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Yamaha MODX


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Welp, pulled the trigger.

 

 

Congrats! Be sure to reach out when you come upon things that you will question :)

 

Seriously, I am learning new tricks that my MODX6 can do every day, especially with automation, and how such automation can be triggered.

 

Also, make sure to avail yourself of the yamahasynth.com site. Phil (Bad Mister) and a couple others go into great depth with easy to understand content on the various functions.

 

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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EscapeRocks, I'm looking to have an all in one weighted board that won't break the bank or my back, seems like the MODX8 is the one. I had the MOXF8, liked the sounds but wasn't crazy about the weighted keys... felt "synthy". About to make that fateful call with card in hand! $ (I would have the FA-06 as a second board) ;-).
You don't know you're in the dark until you're in the light.
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Welp, pulled the trigger.

 

 

Congrats! Be sure to reach out when you come upon things that you will question :)

 

Seriously, I am learning new tricks that my MODX6 can do every day, especially with automation, and how such automation can be triggered.

 

Also, make sure to avail yourself of the yamahasynth.com site. Phil (Bad Mister) and a couple others go into great depth with easy to understand content on the various functions.

 

Oh don't worry, I ask questions :)

 

If I get it tomorrow, the real question is: should I gig it Sat night! :D I really have very few songs currently that are programmed specifically for that song, so I might be able to get away with it (with the Kurzweil in the car in case). First thing I looked up--how to global transpose, since we tune down a half step!

 

Currently trying to finagle how to go stereo BOTH to my in-ears and FOH, not going to be possible with my current gear...so I'll need to test the modx for mono compatibility before I take it out.

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seems like the MODX8 is the one. I had the MOXF8, liked the sounds but wasn't crazy about the weighted keys... felt "synthy". About to make that fateful call with card in hand! $ (I would have the FA-06 as a second board) ;-).

Don't expect the MODX8 to feel very different from the MOXF8...

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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seems like the MODX8 is the one. I had the MOXF8, liked the sounds but wasn't crazy about the weighted keys... felt "synthy". About to make that fateful call with card in hand! $ (I would have the FA-06 as a second board) ;-).

Don't expect the MODX8 to feel very different from the MOXF8...

But it sure ain"t synthy.

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Just an update, got the Modx7 in and promptly sat down and added 16 patches to a live set and rolled with it at a gig.

 

As I posted in the other Modx thread about pianos, my monitor mix has been sucking (due mostly to an old mixer) and so I can't say much about how it sounded at the gig.

 

At home, both stereo and in mono (mostly) it sounded great. Like better than I expected.

 

Some thoughts:

- too much fx on most patches....I need to go in and turn those down. That said, the fx sound really nice to my ears, unlike with some keyboards I've had in the past.

 

- organs were surprisingly usable, though I didn't need them as I had my electro. A fair bit better than my old Motif classic.

 

- I think the synth sounds are very good. Whether FM, or sampled, or a combination, I'm not sure I feel the need for anything more "authentic" when it comes to the analog-sounding patches I'd use

 

- keybed is going to take some getting used to. It is replacing a Kurzweil pc361, which has my favorite keybed of all time (fatar tp9 iirc). The throw is not very deep, and the bottom is hard (no aftertouch). Pretty hard to have any touch on piano without big jumps in velocity, but I mostly play rock. I may have to get in there and do some editing for softer tunes.

 

- as others have said, it is a tall board. It also has some important controls near the top by default--cutoff being one. I had to raise up my 2nd tier higher than I'd like.

 

- I found the live sets really easy to use and overall, so far without getting into any real programming, it's easy to use. I like how it remembers where you were when you add something to a live set (say if you searched for strings, it brings you back to that same spot)

 

- hate hate hate the wall wart, but I knew that going in. I'll probably get a spare.

