It is a vexed issue for sure.

Interestingly yamaberg did start down that road by including the raw samples from the motif classic in one of the versions of cubase (was is 4??) as a part of the halion one sampler. Useful but then they are not then connected to the motif’s hardware for manipulation.

All major software packages will be subscriptions over time. This is happening already, Adobe has moved Photoshop to a subscription service and I’m sure there are other applications that have made the jump by now. There’s actually nothing wrong with that if the cost of the subscription compares well with updates and you always buy the updates. If like me, you choose to skip over releases and only update when you want some new feature, then it’s a problem. Don’t forget according to the existing license agreements we don’t really own any of the software we use anyway (read the fine print some time).

For professionals who write off software as a business expense maybe this makes sense, for amateurs/hobbyists it is a PITA.

Back to my earlier comments, I got a bit off topic. I’d like to know what parts of Cubase you need added to a workstation.

-- More sequencer memory?  Easy but how much is enough...1,000,00 events, 10,000,000 events?

-- More sequencer tracks? Need one or more physical MIDI ports...is 32 tracks enough, 48, 64?

-- More editing features? Graphical, touchscreen, what?

-- Score printing?

-- MIDI functions from Cubase plugins?

-- Audio functions from Cubase plugins?

-- Simple import/export of Cubase projects?

bump!

meatballfulton - 15 March 2017 11:30 AM

All major software packages will be subscriptions over time. This is happening already, Adobe has moved Photoshop to a subscription service and I’m sure there are other applications that have made the jump by now. There’s actually nothing wrong with that if the cost of the subscription compares well with updates and you always buy the updates. If like me, you choose to skip over releases and only update when you want some new feature, then it’s a problem. Don’t forget according to the existing license agreements we don’t really own any of the software we use anyway (read the fine print some time).

For professionals who write off software as a business expense maybe this makes sense, for amateurs/hobbyists it is a PITA.

Back to my earlier comments, I got a bit off topic. I’d like to know what parts of Cubase you need added to a workstation.

-- More sequencer memory?  Easy but how much is enough...1,000,00 events, 10,000,000 events?

-- More sequencer tracks? Need one or more physical MIDI ports...is 32 tracks enough, 48, 64?

-- More editing features? Graphical, touchscreen, what?

-- Score printing?

-- MIDI functions from Cubase plugins?

-- Audio functions from Cubase plugins?

-- Simple import/export of Cubase projects?

Actually if I’m really being objective, my issue is largely solved with 1 or 2 gigs of sequence memory, and few more jobs in song and pattern mode.

e.g I typically do not have a space issue if I have one at most two fully sequenced songs in sequencer memory.  So I swap the one or both out to USB and clear up sequencer memory and do the new stuff.  But there are more times than I want to count that I want to copy tracks, measures from some of the sequences that I’ve swapped out to USB and use those in a sequence that is currently in sequencer memory, then I’m forced to do all kinds of jujitsu to get everything into one place. I’ve recently been playing around with pattern chaining (that resolves some of the swapping), but not all.

There is room for improvement in the jobs for pattern/song mode, for instance there are many times when instead of a track metaphor (e.g., copy track, paste track), I’m need the measure metaphor (e.g copy measure, paste measure, add measure),

Also if I can render my recording to .wav on a usb why not allow me to render it to .mp3.  There are times I have to pull out Cubase just to go from a .mid or .wav source to .mp3

So a few new jobs would go a looooong way.

Job that saves to .mp3

Job that tells me how much sequence memory a song,pattern,track or measure takes.

Job that take the measure metaphor for song and pattern mode editing.

Job that shows how much polyphony is in use in a song, pattern, track, measure.

Job that shows you where you might have polyphony clipping in your sequence.

Job that shows you the note count and event count for the sequence

No I wouldn’t want Yamaha to add all of Cubase or Finale midi capability to the Motif, because I know that every new feature could impact cost/weight,etc But when I have to go off board to do a small task (e.g. cut and paste 1 or 2 measures from a different song to the current song I’m on) because of a memory limitation or just to visualize a couple of midi events as the single chord they represent ouch!  Its a toss up on the display metaphors, do you show things from a recording engineers paradigm, from a musician’s paradigm, from a producer’s paradigm, etc.  from the most part since Midi sequencer is about recording midi events we get things from the track/midi event perspective.  But if there was a way without dramatically adding to the cost to add the musician’s perspective to the midi editing with respect to displayed data that would keep me out of Cubase or Finale until it was absolutely necessary LOL.

