Yamaha MX61 Controller/Rompler

[Bubbamusic]

Anyone using this unit? I am not a huge fan of Yamaha samples (except drums) but I was hoping that this would speed up workflow somewhat. I also have a couple of Alesis controllers that I can leave hooked up to soft synths. I can put some tracks together with the MX and later flesh it out with some software synths. I have never used a Yamaha midi controller. Anyone have any experience with one? This unit has been around for a couple of years, but I haven't seen or heard much about them. Thanks.

[Bubbamusic]

Ok, I can see that this is a very popular item. Nevertheless, I bought the MX61 and I didn't find out that the digital audio wouldn't work through the USB on XP. I had a hunch, but I couldn't find that anywhere until I downloaded the drivers for it. Fear not, I will hook it up the old fashioned way. This thing has great sounds (Motif) and a nice quick key bed. I've been playing VST's so much that I have forgotten what zero latency feels like. I run ASIO and have a powerful computer, and my latency is not noticeable.......until you play an instrument straight up. It seems to have midi preset configurations for all of the major virtual synthesizers on the market, so I will get around to setting up the controller side of this box. I will get a whole lot of inspiration from this synth until the shine wears off. Oh yeah, they include a license for Cubase AI and a couple of virtual synths. I also downloaded some software to program sounds into this box. I remember when the DX7 came out in the early eighties. Took me months to figure that thing out. Yamaha is still at it.

[Bubbamusic]

It just got worse. None of this bad news was available before the purchase and installation. All of these problems can be defeated with money - a lot more of it. All of the cool little things that this synth does with Cubase only works with the top of the line version Pro 8.5. I have Cubase AI 8.1 . Of course, it will take a $250.00 upcharge to upgrade to Cubase Pro 8.5. Everyday, it gets more expensive. But, it sure sounds good.

[planetearth]

Ok, I can see that this is a very popular item. Nevertheless, I bought the MX61 and I didn't find out that the digital audio wouldn't work through the USB on XP. I had a hunch, but I couldn't find that anywhere until I downloaded the drivers for it. Fear not, I will hook it up the old fashioned way. This thing has great sounds (Motif) and a nice quick key bed. I've been playing VST's so much that I have forgotten what zero latency feels like. I run ASIO and have a powerful computer, and my latency is not noticeable.......until you play an instrument straight up. It seems to have midi preset configurations for all of the major virtual synthesizers on the market, so I will get around to setting up the controller side of this box. I will get a whole lot of inspiration from this synth until the shine wears off. Oh yeah, they include a license for Cubase AI and a couple of virtual synths. I also downloaded some software to program sounds into this box. I remember when the DX7 came out in the early eighties. Took me months to figure that thing out. Yamaha is still at it.

I've read nice things about the MX61, and while I'm still using my old Yamaha S30, I wouldn't mind trading it in on a newer one!

Yamaha and Cubase have been pretty close for years, what with Yamaha owning a chunk of Cubase, and all. If you don't have a DAW, Cubase is as good a place to start.

Get all the inspiration you can out of the synth, man--mine took years for that shine to wear off, but I still find a few new things every now and then!

I wouldn't expect too much support for XP going forward, however. Even the VST developers are moving away from it, both in terms of 32-bit plug-ins that don't support XPs directory and Registry structure, and with newer, 64-bit plug-ins.

Steve

[Bubbamusic]

Thank you, Steve. I am 63 years old today. In the seventies, I used to gig with two Arp odysseys and two Mini Moogs. The reason for the dupes was while you were playing a song on one synth, you were setting the other one up for the next song. There were no such thing as "presets". This thing is amazing. I have put off going beyond XP and to 64 bit for as long as I can. I have been running on Cubase 4 for eight years. My desktop is dual core with four gig of memory that I am not even using at 32 bit. I bought this box with the intention of running 64 bit, but never got around to it. I received Cubase AI 8.1 with the Yamaha synth, so I will trade it up to Cubase Pro 8.5 for $249.00. I already have a copy of Windows 10. I guess that it is time. The MX61 running with Cubase Pro can work as an audio synth, a controller or can loop back its sounds from a midi track to an audio track. Many of the sounds are much richer than those from virtual synths. This could be pretty interesting, but I have a lot of work to do changing operating systems, adding some RAM and buying some SSD's.