 

- I hooked up my ipad after the gig, loaded up the one synth I currently have (Lorenz). I'll be darned if it didn't just work...midi and audio with one freaking cable. This is beyond cool. However, because of what I said about the synth sounds being good above, I'm not really sure I'll need it. I'm going to purchase "Zeeon" for a whopping 10 bucks, then we'll compare. To my ears the demos sounded as good as uhe's Diva....but demos can fool you. The ipad might also be handy for triggering samples, or who knows what else...wonder if I can use it the other way (as a controller) and turn it into a chaos pad.....

 

I haven't fired up the vocoder. I suspect I'm going to overuse that baby (band: "Can't Get Enough and Don't Mess Around with Jim don't need vocoder backing vocals...." me: "Of course they do!")

 

 

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Ok, holy cow...just grabbed "Zeeon", an ipad synth....and yeah that ups the ante when it comes to "analog sounding". Not sure for what I'm doing it is all that critical, live music in a cover band...but I have never heard anything coming from an ipad that sounds like this thing. Seriously reminds me of playing with a memorymoog (or polymoog? it was polyphonic) way back, just has that edge to the sound. Just sounds analog to me though I'm far from a purist.

 

Don't mean to derail but I'm just blown away. One thing though--many of the patches are dry, while some have reverb...I actually like dry patches as I can hear the actual sound, but yeah they'd sound *even better* with some reverb. If anyone tries it (for 10 bucks!) and they feel something else is better--please let me know, because I obviously am behind on what ios synths can do.

 

Again, super cool you can hook an ipad up with the camera connection kit and one cable and the audio and the midi are taken care of. And no latency I can feel at all, feels just like playing the Modx.

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- hate hate hate the wall wart, but I knew that going in. I'll probably get a spare

 

 

I'm wanting to get a spare as well - have done a bit of googling and this seems to fit the bill? Link

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IMO the MODX series is akin to getting the cheapest strat copy you could find, installing a fantastic set of pickups electronics etc. It sounds great but plays like a $99 guitar. What's the point?

It's the basic question of why you buy a MODX over a Montage: price, and travel weight. Big difference from a guitar: you can play its sound from another action. So at home, you can play the sounds from another board that is too heavy to travel with; or you can use the lowest priced MODX6 and pair it with whatever action you'd like.

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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IMO the MODX series is akin to getting the cheapest strat copy you could find, installing a fantastic set of pickups electronics etc. It sounds great but plays like a $99 guitar. What's the point?

 

As Scott said, price and weight are big reasons for me. The action isn't so horrible that I can't play it...that of course is a very subjective thing. I'd equate it more to a mexican standard strat :) Granted, playing piano is probably the worst fit for the action. Synth is fine except for the aftertouch.

 

The fact that I have suddenly added the ipad as a viable sound source is a big bonus to me.

 

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I'm right there as well.

 

The keys on the MODX6 are just fine for me. I play it with no issues. I am not playing any piano parts on....I use my PX5S as a controller for those.

 

15lbs versus 33lbs is a factor for me as well. Lastly, dropping $3000 on the Montage 6 was/is not in the cards. Just because it's less expensive doesn't mean it's cheap.

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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One minor issue I'm having with the modx controlling an ipad synth...the synth (Zeeon) has a "midi learn" mode where you can easily map the keyboard's controls to anything onscreen. For some reason, the four knobs (name escapes me, the ones that you use for cutoff, resonance, attack etc) don't register. According to the manual they are by default supposed to be sending continuous controller data. So either they are not, or the ipad synth is excluding those particular controllers (which would surprise me). I need to do more testing when I have a chance. Mod wheel, super knob (controller 95 iirc) and the volume part sliders all register with their respective controller #s showing in the software (1, 95 and 7).

 

Related, I wonder if I can set up the super knob to send multiple controllers out, sort of how it works internally. With Zeeon at least, you can only map a given controller number to one control at a time.

 

Not a huge issue, just a little setback in the road toward using my new ipad controller--er, Modx!