I don’t really expect to Yamaha to try to anticipate how many events or notes I might produce.  But 1024 kb for sequencer memory is a bit tight. And they would go a long way by just having a job that told me how many notes is in a sequence, or how many events are in a sequence.  Or how much sequencer memory any particular sequence consumes.

As far as the display, I love how my Motif allow me to switch the format of the display, and what mixing mode display does.  But sometimes for midi music editing the staff, and chord symbols, would speed things along.  I realize this is a slippery slope here.  On the Motif on the display where we look a midi events it would be useful to have the option to see this same data 1, 2 or four staffs at a time (we really don’t need to get into editing in this mode if that would add too much to the cost) but one additional display where the midi data is displayed on 1,2 or 4 staffs would do the trick

This weekend I took a groove I was creating and brought the midi into Finale so that I could make simple lead sheets for the crew.  Most of the time Finale does the trick. Notwithstanding the channel to tracks or channel to staff conversions.  But Finale can be overkill, if I had a two or four staff display on my Motif, while editing my midi this would save me from looking at Midi events when all I really want to see is the spacial relationships between 4 or 5 notes (e.g which chord am I looking at?)

last monk, I appreciate and echo your enthusiasm for the integrated sequencer.

My guesses:
Factors that will influence if Yamaha brings back a sequencer.
- after 5-7 years, it may simply be a refreshing change to the non-sequencer line to bring one back
- it Akai MPC X & MPC Live do very well, that may get to Yamaha’s attention.
-- That said, I wonder how those will do now that DAWs are so mature & computers so powerful. I wish them well; as I do welcome the return of a sequencer to Yamaha’s top-of-the-line synthesizer.
- What Korg does with Kronos successor/evolution

---
On your original question:

I would imagine the XF sequencer is intertwined to support a performance keyboard. I would guess Cubase is a different animal. I would guess it’s not a simple matter to simply “add Cubase to a Motif”. And to contradict this sentiment: I wonder if it would be cool, if Cubasis iPad derivative could be added to a Yamaha top-of-the-line synthesizer. While obviously maintaining the keyboard’s performance orientation.

I dunno., I guest the 5-7 year time-line gives the Montage product line a chance to run its course.  Perhaps that was a miscalculation on Yamaha’s part in the first place.  Maybe the Montage should have not been billed as the ‘Successor’ or “replacement” of the Motif.  Perhaps it should have been billed as a second flagship of evolution representing FM synthesis with DX7 as the core tech.

I know it keeps thing simple to have one Flagship.  But in this case The Montage is such a different animal than the Motif and they serve fundamentally two different markets, Perhaps it would have been better to have a Music Production Synthesizer Flagship and a Music Synthesizer Flagship.  That way, they would not have insulted the Society of Motif, and caused so many to wonder WTF was Yamaha thinking.

I know there are all kinds of manufacturing costs, marketing costs, supports costs, etc involved with such decisions, but customer loyalty comes at a cost as well.  There is a significant market for integrated sequencers, somebody is going to fill the void.  I would hope Yamaha doesn’t want to surrender that space to Korg or Roland. 

It was hazardous from a couple of perspective to discontinue the Motif.  For one it kind of ‘Orphans’ the MOXF series.  Customers understood that the MOX, MOXF were the more portable versions of the Motif.  But if Yamaha is bidding farewell to the Motif, what’s to become of the portable Motif?  or the Mini Motif (MM8) will the customer look at those offerings as ‘dated’ ‘deprecated’, ‘not the in thing’.

We had MM8 (mini motif) which is entry level, next the MOXF which is serious stuff, and the Flagship Motif which represents the apex of the whole line.  But now out of nowhere we have a totally new direction Motion Sequencer and FM synthesis that cuts off the connection with the Motif and the MOXF and the MM8.  Although I might argue that since the MM8 doesn’t really have a full midi sequencer in it, that it is closer to the Montage in concept than one might think.  Like the Montage the MM8 it all about ‘just performance recording’ as well.

Maybe Yamaha doesn’t realize that when mothballing the Motif, they also sent mixed signals about the remaining Motif family .e.g MOXF and all related keyboards, software (e.g Motif Karma) etc.