[BertKoor]

NOOOO !!! Don't go with Win10, you'll regret that eternally.
Stick with Win7 please, if you can...

[Bubbamusic]

NOOOO !!! Don't go with Win10, you'll regret that eternally.
Stick with Win7 please, if you can...

Should I use 7 instead of eight? My wife has 10 on her laptop. She's not real happy with it. You are not the only one with that advice. Perhaps, I will go with seven. Audio programmers are not the fastest or real good about keeping up with operating systems. I have run XP since 2002. Thanks.

[BertKoor]

Indeed. Eight already has the obnoxious "metro" interface, Seven behaves much more like XP.

[Bubbamusic]

Indeed. Eight already has the obnoxious "metro" interface, Seven behaves much more like XP.

Thank you for the heads up.

[JCJR]

I auto-upgraded a couple of computers from win7 to win10 when it was a free upgrade, and got a win 10 laptop earlier this year. Maybe it depends on what programs one runs, but win 10 runs about the same as win 7 for me, except win 10 may be very slightly smoother/faster (as comparing user experience on the older computers after the upgrade). May be imagination but they seemed to be a little bit perkier with win 10. Not as perky as upgrading about any computer to SSD drive however.

The win 10 desktop is more similar to win 7 than is win 8. I didn't bother with win 8. But I don't use any win 10 new features so far as I can remember. Cortana is defeated and I don't like the win 10 versions of mail, music player, photo viewer etc. Finally even ditched the old Windows Media Player for Foobar2000 player.

I do think that for "getting things done" the XP desktop was better, especially on small screens. I don't care about huge menus and giant icons, etc. Similarly on Mac, I'd just as soon MacOS had kept the last OS9 versions of the desktop. More compact and uncluttered, no useless bling and giant icons wasting so much screen space.

[Bubbamusic]

I auto-upgraded a couple of computers from win7 to win10 when it was a free upgrade, and got a win 10 laptop earlier this year. Maybe it depends on what programs one runs, but win 10 runs about the same as win 7 for me, except win 10 may be very slightly smoother/faster (as comparing user experience on the older computers after the upgrade). May be imagination but they seemed to be a little bit perkier with win 10. Not as perky as upgrading about any computer to SSD drive however.

The win 10 desktop is more similar to win 7 than is win 8. I didn't bother with win 8. But I don't use any win 10 new features so far as I can remember. Cortana is defeated and I don't like the win 10 versions of mail, music player, photo viewer etc. Finally even ditched the old Windows Media Player for Foobar2000 player.

I do think that for "getting things done" the XP desktop was better, especially on small screens. I don't care about huge menus and giant icons, etc. Similarly on Mac, I'd just as soon MacOS had kept the last OS9 versions of the desktop. More compact and uncluttered, no useless bling and giant icons wasting so much screen space.

Thank you for the anecdote. I have to look at all of my plugins and see which ones will cost to upgrade. I should look at what the different op systems have to offer. Most of the plugin companies took a long time to go from 32 bit XP to the newer systems. A whole lot of work to do. Looks like going to SSD and adding RAM will be expensive. Fortunately, I already have a dual core box. Thanks again.

[planetearth]

Indeed. Eight already has the obnoxious "metro" interface, Seven behaves much more like XP.

Thank you for the heads up.

Definitely stick with Windows 7, if you can. And if you're running a dual-core system, do as much of this (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=463513, the link in the first message) as you're comfortable doing, to optimize your PC.

Steve
P.S.: I forgot to wish you a happy birthday! Hope you get a lot done with your Yamaha and Cubase, and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask!

[JCJR]

Thank you for the anecdote. I have to look at all of my plugins and see which ones will cost to upgrade. I should look at what the different op systems have to offer. Most of the plugin companies took a long time to go from 32 bit XP to the newer systems. A whole lot of work to do. Looks like going to SSD and adding RAM will be expensive. Fortunately, I already have a dual core box. Thanks again.

