Rack yamaha motif

Photo: Mike Cameron. Two years on, we put the follow-up Motif Rack ES to the test

Please install only the Editor. If any copyright law or provisions of this Agreement is violated, the Agreement shall terminate automatically and immediately without notice from Yamaha. This permission to re-download shall not limit in any manner the disclaimer of warranty set forth in Section 5 below. In no event shall Yamaha's total liability to you for all damages, losses and causes of action whether in contract, tort or otherwise exceed the amount paid for the SOFTWARE. The Software is a "commercial item," as that term is defined at 48 C. Consistent with 48 C.

Rack yamaha motif

Photo: Mark Ewing. It seems simple enough — take the successful Motif workstation, remove the keyboard, and release it as a more affordable rack unit. But there's lots more to the Motif Rack than meets the eye As the owner of a studio best described as compact and bijou, I have always applauded the practice of repackaging synthesizers and other keyboard instruments into space-saving rack modules — and latterly, zero-mass software! In many cases, it can be some time after the release of the original keyboard version until the rack module makes an appearance — time enough for the manufacturer to gauge the success of the original instrument, and thus infer a viable market for a module. Yamaha claim on their web site that a modular version of the Motif has been their most-requested product — so, one-and-a-half years after the release of the acclaimed Motif 6, 7 and 8 workstations, the Motif Rack is born. The Motif 7 was reviewed in depth by Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser in SOS September , so I recommend referring to this for a detailed description of the Motif synthesis engine and other features. The Motif Rack can essentially be described as 'the sound of the Motif in a box' — however, there are some significant functional and feature differences between the keyboard and rack versions. The Motif Rack is a 1U rack, measuring 35cm in depth. The front silver-and-blue liveried panel hosts the 20 buttons, rotary encoder dial and x64 backlit LCD display that control the synth within.

Unfortunately, because of the deadlines involved with this issue, rack yamaha motif, we cannot make a full statement, but will of course do so before the product rack yamaha motif within the UK market. Fully expanded, it can perform not just 16 but 33 parts simultaneously if a PLGXG board is present, with a theoretical maximum polyphony in excess of voices. If each part could run its own patterns, there would be much potential multitimbral fun to be had.

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Photo: Mike Cameron. Two years on, we put the follow-up Motif Rack ES to the test Whilst being a great-sounding, versatile synth module with bags of creative potential, the Motif Rack suffered from some serious timing problems. Specifically, this meant that the unit played out of time in response to incoming MIDI messages — not only relatively within itself, but very noticeably when played from within a MIDI sequencer in parallel with other MIDI instruments see the original review at www. Yamaha acknowledged the problem, and undertook to find the cause and fix it.

Rack yamaha motif

Loads of essential sounds and presets. Quick access editing knobs on the front panel. Software editor for detailed programming.

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The Arpeggiator remains basically the same as on the original Motif, save for the absence of a User bank — so no bespoke patterns can be created. Cons No editing of parts at element level from within the Multi-part editor software. This played the drum part back perfectly in time — while the duplicate Motif Rack drum part stumbled conspicuously, and was noticeably late in triggering. As the owner of a studio best described as compact and bijou, I have always applauded the practice of repackaging synthesizers and other keyboard instruments into space-saving rack modules — and latterly, zero-mass software! You can copy elements from already saved voices, but each time you want to copy an element, you have to save the sound you're editing before you've finished, which isn't too sensible. This is true even when editing from your computer. Unlike the Motif, the Motif Rack transmits its arpeggiations from the MIDI Out port, enabling you to arpeggiate any external synth, or to record the arpeggios into a sequencer. Mindful of the fact that sequencers prioritise the scanning of tracks in numerical order the Motif drums were on track 10, according to their default MIDI channel I moved both drum tracks to the top of the track list. The panel legending sports only two minor additions, and the red LEDs are now yellow. Piano sounds are invariably subjective, and while the pre-packaged pianos usually found in synth modules are useful, they are rarely comparable to dedicated stage pianos or the giga-sized piano libraries we've now become used to, especially when played in isolation. Comparison with the PLGAP board reveals the PLG version as being generally louder, having a bigger, rounder low range, more body in the mid range and slightly less 'fizz' in the upper frequencies. The bad news is that SQ01 is only available for Windows For those who aren't aware, virtual instruments have virtually no latency when played back from a sequencer.

Boasting a full 1, Voices and 65 Drum Kits, this versatile tone generator is packed full of luscious grand pianos, realistic sounds for virtually every instrument in the orchestra, vintage organs and electric pianos, expressive guitars, powerful basses, synthesizer sounds of every stripe, from classic to cutting-edge contemporary, ethnic instruments, as well as a huge variety of drum kits and percussion sets to perfectly match any music style. These can be saved to the three User Voice banks, letting you store up to of your original Voices on the instrument itself. The Multi presets provide a convenient library or multiinstrument settings you can instantly call up when composing or arranging.

Specifically, this meant that the unit played out of time in response to incoming MIDI messages — not only relatively within itself, but very noticeably when played from within a MIDI sequencer in parallel with other MIDI instruments see the original review at www. The ES still has no user-definable patterns, but instead has upped the number of patterns to a whopping This is a really neat idea, and makes it all the more of a shame that Multis can still only use one global arpeggio at a time. This time, the delay measured on average samples, which translates into around nine milliseconds — better, but still perceptable. The voice editor is well-thought-out and very intuitive, making deep-level voice-editing of Motif Rack sounds a relative doddle. In no event shall Yamaha's total liability to you for all damages, losses and causes of action whether in contract, tort or otherwise exceed the amount paid for the SOFTWARE. In the previous tests on the original Rack, its timing was compared to that of other MIDI modules, which generally have an inherent latency to them, as we know, but which nevertheless performed very favourably compared to the Motif Rack! Performances layer up to four Voices together, either split, layered or a combination of both, on a single MIDI channel. In order to confirm there was no problem within the sequencers, I copied the drum part to an adjacent track, and routed it to a completely different synth module. Five little boxes at the upper right of the display indicate with a note icon which of the five slots have arpeggios assigned to them.