Yeah it probably would have just been better to Fork the Synthesizer Flagships and have two one for music production and one focused only on live performance.

I guess what I really mean by adding Cubase to the Motif is that why couldn’t Yamaha just improve the integrated sequencer and not force musicians to go to a computer based DAW if we don’t want.

Some of your requests are due to your taste. For instance, you mentioned “copy measure”...I do that today with the copy job since the granularity is down to the system clock (1/480 of a quarter note). The fact that most DAWs still lack notation features should tell you how unimportant that is for most sequencer users.

The mp3 rendering is a licensing issue and I can think of a number of free programs that can render WAV to mp3 a lot easier than dealing with Cubase. I use this one.  Freeware may be able to skirt the licensing but a major mfr like Yamaha cannot.

I agree that note and event counters would be useful in a hardware sequencer. The percentage value is only good enough to tell the user they are close to using up all the memory. Like you, I usually only have one song in the machine at a time so it’s a non-issue.

meatballfulton - 22 March 2017 09:54 AM

Some of your requests are due to your taste. For instance, you mentioned “copy measure”...I do that today with the copy job since the granularity is down to the system clock (1/480 of a quarter note). The fact that most DAWs still lack notation features should tell you how unimportant that is for most sequencer users.

The mp3 rendering is a licensing issue and I can think of a number of free programs that can render WAV to mp3 a lot easier than dealing with Cubase. I use this one.  Freeware may be able to skirt the licensing but a major mfr like Yamaha cannot.

I agree that note and event counters would be useful in a hardware sequencer. The percentage value is only good enough to tell the user they are close to using up all the memory. Like you, I usually only have one song in the machine at a time so it’s a non-issue.

oh for sure meatballfulton all of my request are due to my tastes.  I try not to speak for anyone else.  Sometimes things are obviously attributable to large groups of musicians.  But I would not presume that in this case.  I’m only stating things that I personally would like to see in any future Motif (if there will ever be one) or if Yamaha is so inclined to do some sort of update to the current line.

For sure I know that we have a awesome copy features with resolution down to 1/480 system clock.  But sometimes when I’m a musical mood LOL, I get a little sluggish when I have to translate my music to something like a system clock level (only sometimes) other times, I do the copy and am done with it, like there are times when I fire up Cubase and have at it.  But seeing a couple of staves on the screen as an option when looking at midi can be a useful thing.  That’s why Cubase allows you to see midi from the score perspective. “Under the Midi option in Cubase select score” I’m not a Pro Tools user but I’ll go out on the limb and bet they have some version to view scores as well.  Finale has really nice midi integration and it is dedicated to the musical notes paradigm.  I don’t know how many musicians use that feature.  I can’t speak to it., But seeing the notes on staff of a midi sequence goes back 30 years. (Check out Mind over Midi 1987 LOL) Most of the advanced sequencers hardware or software have this feature.  Perhaps it is one of those things that many sequence vendors include it, and most musicians don’t use it, but I’m one of the musicians who do, and would welcome a 1,2, or 4 staff screen that could be accessible from song mode, pattern mode, or even mixing mode on my Motif.

After all we are talking about ways that Yamaha could potentially improve the sequencer in Motif, which BTW is pretty damned good.  Its not perfect, but it almost is, and I listed a few things that 4 me would push more into the perfect category.

I didn’t know .mp3 thing was a licensing issue (how sad).  I’m on a Mac so I’ll quickly bring up my .wav and either convert in Cubase (which my .mp3 encoder license has expired) or convert it in Garage Band which has obviously dealt with the MP3 licensing thing for me, because it does not expire.

As you know , Midi is a big thing, you can approach it from just the recording engineers perspective and not even consider any other perspective and still have a reasonable complete interface.  But for some musicians, the staff thing is good thing to have when you have it :-)
In fact, I do all my creating, editing, etc on the Motif or my Mox and when I have to share charts with the other musicians I jump right into Finale and create lead sheets save as PDF and then to e-mail they go.  I send an .mp3 file of the audio and .pdf of the chart.  When sharing with other musicians it sometimes useful to do the midi-scoring thing.  Even a very scaled down version of scoring on the Motif would be useful for me.  I can’t speak for other musicians though.