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Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Nice!

 

I obviously haven't really done my homework on this, once I get time I'm going to dig in and start some programming. We just added some songs that actually need it :)

 

I wasn't really thinking I'd add an ipad to my rig but Zeeon sounds so good for analog stuff I think I'm going to give it a whirl for simpler stuff, no splits just yet....with modx patches as backup.

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I'm right there as well.

 

The keys on the MODX6 are just fine for me. I play it with no issues. I am not playing any piano parts on....I use my PX5S as a controller for those.

 

15lbs versus 33lbs is a factor for me as well. Lastly, dropping $3000 on the Montage 6 was/is not in the cards. Just because it's less expensive doesn't mean it's cheap.

 

Keys on my MODX7 are fantastic for me, but i"m a moron rock hack. I play mostly synth-type or electric keys based loud rock band rock n roll, when I use piano its not nuanced and i don"t care. I have maybe one song per show where precise velocity control would have meaningful impact on a song. I wouldn"t bother to bring a second weighted controller for one or two piano songs in an entire show if they paid me twice. Screw that - I just set the global curve to soft and intentionally program out some of the velocity sensitivity to compensate for the poor velocity control ... I just bang and rip it. I do one Bowie set that is a lot of piano with songs like Life on Mars, Oh You Pretty Things, Lady Stardust, etc.. but a second controller even there? fugghetit, its just gonna have to rock its way out. The piano tones are very good imo, just not very controllable, gotta program it to get it to be just right.

 

MODX is not the right board for nuanced piano players. I thought the MODX8 sucked when I tried it out for kicks at a store, like playing thru mud. Slow, sluggish, sloth-like response and still fairly poor controllability imo. But I hated Motif XF8 too. Not every board is for every player. If you"re playing piano bar solo or velocity control-sensitive keys - just don"t get a MODX. Buy a big weighted board, put it in your big car or van and carry that big giant heavy behemoth into your show. Get a rocknroll cart so you don"t kill yourself. I"ll stroll in with my 7 on my back, flip it up on my Ultimate AX-48 with one hand, rock the house with everything from synth to EP to FM to 'Analog' to AP to organs, adding in great non-key sounds and sound effects here n there, and i"m happy. but thats just me, ymmv.

The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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Man, youtube is such a lifesaver these days when it comes to learning synths (and songs for that matter!)

 

I dove in on a patch I will need to cover Hella Good by No Doubt. We do not run tracks, but our drummer plays to a click to ensure tempos (work in progress, the rest of us are pushing him as we've been playing too fast for hundreds of gigs!). What that means is that I can do arpeggios and other timed effects as long as the tempos match his click, and as long as I can re-trigger at will we won't lose "sync". Anyway, that song has a nice-to-have part that you can't easily play, a g-g-f repeating bass sequence. I figure, "hey, make my own arpeggio".

 

I don't think the manual really covers how to make your own; if it does, I missed it. I started thinking it wasn't possible, that you'd have to use one of the thousands they provide (but which wouldn't fit my specific need). Turns out you have to record a sequence, then you have the option to turn it into a user arpeggio. Even then there are a few options for how the arpeggio behaves and only one of them worked for my specific needs. It sounds darn close now, just took a few minutes (after youtube showed me what to do!).

 

Honestly doing things like custom arpeggios looks to be simpler on my ipad synth, it does take a few steps to do, and I had to play the thing in (which took some takes to get right even with quantizing). After you make a custom arp, you then have to category search for it, choosing "user" in order to easily find it, so it's a bit convoluted.

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One can set the MODX to sync tempo with whatever comes in through the audio input...

 

Interesting...I could potentially get the click from the drummer then and just use that. We'd have to be doing more of those types of tunes though for me to bother.

