Bill wrote:

I'm looking for a way to be able to play my MOXF8 through my Mac without having to fire up a DAW in order to hear it. Is there a way to monitor the MOXF USB audio without running it through a DAW app? Thanks in advance...

Hi, Bill! Welcome to Yamaha Synth!

We'll start our answer with an explanation of what a computer is not... A computer is not an audio recorder, not without software.
A computer is not able to be a word processor, without software.
A computer is not able to add numbers, without software.
A computer cannot browse the Internet, without software.
It is true a computer is not any of these things, without software.

You need a Word processor program to write a letter.
You need a Browser program to surf the 'Net.
You need an Audio software program to interpret the digital signal coming from the MOXF via USB.

We are sure you know this already, we are just repeating it here so that you can appreciate what you are asking... Under this light.

Next important point: The MOXF does not need a computer to output audio. Simply connect the main Left/Right outputs to your monitor speakers, or you can monitor it through its own headphone jack with a decent pair of headphones. The MOXF can standalone, sans computer!

You don't need a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) program to connect the MOXF to your computer. You could, for example, use the "Yamaha MOXF6/MOXF8 Editor Standalone". It requires, same as any DAW software, that you download and install the "Yamaha Steinberg USB Audio Driver" appropriate for you particular computer type and operating system. Now, this software program communicates via MIDI messages. Audio does not travel to the computer (no need) the MOXF connects to its own audio outputs (designed to deliver the sound without delay) - this "without delay" is a musician's mandate: because everything we require from the computer is extremely time sensitive!

A "Driver" is what helps the computer understand what the messages (MIDI and Audio messages, in this case) are that are being generated by the MOXF via USB. Without the DRIVER the MOXF is speaking a couple of languages the computer cannot understand... (Not without help).

Next thing you need to understand is, the MOXF does not need a computer to output audio (as we've mentioned); it, in fact, becomes the "sound-card" for your computer when you want to operate in a "low latency" situation. Because today's computer manufacturer's consider "music playback" more important than "music making", (rightfully so from their perspective) the computer driver you are provided is optimized for music playback. And this is understandable... Out of every 100 people who use a computer less than one is a musician requiring sophisticated record/overdub/mixdown capabilities. So you can understand why all this sophisticated stuff musicians need is not built into the basic off-the-shelf computer.

Important point: most pro music software will recommend you avoid any built-in audio... And for good reasons.

The average computer user only wants/needs to playback a stereo music file... So the computer makers provide the ability to playback a simple audio file.
The typical musician-computer user wants to not only playback data, but wants to simultaneously add NEW material to the music being played back... And build multiple new tracks in the process. Sometimes 5, 10, 16 tracks or more ... There are music projects with hundreds of tracks, trust me.

Your computer cannot do that!!! Not without a special Driver and not without a software program (like a DAW) to handle this juggling act. Trust me when I tell you music recording makes some serious demands on the computer. And not because it is so much data, computers can handle the amounts of data, to be sure. It's because of the time sensitivity of the data.

When you "playback" a typical audio file with a basic computer, there might me a 200-400ms delay between you pressing the spacebar and the start of music or audio playback... The average person pays this no mind. A musician, however, cannot perform with a delay that big between when we expect to hear something and actually hearing it. Imagine playing a chord and waiting 200ms before you hear it! You can't play with a 30ms delay... 30ms is laughable, literally laughable. Like running in heavy boots.

A whole sub-culture of software and drivers exists to help turn the basic computer into a device that *can* record and playback music in a timely fashion. And as long as you do not demand too much processing power (CPU muscle) you can continue to add tracks, effects, EQ, etc., etc., etc.

Now I'm sure you were not anticipating all this from your question, but.... You don't really say what you want to do with the audio if you could get it into the computer ... You say you want to play your MOXF through your Mac... We suggest you play you MOXF through a pair of high quality monitor speakers instead. Yamaha HS8's or MSP7 Studio are examples of excellent monitor speakers in the modest price range for home studio use.

We mentioned a whole sub-culture of products exists to help the computer function as a musician's tool... Trust me neither the Mac (nor the Windows) computer is built to handle your synthesizer without special drivers and special software (and external audio interface units). Basic computers do not come equipped with input jacks designed for the LINE level (analog) signal from your synthesizer. And the digital audio signal (via USB) must be interpreted by the driver ... Then you must have an application, be it a DAW, or some other software to route the signal somewhere.

A Mastering program (like Steinberg's WAVELAB) can receive the USB audio using the Driver... You can then route the audio to the output designed for use with that driver. Because WAVELAB is not a DAW (and recording/overdubbing is not its function) you could route signal to your computer's soundcard. So yes, you could without a DAW but you'd need some program of some kind.

If your goal is to use the soundcard built-in the computer, you certainly could (the results would not be very good) - and you would be limited in what you could do. I, personally, cannot recommend this... simply because I know better results are to be had if you use a professional driver and an external audio interface.

One day a musical instrument company will build a proper musician's computer (again) 🙂

What is it you really want to do when you say, "...through my Mac..."?
Is it that you do not have a pair of studio monitors?
Or are you simply looking for a program other than a full DAW?

