROM/RW drives, 72-pin memory, etc. Unfortunately, some of those same items are used in older hardware synths, so getting replacements for maintenance purposes can be difficult. What happens if the EPROM the OS is burned to gets corrupted? Even if you have a replacement EPROM of the correct size, do you have the binary file to burn to it? For that matter, do you have an EPROM burner?

With luck, old hardware synths will outlast computers of the same era, but there’s no guarantee. I’ve stockpiled some of the hardware for repair contingencies, although it’s hard to anticipate all possible failures. I’ve also kept some intact older computers because they run software I want and which won’t run on newer platforms. My suggestion to anyone wanting to keep older gear alive is to keep some spares around. You never know when the DIMMs in an XS might fail, and whether replacements will be available at the time.

However, eventually newer tech tends to win. Recent synths are more and more becoming computers running dedicated firmware. I suspect that they will have shorter lifespans than a TX816.