Yamaha/Steinberg have not released a 64-bit version of the Yamaha Steinberg Firewire Driver, and so Catalina does not support Firewire connectivity with the Motif XS or XF.

In the interest of changing this situation, please vote for the issue here:
https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Release-the-Yamaha-Steinberg-Firewire-Driver-compiled-for-64bit/254090-45978

Yamaha Steinberg FW Driver has been 64-bit compatible since 2011 (as far as i know) _ If there is a problem with Catalina and the XS/XF, it is probably not that the driver is not 64-bit. There may be other reasons for any issues that are arising.
Sorry, I have not upgraded to Catalina and cannot test any of this myself.

Please see Steinberg announcement back in 2011: Yamaha Steinberg FW Driver 1.7.0 announcement

(Clearly support is ending for FW but according to the Apple website, FW devices should still work in Catalina - nothing definitive about music making devices however)...

Please see current Apple response (see also the links at the bottom concerning Catalina and FW): Mac Help: Catalina 10.15 and Firewire

I will try to get some good information (official info) on this...

What's up Bad Mister, great to see you're still doing it!!! I was praying for all you NYers when CovID was really slamming the area.

I have been a great cheerleader of Yamaha for years. I mean, this driver remained rock solid all the way from OS Lion 10.5. But in hindsight, Mac users were really done a disservice back in 2010 when the drivers were updated to 64bit for Windows. OS 10 provided a workaround in which 32bit drivers would still function within the 64bit scheme and Yamaha opted not to give Mac users 64bit functionality.

The above announcement is misleading in that it mentions 64bit but the verification for Mac users is to check Apple>About This Mac> System Report> Software> Applications and scroll down to Yamaha. There you will see that neither the Yamaha Steinberg FW Control Panel nor the YamahaFWCM are 64bit compatible.

Sucks for us, as I really want to upgrade to Catalina. I hope against hope that some solution is developed

Thanks for thinking of us here in NYC - fortunately, NY'ers took it seriously and most went along with the community (we have to get along here!)...

As to the FW Driver ....
That would be the CONTROL PANEL... You have to look at the Extensions - it was an addition to the Driver...
As I said I will try to get clarification _ but as far as I know the FW Driver is 64-bit... Scroll down past Applications... look under your "Extensions" and find the item.

Thanks, I believe the problem is one cannot function without the other. They are part of the same install. And that control panel definitely, needs to be updated to 64bit. Thanks for checking on this.

I was fairly confident that this thread would ultimately fall into the dark hole that all other inquiries into Catalina and YSFW Drivers have fallen. No reflection on Bad_Mister. There doesn't seem to be any info OR interest coming from Yamaha Japan on this.:(

Now onto figuring out how to change how my name is displayed.... 😀

motif8mine

Update to all concerned. I guess we've officially heard from Yamaha regarding this. Their response was to completely remove the YSFW driver from consideration on the compatibility list. It used to be listed as "Testing". Now, it's not listed...

https://download.yamaha.com/files/tcm:39-1145530?_ga=2.207961745.2092193398.1601603210-1817885761.1601603210

I hope the Yamaha Steinberg FW Driver for Mac OS will work with Catalina so that I could use my Motif XF’s FW16E on a new Mac. This interface is a fundamental aspect of my studio.

Having the Motif XF’s audio and midi work together with such low latency is wonderful. The Motif XF is amazing. Please pass this along.

Are there generic divers that can allow yamaha fw products to work on Catalina/Big Sur?

no... I think the only hope at this point is for enough people to contact John Melas who created the Motif XS Tools, Motif XF Tools and Montage Tools and see if he has interest in writing a 64 bit control panel so that the driver will work. I know I'd be willing to pay at least $100 to keep my functionality.

info@jmelas.gr

@jmelas –twitter

https://www.facebook.com/JohnMelasSoftware/

Just discovered this thread and had to chime in.

I too would be very interested in the Yamaha FW drivers being updated to be compatible with MacOS Catalina (and up?).

In my case not strictly for the Motif, but for the Yamaha N12 I still cherish and use constantly (right now only on Mohave, with no possibility to upgrade).

If the driver in the background really is 64 bit compatible, but the ControlPanel is the troubling bit, wouldn't it be possible to make a kind of "container" for it, so that it would not require a lot of coding but could still coexist on newer 64bit-only OSes?

Glad to hear I'm not the only one hoping for a workaround.

Cheers!

I own a Yamaha n12 mixer and am also stuck on Mojave with the firewire driver issue mentioned above. Has anyone tried a newer OS to see if the driver works? If not I may just try installing catalina OS on external drive to see what happens and will report back

It really is a shame, guys! Yamaha WILL NOT upgrade his little stupid fw control panel to 64bit version just to make us throw away a great audio interface (N12), old but still good working for many of us, Yamaha clients, and to get us to buy one of their new Steinberg branded sound cards. It's absurd. There should be laws to prevent this lousy practice. They sent me an email to tell me they weren't going to update it. We just have to hope to find a programmer to do it for them.

PS: And with the "Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter" (19$) we could have our N12/N8/MotixXF on any new mac or we could have kept updating our macOs. Really sad.