There are probably some 32 bit programs that run in Win 7 that won't run fine in Win10, but I can't offhand recall any that I had to ditch. Maybe the most expensive part of the proposition is if one happens to have a midi or audio interface whose drivers just refuse to work on Win 10 (or Win 7 for that matter). Many interface companies don't bother to update old hardware drivers. So MAYBE one would have to buy a new interface going either Win 7 or Win 10 from XP, if that turned out to be an issue. I bought a focusrite Pro 24 interface in the Vista era, and its driver has been updated a couple of times. Dunno if focusrite ever made an update for Win 10, but the latest download driver works fine in 10.

I'm retired but when I was programming for a living, because Vista Ultimate and Win 7 Ultimate had more "retro compatibility" features than Home or Pro, I bought the "ultimate" versions of those. Some of the programming utilities I was using were ancient and I didn't want to lose use of any old tools I might need. But so far as I recall I never had to resort to the "special" features in ultimate to get any of the old stuff to run. I think even Home has a Properties setting where you can tell winders to treat an app as if it is running in XP. I think I had to do that a couple of times, but even that wasn't often necessary so far as I recall.

Probably wouldn't hurt to at least have Win 7 Pro or Win 10 Pro though.

Re plugin compatibility, jbridge is great so far as I've experienced. Think it costs something like $15. Some apps are written to natively "dovetail" with jbridge, and for old hosts which don't, you an manually bridge 64 bit plugins to 32 bit and vice-versa and it generally works great. And some sequencers and hosts have their own built-in bridging, which sometimes works better than other times. https://jstuff.wordpress.com/jbridge/

The way it works-- If you are running a 64 bit OS, then 64 bit sequencers and hosts can load and run 32 bit plugins via jbridge. And of course they natively load 64 bit plugins. 32 bit sequencers and hosts can load and run "a large number" of 64 bit plugins, though surely you could find a few that won't work for some reason. And of course the 32 bit sequencers/hosts can natively load the 32 bit plugins. So except for an occasional plugin that doesn't want to play nice, you can use all yer 32 bit plugins in 64 bit apps and vice-versa.

However, ya GOT to be running a 64 bit OS to be able to go both ways. I don't know if they make a 32 bit Win 10, but they made alternate 32 bit versions of Vista and Win 7. If you are running a 32 bit OS it isn't much good for anything. On a 32 bit OS, the 32 bit sequencers can't load 64 bit plugins (because the OS doesn't support the 64 bit plugins). And of course you can't run 64 bit sequencers on 32 bit OS, so the point is moot that you can't load 32 bit plugins into sequencers that won't even run on the computer.

I use several 32 bit music programs on 64 bit win 10 and they work just fine. Some of them are positively ancient. But it is easy to forget about some that may have been discarded along the way because they quit working in Vista or Win 7 or whatever. I can't think of any, but the memory isn't so great any more.

SSD prices fall all the time. How much drive capacity do you need? IMO they are fairly "affordable" in sizes of 512 GB and smaller. The 1 TB models are getting more affordable, but still a bit steep. I purt much had to go with 1 TB models because I didn't want to install from scratch, and they were replacing system drives loaded with at least 512 GB of data and programs.

A few years ago when dad got real old I bought "as cheap as I could find" slow Acer core2duo Win7 laptop. It had a nice screen and well built but slow as molasses. I needed it to program over at Old Dad's house sitting with him. So later on that laptop didn't get used much because it was so painfully slow even for trivial tasks. I put in a 512 GB Samsung 850 EVO, cloned the factory toshiba drive to the 850 and swapped it in. Just doing that made the laptop quite perky and tolerable for most tasks. It will never be a speed demon, but adding that SSD made it "plenty fast enough" for most tasks. SSD will spoil you for putting up with hard drives. Just night and day speed difference even on slow computers.

[Bubbamusic]

Wow, JCJR, thank you for a whole lot of useful information. You have made some decisions for me already.