Yamaha MOX8 as midi controller/keyboard

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St8kout
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 4:52 am

Yamaha MOX8 as midi controller/keyboard

Post by St8kout » Sun Jun 30, 2019 5:22 am

Having struggled trying to use my MOX8 as a midi,(to use here), I thought I'd share and maybe be of help to someone else.

It seemed so simple. All the youtube videos say just plug in a keyboard's USB to your computer and it will act as a midi controller. Not true for this keyboard. What I ended up doing is buying a midi to USB box and a midi cable from Amazon. Plug the midi cable into the MOX8's midi-out, and the USB end into the computer. THEN, go into Utilities menu of the MOX8, and change the line, "Midi through USB" to Midi through Midi," then hit the Store button and wait for it to save the setting. And FINALLY, the MOX8 is now a midi controller/keyboard. *whew*

I've since bought an audio interface for my Cubase 10 DAW, (that I'm still learning to use). It has a midi port so now I just run the midi cable from the MOX8 to the interface. I have two sets of speakers, one set for my computer and the other set for my DAW. On the Playground lessons, my keyboard plays through the audio interface speakers while the video sounds come through my computer speakers.

If you're wondering why anyone needs an audio interface, when you're running a DAW the computer drivers just can't handle the music and suffers from severe latency - you play a note and the sound comes out a second later. Very annoying. The audio interface reduces this latency down to milliseconds, (the better the interface, the lower the latency.) My latency for running Playground is 0.25 milliseconds.

I searched all over when I was trying to do this, and the info just isn't out there, which is why I'm posting this here.

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sw1tch73ch
Posts: 539
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 1:23 pm

Re: Yamaha MOX8 as midi controller/keyboard

Post by sw1tch73ch » Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:17 pm

Interesting that the MOX8 didn't like connecting to PGS via USB. My MX49 does it ok, and the MX is the "lower" level synth. I don't actually use it for PGS, though. I have a P-series 88 Keyboard for that. One thing to remember is the keyboard probably has a setting to choose the standard MIDI ports OR the USB MIDI port. It's one or the other on my MX.
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St8kout
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2019 4:52 am

Re: Yamaha MOX8 as midi controller/keyboard

Post by St8kout » Sat Jul 20, 2019 12:31 am

sw1tch73ch wrote:
Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:17 pm
One thing to remember is the keyboard probably has a setting to choose the standard MIDI ports OR the USB MIDI port. It's one or the other on my MX.
Yeah, it does. Had to go into the Utility Menu and manually switch it from USB to MIDI to make it act like a MIDI keyboard. Then I have to reverse it when I want to play the MOX8 normally.

I just bought a "real" MIDI keyboard (Native Instruments) mostly to get their software, which is supposed to be great. It's a so-so 32-key keyboard that feels nothing like my Yamaha. I don't recommend it at all for actually playing music, but it could be sort of okay for basic learning.

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