Hi Bad Mister! Thanks for the reply - and forgive me if I wasn't specific enough. I know very well all the principles of use you describe above. The reason I want to do it is because I'd love to have a low-level mixer function running where I can play and the sound goes digitally thru USB rather than hooking up the MOXF via analog audio outputs and back through the outboard digital mixer. In all honesty, although I'm sure it's probably within tolerances, the analog out on the MOXF is a bit noisy. The digital signal coming in through USB is crystal clear and no noise. Many times I don't want to have a recording app running - I just want to turn to my keyboard and play, or play along with other sources like iTunes songs, etc. A digital mixer app would solve this problem, allowing all my audio devices to be heard and level adjusted.

This is not a far-out idea, within Audio Midi Devices on the Mac you can specify multiple audio devices through creating an aggregate device. All that would be needed at that point is a digital mixer app allowing for the USB digital audio from the keyboard to be routed to a channel of the mixer. I've done this with an app called Simple Lines, which recognizes all of my digital mixer channels and all of the four USB digital signals from the MOXF. However I'm getting digital sync crackling, which may mean the app isn't using the MOXF for it's digital sync. Anyway, long story short, I was just hoping someone did it with some other app, or had any ideas of how to just hear the MOXF through the digital audio USB without having to go into Cubase and route everything, save all of it, and use all those extra system resources in running the full blown DAW software.

I will keep playing around with the Simple Lines app, and there are a couple of others I may try as well.

Postscript: I got this working using the Simple Lines app. My setup is now this - I have a Behringer X32 Producer console with digital USB to and from the mixer coming into the computer. I also have the MOXF digital USB audio coming into the computer. All of these input channels show up in the simple lines app, and then I can route the Yamaha digital audio signal back into the X32 through the normal computer audio channels feeding into the board. It may sound complicated, but it is exactly what I wanted to do. To get rid of the crackling of the digital audio signal from the keyboard I had to increase the buffer size to around 256K within the Simple Lines audio app. It introduced a slight delay in the digital audio signal from the keyboard but it is pretty good, not too much latency. And best of all, the signal is crystal clear, no audio noise AT ALL from the keyboard. That is a beautiful thing!

Thanks for the rest of the details!

It may sound complicated, but it is exactly what I wanted to do. To get rid of the crackling of the digital audio signal from the keyboard I had to increase the buffer size to around 256K within the Simple Lines audio app.

There should not be any crackling in digital audio when properly setup and routed. And yes, it does sound very much overly complicated. But if you're happy I guess that is what counts. I'm not familiar with your App nor your console but your buffer size sounds gargantuan ...perhaps you mean 256 samples and not 256,000. That would be almost six seconds of latency @ 44.1kHz

Point of order: The analog output of your MOXF should not be noisy so I can't understand what or even why you are going through all of this, especially just to play along with iTunes (?) but if you're happy, as I said, go for it. Just hope that 256k buffer size is a typo! I could tell from your first post you were not giving us all the details, now I see what you are attempting to do! 🙂

Many times I don't want to have a recording app running - I just want to turn to my keyboard and play, or play along with other sources like iTunes songs, etc.

Let me suggest a couple of other solutions (if not for you, for others reading this that may want to just play along with their iTune devices. My solutions are much less expensive (don't require a digital mixer or any extra application) and actually will seem a bit more fitting, and much, much simpler solution for such a simple thing like playing along with iTunes, etc., (remember at "playback" computers excel)

Two very simple solutions:

1) If iTunes is on your Mac computer: run a single USB cable from the MOXF's "To Host" port to the Mac. The MOXF has a built-in digital mixer. The audio will arrive via the DAW LEVEL slider allowing you to mix it with your internal MOXF sounds. In your Mac select the "Yamaha MOXF6/MOXF8" as the audio device. APPLICATIONS > UTILITIES > AUDIO MIDI SETUP > under audio setup select the "Yamaha MOXF6/MOXF8" as the audio output device: "use this device for sound output"
The "speaker icon" moves next to the MOXF. (Requires the Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver)

2) If you have an iPad/iPod/iPhone connect your music playback device digitally to the USB "To Host" port of the MOXF (using the Camera Connection Kit adapter). It arrives digitally in the MOXF with its own volume slider (DAW LEVEL Slider) so you can easily mix the volume with your internal MOXF sounds. No setup necessary... Plug n Play.

This setup saves you several thousands of dollars (no external digital mixer necessary), avoids setting up an Aggregate Audio device, no muss, no fuss, no head scratching (beyond the Mac setup). Setting up to play along with iTunes should not require anything near as complicated as you have setup. Frankly, I do this daily... one USB cable ... Literally seconds to setup and play. Try these setups and let us know.

Hope this is helpful (if not for you, for others with a MOXF who want to play along with iTunes, no DAW necessary!)
One final note: in order to take advantage of the iPad/iPhone/iPod > Camera Connection Kit solution your MOXF must be updated to firmware version 1.10.

Firmware updates and the Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver can be found here: http://download.yamaha.com

Thanks for the details, we couldn't (initially) figure out what you were attempting to do. We honestly think you will find the above solutions will meet your stated requirements quickly and efficiently.

POSTSCRIPT: To be complete, if your music is on a non-Apple product, you can connect the audio (analog audio) outputs of that device to the A/D Inputs of the MOXF... and accomplish the same result. Audio arrives via the A/D INPUT GAIN knob and ON/OFF front panel controls.