@ Gabi it takes me 5 efforts to sign into this forum to post, or 4 or 6, each time. Yet I've checked every box for being remembered and always logged in, and am not behind a firewall, nor using a VPN. Don't know why. I'm using vanilla Safari on a vanilla Mac with no plugins and absolutely minimal software installed. it's all bog standard.

When the forum is broken, they encourage you to post to the "Site Feedback" category here on this forum. Which becomes, unto itself, a hassle when the forum is broken as it is today.

It's been broken in this way before. In fact, how the board is operating right now was once (for a long period) just the way the message board always worked until someone (either on Yamaha's side or upstream at the service provider) optimized it to be better. Our login status was constantly being "kicked off" like it is now - and we'd have to pick the "right" login method as not all worked equally.

I have already posted a topic under "Site Feedback" pointing out the issue. I waited for several days before posting because I was hoping it would have been fixed without intervention. As this was a previous issue that reverted - I wanted to give the team a chance to use "muscle memory" to fix it.

Hopefully something will be rolled out to re-fix this soon.

@ Jason

The first two paragraphs aren't linked other than as evidence. I'm not suggesting that I need somewhere to voice my issues with the performance of this website's cookie and login system. I'm pointing out, through various points, that the problems with programming technology and Yamaha are systemic, and not isolated to any one area of their endeavours. This website is just another example of their failings in software.

Valentino Rossi, by way of another point, has spent considerable time pointing out the foibles of Yamaha's approach to software in their MotoGP bikes, and these issues have been examined and dissected by the sport's observers, reporters and the motorcycle industry's consultants. He's not wrong, nor is he whinging. Their most high profile ambassador has needed to resort to publicly chastising and cajoling them into addressing their software shortcomings, over multiple years.

Yamaha has, for whatever reason, a seemingly systemic, possibly cultural, problem with utilisation of technologies pertinent to its various endeavours, most evident in software.

When a company owns both a synthesiser maker of high regard and a DAW maker of equally high regard, and markets its marquee synthesiser as being ideally suited to integration with a DAW, and therefore sell it as a live performer, yet can't get the two pieces of software to magically coordinate with one another, over a period of more than 3 years, plus whatever time was spent on R&D, there's some serious issues at play.

This definitely involves a lack of design, because we can't entirely operate the Marquee Live Performance Synthesiser with only the buttons or only the touch screen. That should never have occurred. It should be entirely operable by either means of input, and both. It's a performance device, after all, and an instrument, for professionals. Or so they say.

Further, the failure to provide a means to be aware of a performance's changes not having been saved, nor the ability to UNDO changes to synthesiser functionality, in a performance synthesiser with the staggeringly powerful combination of options that are the blend of assignable knobs, super knob and motion sequencer bindings, is utterly insanely poor user experience. It's hostile to creative exploration, articulation and experimentation in a device that's more capable of these three than just about anything else on the market.

How does that sort of thing happen?

How does a screen like this get released for a live performance instrument without the ability to dim the display for darkened environments? I'm literally wearing sunglasses to play with settings at night, or turning on room lights to maximum brightness to give my eyes some relief from the searing brightness of the thing.

If you want to save money by not including brightness controls on a cheap screen, how about adding visual themes with varying levels of contrast, across a couple of different palettes, and black/white options? This is fundamentally simple stuff. And the UI is blocky enough to make this easy. Plus they already have a switch for anti-aliasing, so they have some degree of control over the presentation of the UI.

It goes on and on and on. The programmers have become the new priesthood, not just at Yamaha, and nobody dares question or challenge their output, nor their decision making abilities. Hence the second paragraph, because some agree with them, that they should be sheltered from negativity, or some such, and Yamaha has decided to further enable them by hiding criticisms and problems via this means.

Gabi, I hope my comments help you see that someone else wth some experience in software is equally appalled by the music software experience, so that you can battle on feeling far less alone in your trials and tribulations.

It really does take a ridiculous level of commitment and rote learning to get proficient with this stuff, because it really is more badly designed than you're thinking, because you've only experienced what you've so far managed to understand. As you understand more of the software, you'll find it is more flawed than you first imagined, as a whole, on entirely other levels.

Whenever I approach a new technology, product (hardware or software), service or system, I seek out the patterns, attempt to divine the logic and reasoning of the designers and creators, and how they envisaged the perfect utilisation of their creation.

If you approach most music software with this attitude you'll go insane. It simply isn't there. There's no cohesive logic to it, most is merely the result of blending the haphazard, ad hoc and seemingly hostile misanthropic and deliberate disregard for the user's experience. Empowering users does not seem to be a concern in their mental models.

This is why, I'd suggest, the SuperKnob smells somewhat cynical, exploitive a little tacky, whilst giving off a subtle whiff of tokenism.

Andrew, your posts are very amusing 🙂 I think I will think about all that next time I struggle with Cubase. That is, when I have time away from all the other things that don´t work, may it be the new banking apps or my cellphone or whatever else that is poorly programmed. Seems like struggling with apps and electronic devices that don´t include manuals can turn into a full time job. Hey, at least here we can torture Bad Mister with our constant problems. What would we do without this forum...

I play piano and synthesizers for quite some time before the MIDI protocol appeared in 1983.
If I had to give you some advice or suggestion, I would tell you first of all to forget about technology and focus mainly on learning to play an instrument well and then playing everything you can in a group with other people (human persons).
That type of activity is what trains musicians and not to be pushing coloured buttons.
What use will you give to the technological equipment will be determined by the music that you can hear in your head, it is your brain that makes music, not the fingers or the computer.
Train your ears and your imagination that the rest will come additionally.