Plus of course I intend to have a mic plugged in to the input so I can (over)use the Vocoder! :D

 

I did get the arp the way I liked, though it's a bit clunky. I don't know how to (or if you can) edit an existing arp, so I just kept recording it until it was right. Then I got some weirdness when setting up a split, it kept wanting to play everywhere on the keyboard despite the part being set to one octave...iirc there is a separate key range for the arp that I had to set.

 

I'm also struggling just a bit overall with the OS, but that's to be expected with any keyboard or program that isn't dirt simple. The whole "it's intuitive!" concept I never have gotten, since nothing this complex really is.

 

One thing I need to understand better: having a performance, then I want to bring in another performance for one "part" (I think that is what it is called). Sometimes it brings over multiple parts, since the one I selected might consist of more than one....but other times it doesn't, and it sounds different. I'll get there, I'm building a solid few sets of presets and they sound great, and the controls work on them as I'd expect (something I struggled a bit with on my Kurzweil when making multis).

 

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Stokely,

 

You need to investigate the Scene functions.

 

Also, to make programming physically easier, get on of those Stylus pens like you'd use on an iPad/iPhone. Works great on the touch screen, especially when going thru many parameters.

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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Will do. I don't know what they are currently so before I go any further they need to be learned!

 

Surprisingly, I haven't had problems with the touchscreen. I'm notorious in my band for screwing up our mixer by trying to use its touchscreen....But I'll try a pen too. That actually may come in really handy on my ipad as well if I start using Zeeon...some of those controls are pretty close together.

 

Edit: initial reading of scenes, they seem like they'd mainly be used to switch within a song (say an intro, then the verse kicks in, or the chorus has a louder version etc). The way I'm planning to use performances is per-song, so this would seem to eliminate any need to switch performances at the least. I realize you could use one performance and just switch parts too...lots of flexibility there. I need to see how best to switch scenes--is this something you do via touchscreen, can it be mapped to a control etc

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I've been gigging with the Yamaha Wall Wart for about 15 years now.... it's the standard Yamaha PA-150 power supply.

Never had an issue. They are inexpensive enough that I actually own a few as backup

 

I make use of the cable hook on the board, and do the hook and loop thing so there's no pressure at the connector, and if anything pulls, it's not pulling on the jack.

 

Would I prefer built in power? Of course.

David

Gig Rig:Casio Privia PX-5S | Yamaha MODX+ 6 | MacBook Pro 14" M1| Mainstage

 

 

 

 

 

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I have no problem with the warts. I do have a couple of back-ups. first thing I do is get electrical tape, make a loop with the cord near the power supply block and tape the cord several windings around the block with the tape. that to me is the area which breaks, where the cord meets the block,
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I have no problem with the warts. I do have a couple of back-ups. first thing I do is get electrical tape, make a loop with the cord near the power supply block and tape the cord several windings around the block with the tape. that to me is the area which breaks, where the cord meets the block,

 

I"ve been gigging with a Yamaha wart for 3+ years. I bought a spare after this forum freaked me out but I"ve never had an issue.

The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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I also carry a spare in my gig bag! Very inexpensive insurance. Never had an issue with my Yamaha but I did have a Hammond SK-1 plug somehow get bent which wouldn"t fit in the socket. Had to buy a couple one for use and one spare for the gig bag.
Montage 7, Mojo 61, PC-3, XK-3c Pro, Kronos 88, Hammond SK-1, Motif XF- 7, Hammond SK-2, Roland FR-1, FR-18, Hammond B3 - Blond, Hammond BV -Cherry
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Hello, I just joined , I see you have the MODX

I have an old Yamaha DJX , I had lying in the attic room for a few years now

anxious to bring it on the road for nights trial with the old 90s styles

maybe you can help , on turning it on , When I just press the single key for example

Key D it's actually playing Dm also shows on screen as Dm

or press C key it's Cm , I can't get it to just sound a major chord

on the press of a single key , if you can't help , maybe you

might know of someone on here that might ,

thanks for your time ..

Martin.

 

 

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