Motif City

Hello again. Long time, no see! Hope everyone is well. Unfortunately I haven't made the time to update the site in a while. Family, summer, work, all those things have pushed Motif City down the list of priorities. Hopefully that is changing now as the...

[Note: this article is a bit long, and I only provide the gritty pre-XS details for the legions of people who are pondering the switch from workstation/drum machine-based composition  to software-based composition,.and vice versa]I finally picked...

This audio interface continues to impress me. Not only does it faithfully and uneventfully record pristine audio for me every time, it employs state of the art a/d converters that professional engineers can not tell apart from a $3,000 Rosetta converter....

Well, I finally got around to testing Cubase 4 and Studio Connections with my Motif ES 8. I purchased a Core 2 Duo machine a ways back but had only used it for video editing for the most part. Now that things have settled down in my personal life I thought...

By far the most popular question about Motif sampling and sequencing. Learn exactly how to save a pattern or song as a WAV file that can be converted into an MP3 or burned to an audio CD from your computer :)...

You've got some chops, you can find yourself around the Motif pretty well, and you've even become a decent producer with the Motif's sequencer. But for some reason your completed songs and patterns are lacking something. Maybe they lack warmth, or punch,...

Well, this is the day I have been waiting for. In all seriousness, I only had two requests of the next Motif: a bigger screen and an UNDO button. Looks like I am 1 for 2 as I am pretty sure Yamaha has failed to add one of the most fundamentally important...

You gotta get your Motif music somehwhere. My preferred destination is still the computer. Here is a list of companies I recommend after having done business with them for the past ..geez.. 13 years. Hope someone benefits from it..CPUs: Stick with Intel....

A FAQ list for general discussion around using the Motif Classic & ES features....

Here are some essential steps to optimize Windows for audio and midi production in the Windows XP environment....

Hi all and happy holidays! I just got back from Laguna Beach where I spent a couple days at a Motif owner's home, teaching him the instrument, hands on. This gentleman had purchased both of my books and was seeking further instruction, specifically for...

Been a while since my last post. Apologize for the delay. Thought I would attempt to find some correlation between songwriting obstacles and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model as it applies to what he called "self actualization."Little background is in...

At the GrammysWhen the 48th Annual GRAMMY® Awards were held in February at Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center, Yamaha artists and pianos provided some of the night’s most memorable moments. Yamaha artists won GRAMMYS® across multiple genres in everything...

Don't be a victim of Gear Mania! Make the most of the gear you have and put your money and resources into becoming a better musician, not more gear....

Well, it's been a long year. I certainly had every intention of getting this book out 6 months ago, but I got hung up with a book deal that went south quickly when my editor pushed me to lose my conversational writing style. I have always been of the...

This is the new web site. I built it for you. Please visit often and tell a friend.  :)  Also, I'm seeking moderators, bloggers and Motif-oriented products for this site. If you'd like to help, PM me and let me know what's on your mind!Mark...

It's about time to jump back into it....