Yamaha MX49BK Black 49-Key Music Synthesizer

The MX series contains more than 1000 Voices derived directly from the world famous Yamaha MOTIF XS series. From realistic acoustic sounds like piano, electric piano, strings and drums to complex 8 element synth sounds, the MX has all of your favorite Motif XS Voices right at your fingertips. The MX even has a streamlined interface for instant hands-on selection of all those great Voices. The newly designed Category Selection makes it easier than ever to find the Voice you need. You can even edit and store your own sounds right on board.

MX synthesizers come equipped with VCM effects, which simulate vintage effectors at the circuit level. The　sounds of the ‘70s are brought back to life, through simulating the hard-to-find vintage sounds of equalizer, flanger, phaser, and wah effects introduced by the keyboard legends of the era.

Performance Mode on the Motifs has always been the place to find instant inspiration and the MX is no different. You can easily combine two Voices to play on the keyboard using the dedicated Split and Layer buttons each with their own intelligent arpeggiator and a dedicated Part for a drum track to create evocative Performances that feel like a whole band is playing. The 128 Performances on the MX are all user editable, but come programmed with the latest club friendly grooves.

Each Performance contains not only the three sounds described above, but all the settings for a complete 16-Part Multi setting for play. You can switch between any of the 16 Parts without the sound cutting off. With 128 notes of polyphony, there are plenty of notes to play even the densest sequences from your DAW. These features make the MX the perfect tone generator solution for live performance and live playback of DAW MIDI tracks.

But the MX doesn’t just control software DAWs and VSTs. Just connect a USB cable to computer and you can monitor all the sounds from your computer via headphone output of the MX or listen to your DAW tracks by connecting the MX to external studio monitors or PA gear. The audio converters on the MX are made for professional music applications so everything on your computer, even games, will sound better when using the MX as the output. The MX interface is bi-directional so you can record the internal sounds of MX directly to your computer without ever going to the analog domain for the highest possible quality.

The MX also features solid knobs and durable buttons for controlling internal sounds, DAW parameters and VST instruments. The deceptively simple interface is combined with a remote template editor on your computer so any VST you own or any new VSTs you buy can be easily set up to be controlled by the MX. There are advanced integration templates for use with a variety of DAWs. When used with Cubase there is even an AI knob so any parameter can be controlled by the large rotary encoder just by mousing over it. It has never been quicker to take full control of Cubase.

The MX series is the only hardware synth in its price range to come with a complete suite of music production software tools. The included Steinberg Cubase AI features 48 audio tracks and 64 MIDI tracks, notation, built-in VST effects, so with just the MX and AI you can do complete productions. But we didn’t stop there; it comes bundled with Steinberg Prologue and the Yamaha YC-3B organ emulator so you have some compelling VSTs to get started. Plus there are Remote Template editors for setting up controls of VSTs. Finally, Yamaha has worked with some third party developers to ensure that there will be fully functional cross platform editors available at release.

In addition to the USB audio/MIDI port, the MX has a USB to Device port so you can connect USB devices for storing MX data to external memory and even playing back wave files directly from a USB stick. If you want to add a tablet or an MP3 player to your system just connect to the AUX input using a mini stereo cable and you are ready to go.

While almost all other keyboard controllers use inexpensive OEM keyboards, the MX features an expertly crafted keyboard that only Yamaha — the world’s largest keyboard manufacturer — could produce. Weighing only 3.8kg (MX49) or 4.8kg (MX61), either synthesizer can be carried easily with one hand. MX synthesizers have a compact design so they are easy to carry to the gig and also fit easily into today’s compact home music production studios.