Ableton Forum

I've got a Yamaha Motif XS7. I love it, it's one of the pieces of gear that most defines my sound. Mostly due to its realism and complex arpeggios in instruments such as guitar, basses, keyboards and other organic sounds.

Problem is with Live 8, I only connect my Motif via analog inputs to record it's performance. I've never used ethernet or USB to get some digital talking between my laptop and Motif. I do use an MPK25 to do most of my MIDI control but I'm looking for maximum Motif integration.

Is there a way to connect my Motif using USB/Ethernet to have it not only become a MIDI controller, but also get some more complex control? Maybe even record MIDI and it's audio simultaneously?

What would be ideal is if I could use my Motif to:

1.) MIDI control live
2.) Send audio and arpeggio information into those MIDI/Audio tracks armed and recording in Live
3.) Have that newly recorded audio and arpeggio information the Motif performed be editable in Live (not just recorded material waveform editing).

Essentially I want to bring the power of the Motifs internal operating system to Live 8. Not Cubase.


Any experience and advice with this guys???

I'm sure some of you have Triton or Korg workstations, if not the Motif, and can tell me how you hook your keyboard up so it's not simply a big, overpriced MIDI controller.

I'm not believing that all these beefy keyboard workstations can do is just play back soft synths in a DAW.If I'm looking to connect it to my laptop, there has to be a connection method that allows for full integration of the keyboard's functions right??? Or am I bound by just recording my work done in my keyboard to DAW through analog inputs.

Thanks guys

I own an XF6 and used to own an ES6.

Connected by USB if you use the Remote mode setup for Cubase you can control a lot of things in Live...the transport of course but also track selection, record arming, mute/solo, mixer level and pan. The Motif screen even display track names and levels. The downside is that some of the tabs seen in the Motif screen don't do what they say, they do something else I went through and figured out what all the mappings are and posted it here...even though it says Live 7 and Motif ES it works the same with Live 8 and the XS, XF, MO or MOX.

The Ethernet connection can be used to transfer files between your XS and your computer rather than using a USB thumb drive to do the transfer. This is really useful! It makes backups easy and speeds up loading your samples on powerup. I think you can even specify a shared Ethernet directory as the location for Autoload files.

You can't use the USB to carry audio but if you computer has a Firewire port you can buy the FW16E expansion board (about $275) or the older MLAN16e board for 16 channels of audio into the computer and 6 channels of audio out plus MIDI over a single cable (with no need to use the USB connection).

Awesome, I haven't even really considered flash drive transfer of music files from Motif to laptop. I see how that'd be faster.

But when you transfer Motif files from the keyboard to the computer:
-What file type will they be?
-Can you save Patterns/Songs and the tracks that are contained in them?
-Will the audio have some type of MIDI information paired with it for editable qualities in Live or is it just an audio file as if you recorded it?

I'm really going for bringing out the power of the Motif into a DAW, but I can't even begin to recall where my Cubase copy is that shipped with my Motif. It was 3 years ago! Should've kept it.